Sixth Sunday of Easter
John 5:1-9; Acts 16:9-15; Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
It happened again just the other day. Work around the church commonly requires a ladder to be set up. We have several very tall ladders both step ladder and extension ladder types. It happened that the ladder in question was one of our tallest step ladders set up in one of the hallways. I noticed a mother and child heading to music lessons down the hall. The child walking a couple of steps ahead of the mother saw the ladder and immediately changed course aiming to walk directly under the ladder. Just as he got to the ladder, however, his mother rather firmly spoke his name and he froze mid stride. He looked back at her and in that instant she caught his arm and guided him around the ladder.
Superstitions are a curious thing. Scholars tell us that the fear of walking under a ladder is a Christian superstition. The ladder, whether a step ladder or extension ladder leaning against a building, creates a triangular shape, the base with two sides of which at least one side is the ladder. At any rate, a triangle is the symbol for the Christian God. Three in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And to break the line of the triangle by walking under the ladder is to break the image of God which would be very dangerous, thus it is best not to walk under the ladder. I guess that makes more sense then some of the other superstitions in the world. Yes, I couldn't resist doing a quick Google search. Sports superstitions are some of the strangest superstitions you will find. In baseball, for example, it is believed that spitting into your hand before picking up the bat is good luck (it also keeps others from wanting to use your bat which is considered to bring bad luck). In basketball it is commonly believed that the last person to shoot a basket during the warm-up will have a good game. It is also considered good luck to bounce the ball before taking a foul shot (something I hope the Bulls remember). In golf it is believed that you should start every game using only odd numbered clubs. Both tennis players and rodeo riders consider it bad luck to wear yellow.
And then there is fishing. My father knows every fishing superstition there is. (Not that he believes them, of course). But every fisherman knows that if a barefoot woman passes you on the way to the dock the fish are not going to bite. Like wise spitting on your bait before casting your rod greatly improves the chances of a fish biting. But whatever you do, you never change rods while fishing, nor do you ever tell anyone how many fish you've caught until you're done fishing or you won't catch another fish that day.
Superstitions are often strange and wonderful at the same time. They may be somehow curiously grounded in experience, history or even a hint of scientific fact. The most amazing thing about them is the way they can affect how we live our lives. The more desperate we are, the more likely we are to believe or at least give a superstition a chance to affect our lives. Most of us who own homes have heard the stories of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down in your yard to hasten or insure the sale of your house. For those suffering various diseases there are similar traditions of superstitions that are reported to lead to healing or cures. Such actually is the case in our gospel lesson for today.
Well, actually it isn't in our lesson. It is in the footnote that you do not have printed in your bulletin. The footnote and superstition is found in verse 4 of our lesson. This is the verse, that if you were following along as I read the lesson, you might have noticed is missing. It appears that the earliest versions of the Gospel of John did not contain this extra verse of explanation about the superstition that stood behind the miracle Jesus performs. The core of our lesson is a miracle but to fully grasp what this has to do with each of us we need to first understand the setting for our story. Most scholars agree that the Gospel of John, the last of the Gospels written in the New Testament, is a carefully constructed series of stories and lessons in which locations and actions are often as important as sayings and words. So the setting for our lesson is identified in the Gospel of John as "a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes." A portico is a covered walk way which was usually built with arches supporting a roof around an open air court yard or pool. Since such ancient pools were typically square or rectangular, the porticoes that surrounded were usually four in number (one for each side of the pool) but at Beth-zatha there were five porticoes because there were actually two pools with porticoes all around (the four sides) and one covering the area between the two pools. Scripture and other ancient writings make it clear that the first pool was constructed in the 8 th century before Christ just to the north of the Temple in Jerusalem. Five hundred years later when the second temple was built a second pool was dug next to the first to be used to wash the sheep that were being cleaned and prepared for sacrifice in the Temple and to provide water for the washing away of the blood of the sacrifices. There came to be associated with the waters of these pools a power to cleanse and heal. Scholars agree that the name of the pools was probably derived from the Aramaic language that Jesus would have spoken and called the place Beth hesda or "house of grace". We actually have the same association with this name today since the National Naval Medical Center for our U.S. Navy is based in a city called Bethesda, Maryland. Beth hesda, "house of grace" is the name associated with a place of healing for thousands of military personnel.
By the time of Jesus, the superstition had emerged as described in the missing verse of our Gospel lesson, that from time to time when the water in the pools was troubled, when it would rise rapidly and sink again, that this as caused by an angel who visited the pool and the first person who entered the pool when the waters were so troubled would be healed. This is the kind of superstition that persists in many parts of the world even among Christians. Lourdes in southern France, has a spa which many believe has healing capacities. The shrine of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, has thousands of crutches stacked along its walls where people have been healed in this special place where they thought they could receive a blessing from God.
The facts, of course, are that the pool of Beth-zatha, like many similar pools in the Jerusalem area, was fed water by an intermittent spring. At times water was released in surges from hidden reservoirs in the hills around the city, causing these pools to rise and fall suddenly. This is what gave rise to the superstition about an unseen angel troubling the pool. Faith and superstition often combine for surprising results. Undoubtedly healings did occur. Some may have been the power of positive thinking or the triumph of superstition over a psychosomatic disorder but there also may have been at least some true miracles that further affirmed the superstition surrounding the healing powers of the Beth-zatha pool. The sick and lame, undoubtedly the desperate and near despairing gathered under the porticos waiting for their miracle moment. When I first heard this story back in my Sunday school days I used to think that the man in our story had lain by the pool of Beth-zatha for 38 years. But our text does not say that. It says he had been ill for 38 years (longer than Jesus had been alive). We do not know his exact condition except that he is weak, so feeble he is unable to stand, probably from some wasting disease like cancer, tuberculosis or multiple sclerosis.
So here was a great crowd of people, blind, lame and paralyzed, all waiting for the water to be troubled. And out of that crowd of the sick and disabled Jesus picks one man to whom he asks, "Do you want to be made well?" And the sick man answered Jesus saying, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up." And Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." And at once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
I can't help but wonder why Jesus picked this man to heal. The man clearly had no special interest in Jesus. He did not call out to him to be healed as some of the blind and lepers did in other healing stories. He did not come exhibiting any great or secret faith declaring that all he needed was for Jesus to but say the word and he would be healed. He did not have to follow any special healing ritual, he never even got wet. What we have here is probably one of the purest presentations of grace found in any miracle Jesus did.
As Lutherans we talk a lot about grace. Our confirmands are expected to know that the core of our Lutheran identity is found in the phrases, "Word alone, Grace alone, Faith alone". Grace is described as a free gift with no strings attached. It is the idea that God's love and forgiveness and blessings come to each of us though we do not deserve it in any way. If anything, we deserve just the opposite of what we receive. We should be judged for our sins and punished for our failures yet God comes to us with the invitation and the opportunity to begin anew. This is not the way of the world. We expect people to at least make an effort. Like the man beside the pool, we know that there are many waiting for their opportunity, there chance to finally get a break. So we offer scholarships to the students who we feel are trying hard enough to deserve some help and we provide welfare assistance to those who are at least looking for a job and we limit our foreign assistance to those nations that appreciate the right set of human rights or environmental concerns or global security issues.
Why did Jesus pick this man to heal? Of all the people in the world who deserve to be made whole, why this one? Of course that is the nature of miracle. A true miracle is the intersection of grace and human desire. It is not guided by superstition, ritual, merit or even religion. The miracle of our lesson for today is that Jesus came to a person in need without any expectation or demand. This is the same Jesus who comes to each of us this day. The odds are that we are as distracted by the wants and needs of our lives as the man by the pool. We are wrapped up in our superstitions, hopes and dreams. Like the man in our story, we too cannot hear the real question because we are focused on the concerns of the world around us. If only there were more time in each day. I could really use a little help getting from where I am now to where I need to be to get my life in order. Like the man in our story, there always seems to be someone just ahead of us who is getting the break we were looking for. And Jesus says, "Enough. Come follow me"
That's what happened you know. The man who stood up in the verses that follow our lesson for today had to eventually stand up for Jesus. That's what grace is really all about. It is a gift that is given to us to be shared with others. True grace is not something that we have and hold but is found only in the sharing and witnessing to others. Unconditional gifts are like that, they seem to just need to be shared. We all know that. That's part of what this day is all about. This Mother's Day. It is intended to celebrate and remember the power of love that gives life. Each Mother's Day there is one story that always comes to mind. My youngest brothers up in Minnesota raised livestock for their 4H project when they were in high school. Most baby animals have a certain cuteness quality about them. But one year the calf that was born was particularly scrawny with a really ugly face. My brother took one look at it watching how the mother cow licked the ugly calf's face and declared, "A face that only a mother could love." At which point my one of my other brothers observed, "Yeah, and lucky for us that applies to our mother too." That is the best definition of a mother I know, the one who loves you regardless, in spite of, and only because that is what a mother is and does. The unconditional love. The one who picks you just because. Because love, true love, has no limits or strings. Why did Jesus pick that man to heal? Why does God care about a humanity that continues to disappoint? The word is grace.
This is the center of our faith, no superstition but a fact of life. We will make mistakes and fail to do all that is expected of us; We are ultimately only be able to trust in God's gift of grace. No superstition but a true act of faith by a people that God has chosen to love. And Jesus said to him, "Stand up...and walk" At once the man was made well...Truly we are a people, that if we are honest, only God could love.
Amen