Do You Want to Be Made Well

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids - blind, lame, and paralyzed. 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. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." But he answered them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take it up and walk’?" Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you." The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

But Jesus answered them, "My Father is still working, and I also am working." For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. John 5:1-18 

We closed on our new house yesterday. It has been nine years since we have been in a home of our own, a long awaited healing to being in storage all over. When one waits for something so long, it can be hard to embrace the healing when it happens. So used to being broken or scattered, it takes a few moments to realize the miracle.

Jesus found a man who had waited years to dip in the pool. His healing was at hand but he did not realize it. Jesus put his waiting to an end. He told him to get up and take up his bed. The waiting was over. I imagine his surprise and shock, his joy and puzzlement. I imagine he was overwhelmed and speechless, stunned and grateful for such a long awaited miracle.

Today I ask God to help me embrace every miracle, every forward step, every moment of love's blessings. May we all be grateful for the small miracles and gifts we encounter every day. May this be the day when waiting is over and we take up our bed and walk.