Will you say Yes?
Gospel Reflection for Tuesday April 1st, 2025 - John 5:1-16
I was several months pregnant with my youngest son, sitting in the pew of a church, struggling with some burdens I had been carrying for a long time.
It was a women’s retreat and we had just finished praying for a women with cancer who was attending. Next up was to do the prayer practice, Lectio Divina1. As a new Catholic I had never done this before, and was highly skeptical, but decided to go for it since I was there.
We were to read John 5:1-9, part of today’s gospel, where Jesus healed the man by the pool at Bethesda. The scripture was to be read 3 times. The first time we were encouraged to imagine ourselves within the scene and to choose who we were within it, to make it more personal. It really forced me to decide how I was going to view the unfolding of this moment in scripture.
I decided to pick someone that wasn’t mentioned, on the opposite side of the pool, far away, who would barely be able to even see what was happening. I felt so completely unworthy to be present. You see, I had often struggled with feeling like I was enough for the people in my life, not good enough, not smart enough, not capable enough. Not enough. I certainly wasn’t worthy enough to be the man Jesus was talking to or anyone close to him.
Then the scripture was read 2 more times. Slowly, and carefully.
The second time through I felt sure I’d picked the right spot. Far away, unseen.
Then the third time the scripture was read I heard the question as if for the first time:
“Do you want to be healed?”
He came from out of no where, and there before me was Jesus!
Eyes closed, tears streaming. I very clearly heard “You are enough, daughter.”
Jesus met me in that pain of not feeling enough for anyone, of feeling unworthy of any love, and asked me if I wanted to be healed.
Friends, today’s gospel reading is a profound reality. The reality that Jesus, Son of the Living God, wants to heal you from your wounds, to lighten your burdens, to kneel down and be present with you in your pain.
He will ask “Do you want to be healed?”
The question is will you say yes?
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,"Do you want to be well?"
The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me."
Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk."
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
"It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."
He answered them, "The man who made me well told me,
'Take up your mat and walk.'"
They asked him,
"Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?"
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
"Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you."
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.
Beautiful ♥️