Articles - From the Clergy

I am writing this at the end of a few days retreat at a Convent near Oxford. Two of the Gospel readings at our daily Eucharists have been about healing and I've noticed particularly the questions Jesus asks those who seek his help.

Blind Bartimaeus, sitting by the roadside in Jericho, is very sure of what he wants. Jesus asks him 'What do you want me to do for you?' Bartimaeus says at once, 'I want my sight back.' Jesus says, 'Go, your faith has healed you.' Light floods Bartimaeus' life, both physically and spiritually and, as Jesus leaves the town, the beggar follows him on the road.

Now contrast this with another Gospel reading:

A man has been lying by the healing pool at the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem for 38 years. Jesus looks at him lying on his mat and asks him 'Do you want to get well?' We may think this is a strange question - but the answer is even more strange. The man doesn't say 'Yes' as we might expect. He begins to make excuses. 'There is no one to put me in the pool', he says - putting the responsibility for his plight on to someone else - anyone except himself. Jesus, with intuitive wisdom, gets below the surface. He doesn't sympathise or praise the man's faith. 'Get up and go', he says. The man, perhaps astonished, does so. He has been healed in the broadest sense from an affliction not just of the body but perhaps of the psyche as well.

Jesus has seen what is really in the man's heart, as the sequel suggests. Meeting him again, Jesus warns him to give up his sinful ways - perhaps his life has been immoral or dishonest. Does the man fall in gratitude at Jesus' feet or follow him like Bartimaeus? No' he goes to the Jewish authorities and gets Jesus, the man who healed him, into trouble.

Jesus often asked the people he met 'What do you want me to do for you?' Not because he didn't know but to make people face their real desires, to own them. Are our real desires worthy of the followers of Jesus or not? If not, what is going on in our lives? Do we even know what our real desires are?

Jesus is always ready to hear our desires as we ask him for what we want or need. We may have spent Lent reading, praying for others, attending a study group - all good things - but now, in our post-Easter lives, let's take a few minutes to hear Jesus asking us 'What do you want me to do for you?' or even 'Do you want to get well?'

Wishing you the joy and peace of Easter in your lives,

Louise

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay