Lent is a time of seeking personal transformation. Easter is a celebration of that transformation. The story told in John 5:1-15 about the man healed at the Pool of Bethesda represents far more than a simple physical healing. This story demonstrates a transformation in consciousness which then manifests as a physical healing.
The sick, the lame, the blind, the hopeless surround the Pool of Bethesda waiting for an angel to stir the healing waters of the pool. The first one into the water is healed. The waiting multitudes lay in the five porches surrounding the pool. The story is rich in metaphysical symbolism.
Water can be seen as a healing, cleansing agent. Water is essential to all living beings. Jesus was baptized with water and transformed water into wine. Water not only cleanses the physical body in the shower, but can be used symbolically at the end of the day to wash away mental and emotional baggage.
The five porches represent the five senses which can only report the facts, not the Truth. We could just as easily call them the five distractors. Race consciousness, the surrounding multitude, sees the helpless waiting for a miracle healing and gets in line. Since some are clearly worse off than we, perhaps we begin to feel a little guilty because we can jump ahead of those unable to move as quickly. Then guilt turns to anger and a self-destructive cycle.
One man has been there for thirty-eight years. This is the man to whom Jesus speaks. Jesus does not ask him what is wrong with him or what he did to deserve it. He asks:
Do you want to be made well?
Instead of answering the question, the man explains why he can't be healed, expressing all his frustration in a litany of excuses. Because he's hooked into being a victim, he can't see the possibilities. The evidence of the senses supports his belief--he can see and hear the multitudes of negative thought forms surrounding him. Jesus commands the man to:
Rise, take up your bed and walk.
The man immediately did as directed. Jesus did not touch him, worked no magic, gave no elaborate rituals for healing. Instead, Jesus used the power of the Word to break through the barriers of false beliefs, of race consciousness, and transformed the man's consciousness. The physical healing was a by-product mental healing. Finally, Jesus tells the man to:
See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.
Wholeness does not come through a one-time shift in conscious. Wholeness is a way of life, a way of being. If we fall back into old habits of negative thinking and behaving, we'll find ourselves right back where we were with the added knowledge that we could choose a better path.
Rev. Claudia Naylor
