sermon - Dr. Suess

John 5:1-18

“Oh, the Places Jesus Goes”

            Congratulations!  Today is your day.  These are the opening words of Dr. Sues’ book:  Oh, the Places You’ll Go!  I was given a special copy of this book when I graduated from high school from my aunt, uncle, and cousins.  Each one of them wrote me a note of encouragement for my future as I began my journey to college.  Oh, the places you will go, looking back, now 25 years later, these words ring true.  Oh, the places I have been. 

            Through the book, Dr. Sues shares that there are choices in this future journey that we are all taking.  There are places that we choose we just don’t want to go.  And we can choose to steer ourselves in a completely different way.  The book then hits on the reality of life, not everything will go our way.  We will hit times where we feel like we have been left behind or times when we just don’t know which direction to go.  The message continues that with perseverance we will succeed as long as we keep trying there will be places to go. 

            Congratulations!  Today is your day.  These are not the words Jesus speaks to the man at the pool, but they might as well have been.  He asks: Do you want to be made well?  And the man explains that he has waited and waited and waited to be made well, but others push ahead of him and there is no one will help him.  For thirty-eight years he has waited to be made well.  His only option in life is to wait, wait until a day and time come when indeed, he will be made well.  Not really much of a life is it?  The living conditions must have been horrid.  The scriptures share that there are all kinds of invalid people gathered here.  This place has a reputation for healing, when the waters are stirred, and the people enter the water, it was believed that they would be healed.  But from this man’s account, it sounds like it was extremely difficult to even get to the water. 

            Congratulations!  Today is your day.  Stand up, take your mat, and walk.  And the man has been made well.  Jesus does not pick him up and place him in the water, but speaks and the man stands up and walks away.  He does not even know Jesus’ name.  He just knows that someone has finally noticed him, someone has honored him as a person, someone has shown enough compassion to him and not pushed him away one more time.  He wants to be made well, and perhaps he felt something happening within his body as Jesus spoke, but he did not insist that he needed to be placed in the water, rather he just stood up and walked away. 

            Oh, the places Jesus goes.  Why does he choose to go to the places that he goes?  As he entered into Jerusalem, he could have gone to any number of places, but he chose to go to this place, a place of human suffering and desperation, yet a place with potential hope as people waited to be healed.  Perhaps that is why Jesus chose to go to this specific place, the underlying potential hope that each of the invalid person had within him or herself as they waited, waited for the opportunity to enter the waters of the pool.  They had not yet given up on life.  They still had enough within themselves to expect life to be different, to expect life to be better.  And so they waited.  And Jesus comes to them.  He comes to a suffering and miserable place and ignites the small spark of hope within one man who has waited thirty eight years to be given a different life.  Thirty eight years in those days was a complete life time.  Amazing that he even lived that long, but he did, and Jesus chose to go to that place, and offered him a fuller life. 

            Oh, the places Jesus goes.  And he goes on the Sabbath.  Once again, we have a healing story on the Sabbath and Jesus is getting the attention of his opponents.  And Jesus’ explanation for his actions on the Sabbath are this:  My Father is still working and I also am working. 

            In engaging scripture, we can always ask the question, what does this story share about who God is, who people are, and the relationship between the two?  This story shares that God is a God of love and compassion and desires to be present to people no matter what their life journey is.  God goes to the places of human suffering, of human desperation, and seeks to bring wholeness.  This passage shares that people often are out for their own best interest and leave the weakest behind.  This passage again illustrates that the religious leaders of the time desired obedience to the law over the gift of lives changed.  And this story shares that Jesus is willing to go to places others fear.  He is willing to go to places that are ritually unclean, that are most likely pretty smelly, and he goes to these places because God is alive in this world.  There are no religious leaders at the pool trying to help this man enter into the waters.  There is no one willing to help this man.  There is only God present in the life of Jesus. 

            Oh, the places Jesus goes.  How do we engage this day with the words:  Congratulations!  Today is your day!  As we first have to accept it as our own and then bring this message of God’s hope into the world?