John 5: 1-16
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.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Truly Seeing Others as They Are
It might seem odd for Jesus to ask this question to a man who had been sick for so long. Wouldn’t he obviously want to be healed? Why does Jesus need to ask, especially if he knows the depths of his heart? While we can’t know the exact reason Jesus asks this, he decided that what the sick man wanted was important. We too can go about trying to change people we think are sick or going in the wrong direction. In our own desire to do good, we can forget to ask what people actually need and solve what we perceive to be their problems even when they might not be problems to them. We can do great harm if we try to change people without entering into a relationship with them. So follow our Lord’s example. Help others, but don’t assume that you know best. Enter into a relationship, encounter them, love them. Then we can see others as they really are.
—Alex Hale, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic from the Midwest Province studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.
Prayer
All-powerful Father, God of mercy, look kindly on us in our suffering. Ease our burden and make our faith strong that we may always have confidence and trust in your fatherly care. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
—From The Liturgy of the Hours, Appendix III