Places of Healing
May 25, 2025
I don’t know about you but most of my TV viewing these days is through streaming services like Netflix or Britbox or a sports channel. Which usually means no commercials. But if I switch to a regular news channel, particularly news or sports, I’m always struck by how many commercials there are for pharmaceuticals. These days the popular one is Ozempic. If you have an ailment, they have a pill. Even if you don’t have a condition, they have a pill for something that you might have in the future or promise that their product will protect you from some dreaded condition.
I know we live in a time when there have been so many significant breakthroughs in health care. There are all kinds of research groups making great progress to cure diseases like cancer and various neurological ailments like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. It’s amazing the advancements that have been made, especially here in North America. Yet in other parts of the world, some medical assistance is not readily available. When my daughter travels to Africa she says one of her most important travel aids is Polysporin, because even a cut can become serious without an antibiotic cream that we take for granted.
In Jesus’ time there were not many options for health crisis or conditions. As we heard in the gospel reading by Paul this morning, many people suffering from a variety of illnesses would gather at “healing pools” seeking help and restoration. The man Jesus spoke to, had been coming to this particular pool, for over 38 years.
Present day archeologists believe that what became known as “healing pools” were in fact originally “mikvehs”, Jewish ritual cleansing baths outside of religious buildings. One would enter the mikveh to be cleansed and ready to go to worship or offer sacrifice. Many were connected with springs, so that the water was always being replenished. The pool we heard about this morning was known as the Pool of Bethesda, in Jerusalem but we read in other healing stories of Jesus about the Pool of Siloam. In today’s passage the man said to Jesus: “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” It’s intriguing to me that the healing supposedly only happens when the water is stirred up. I would have thought the water would ideally be calm. And the fact that others basically butt in line to get ahead of a man unable to walk is disturbing. What does that say about who is seeking the healing and whether they are empathetic to others who are waiting their turn to be healed. Perhaps another sermons worth of thought.
Overall, I know that the subject of healing in religious circles is a tricky one. Ringing in my years it the phrase, “Your faith has made you well” which suggests that anyone who has enough faith can be healed. But what about those who don’t heal? Does that mean we weren’t faithful enough? Were we lacking in something? Many of us here have experienced the loss of a loved one because of injury or illness. There’s nothing worse than watching helplessly as the one we love suffers and is in pain and we are unable to stop it.
I remember almost twenty years ago now when my son Jacob’s, 10 years old wing mate of his hockey team, Nicholas Lambden was fatally struck by a stray hockey puck while playing shinny hockey on the outdoor rink close to his home. We’d just seen him at our weekly home game at the West End Centre the night before. I can remember hearing the news of his accident and I spent the next 24 hours praying incessantly, desperately for his health and recovery. At the time, we didn’t know how devastating his injury had been. I had his name placed on prayer chain lists and phoned many friends and family to ask for their prayers, as I am sure most of the friends and family of Nick were doing the same. Alas, our prayers were not answered as we had hoped. Yet, other parents prayers, were answered as their desperately ill children received much needed organ transplants thanks to the generosity of the Lambden family that saved their child’s life.
Faith, and healing, is a tricky subject. Whose faith was stronger? Did my faith fail me since despite my earnest prayers Nick passed away? Were the prayers of the recipients of the organ donations stronger than mine? Do you see the vicious circle that we tread when we think this way? Life is full of both suffering and celebration. How we respond to such situations speaks to our openness to life and it’s rich and sometimes contrary dimensions.
When we look more closely at the story of the man who waited 38 years to be healed, we have to wonder what he was thinking after all that time. Jesus approaches the man’s healing first by asking him the question, “Do you want to be healed?” Sometimes we complain about our health, yet we aren’t always willing to do what we need to do to improve it. Exercise more or eat healthier foods. Sometimes our health is burdened by stresses and worries in our lives that are hard to manage.
“Do you want to be healed?” Jesus asks. We have a role to play in our healing. Sometimes it’s physical but sometimes I think it’s psychological and spiritual. My mentor and friend who passed away from cancer several years ago spoke of how he had experienced the resurrection of Christ in his life, most significantly in what he believed was the miraculous healing of his wife ten years earlier from cancer of the bowel. In describing his end of life experience, he said he understood better, the suffering of Christ. Their son recently said to me, from my Mom I’ve learned how to live, and from my Dad I learned how to die. Healing isn’t always about living. It’s about how we choose to live or die. Healing is about addressing those things in our lives that limit us or hold us back from being all that we can or could be, even in death. Healing is about being our most authentic self in whatever situation we find ourselves. Healing is about wholeness and truth.
Where in your life do you feel in need of healing? Have you been waiting for 38 years to answer the question “Do you want to be healed?” What does healing look like for you? What does healing look like for the one you love? How could you be living your life differently so that you would feel like you were more whole and authentic, more true to yourself, more connected with the one who created you? What changes might you have to make? What healing do you seek?
I think an important part of healing starts first with these kinds of questions followed then by a willingness to be truthful and explore the answers. Perhaps healing for you looks like a phone call, to a long estranged family member who you’ve lost touch with because of an argument or misunderstanding from years ago. Perhaps healing for you looks like a memory and the opportunity to share stories about a person in your life whom you loved and despite their death, still lives in your heart. And you welcome the opportunity to share that memory and that way they are still with you. Perhaps healing is offering forgiveness where it has been asked of you. Perhaps healing is more than a clean bill of health. Rather it feels like a peace and calm in your heart that gives you strength and courage to face whatever life has in store for you even death. Perhaps healing is a balm in the form of unconditional love from your Creator. Perhaps healing for you is a walk in a quiet forest or a view across a calm lake.
Jesus said to the man at the Pool of Bethesda, “Pick up your mat and walk”. The healing is there for us. Jesus asks us: Do we want to be healed? Pick up your mat and walk. Can we trust Jesus to stand up and walk? Can we do what we need to do to be healed? What might healing look like for us? Let’s pick up our mats, those things that keep us stuck in the same place, and rise up and walk into a life that is whole and authentic, a life that is lived to it’s fullest even in death. A life that is full of promise and hope, a life of healing in the presence of Christ who stands with us, ready to help us, heal us and make us whole. As followers of the resurrected Christ, who showed us the way of healing, even in death, with the promise of new life. Amen
Let us pray: