Tumačenje biblijskih tekstova

There was a Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool called Bethzatha in Aramaic, which has five covered walkways. A great number of sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying in these walkways. Now a man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and when he realized that the man had been disabled a long time already, he said to him, “Do you want to get 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 trying to get into the water, someone else goes down there before me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.” Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.) (John 5:1-9)

Jesus looks with compassion on the man lying on the ground. He has been disabled for thirty-eight years... so long! He has lost his autonomy, and besides, he has no one to help him. Jesus sees his misery, his suffering, his despair and speaks to him: “Do you want to get well?”The paralytic is not the one who asks for healing; it is Jesus who asks this question.

Do you want to get well? Who would not want healing? Yet the paralytic’s answer is indirect. Immobilized and desperate as he is, he cannot even give a simple and clear answer. Perhaps he does not even believe that anything positive can happen to him. To this disinherited person who seems to be unable to do anything himself, Jesus offers healing. He does not say, “You are healed!” But, “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk!” It is as if he said to him, “From now on, take charge of your life! You can do it!”

Every story of healing accomplished by Jesus reveals the infinite goodness of the One who sent him. God wants the fullness of life for every human being. So many stories throughout the Bible show us this God who cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of his people and his creation. God the Creator is God the Savior. No religious rule, even one as important as the Sabbath, can prevent Jesus from healing the sick. The healed person is fully reintegrated into the collective life.

We can read this story from the perspective of our situations. In each one of us there are wounds: memories of a humiliation, an unrealized dream, an unfulfilled desire. It is not easy to deal with them. We sometimes run away or hide them because they hurt us or we feel ashamed of them.

Out of fear of failing, of making a mistake, we lack the audacity to take a risk, to take responsibility and assume the consequences of our decision. Instead of taking hold of what is possible, we are often immobilized in the face of what is impossible. We blame others: parents, teachers, policy makers, business or church leaders.

The serious problems of the world beset us as well: climate change, inequalities, merciless competition in the economic realm, international conflicts and wars, the refugee crisis.... Faced with the challenges of the world, we feel helpless and destitute. Our planet is like the man in the gospel who was crippled for thirty-eight years.

In collective life, as in personal life, instead of falling into fatalism, can we listen to the words of Jesus: Do you want to get well? Do you want to change your life? Do you want a full life? Do you want to change society, make the earth more fit for all to live on? Do you think it’s possible? So, get up! Start today, take your share of responsibility! Take the first step, you’re not alone anymore! Look for friends who share the same faith, the same values. With all humans of good will—and there are many!—take care of creation. By so doing you will find meaning in your life.

In silent prayer, let us listen to the voice of Christ, and see as well the look of Christ who whispers to us: do you want to get well?

 What people or situations around me need healing?

 What keeps us from living a full life? On the personal and collective levels, what helps to free us?

 “Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk!” How do these words of Jesus challenge me?