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| Image by Daniel Dudek |
Week 5: Water
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A GREETING
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge.
(Psalm 18:2)
A READING
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay a number of disabled people, lame, and paralysed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, 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.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
(John 5:2-9)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water.
(Psalm 107:35)
A VERSE RETOLD
He turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.
(Psalm 114:8)
A REFLECTION
What is my new desert? The name of it is compassion. There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid, and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion. It is the only desert that will truly flourish like a lily. It shall become a pool. It shall bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy. It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water, that the poor possess all things. There are no bounds to contain the inhabitants of this solitude in which I live alone, as isolated as the Host on the altar, the food of all men, belonging to all and belonging to none, for God is with me, and He sits in the ruins of my heart,
preaching the Gospel to the poor.
- by Thomas Merton from The Intimate Merton: His Life from his Journals
VERSE OF THE DAY
I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
(Isaiah 41:8)
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| "Swimmer in Yellow" by Gareth Lloyd Ball (1990) |
In the story of Jesus healing the man at the pool of Beth-zatha or Bethesda, the man has come to lie by the pool because the water is 'stirring', it is going through a time when the springs are renewing it. He is waiting for a chance to get in the water but is prevented by those who are more able-bodied who are crowding him out. Jesus makes clear to the man that he does not need the stirring waters of Bethesda, because Jesus is there instead. Jesus can heal him. The story goes on to become a discussion of work on the sabbath. In this way it is similar to the healing story in John 9 when a blind man is instructed to go and wash in the pool of Siloam after Jesus has put mud on his eyes. Jesus is breaking the traditional law of resting on the sabbath through his work of healing. He knows that the people are gathered on the sabbath because the water is stirring — they need that healing now. We in our own time are acutely aware of tension around rules of staying well in this time of the pandemic. We go in and out of coloured zones of lockdown, barely able to keep track of how they differ in our permitted activities. We feel mounting pressure and/or desire to receive vaccines. There is a sense of urgency as websites are overbooked with appointments and waiting lists. As the third wave becomes official in Ontario and elsewhere, we feel an increasing longing to be free of worry. We want to be able to see our loved ones again and to feel safe in public and to generally be free of the burden of care around Covid. If we could imagine Jesus taking each of us up in his arms and laying us into the stirring waters of the Bethesda pool, knowing that when we emerged we would be free of any possibility of disease forever, our own voices might be crying out to him too. The people gathered at the Bethesda pool are outcasts, those who have not only suffered in their disabilities, but have been left to survive largely on their own. The pools at Bethesda are described in the text as having ‘porticos’. Originally there were two pools, an upper pool that dates from the eighth century BCE and then later, a second or “lower” pool, meant for the washing of sheep being prepared for temple sacrifices. The areas around the city on all sides were grazing lands for sacrificial animals. Jesus is moving in and through places that offer images of how his own life is about to unfold. He is confronted everywhere by history and tradition, and in everything he does he is recasting the narrative of those traditions in the unfailing love of God’s grace, even as he knows what lies ahead. Today’s music, drawn from an early 1800s hymn book, speaks of someone on the edge of death whose voice is one of peace, resting in a love that “never sleeps”. The voice of the song imagines ‘being held’ by God in a strong and firm embrace. As disciples of Jesus, how can we be those loving arms in the world here and now? How can we help to care for and carry those who live on the margins of our own communities?
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| Image by Duane Burdick |
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LC† Retelling the Stories is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Join us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help to support extended offerings throughout the year.
Thank you and peace be with you!
