The net result is an apparent belief in the waters having healing characteristics when the water is "stirred up".  Jesus picks this individual out of all the others that were undoubtedly gathered there in hopes of being healed.  The pastor at the church we attended this past Sunday commented on how surprising it is that no mention is made of the response of the other ill or disabled that would be at the pool after the invalid is healed.  You'd think there would have been an explosion of activity, clamors for healing from the others around him.  But no mention is made.  I find this interesting.

However, this led me into other lines of thought.  It seems like a good description of our situation as the Church, as Christians, as individual and collective human beings.  

We gather together as the faithful.  Ostensibly we believe that part of our gathering in Spirit or in person is to uplift our brothers and sisters in faith.  To seek their good through prayer and tangible acts of service and love, just as we receive the love of Christ through the sacraments (baptism, communion) and through the fellowship of the believers around us.  Some churches place the emphasis on this solidarity, on this lifting up of one another and bearing one another's burdens.  This is a good thing - because as John writes, the world will in part determine whose we are by observing how we love one another (John 13:35).  

But it's easy to really emphasize this to a dangerous extent - as though we can truly love one another the way we ought.  As though if we just try a little harder, work a little more diligently, struggle a little more honestly, we'll break through and reach that place where we really do love one another with that Biblical, sacrificial love that we see in Jesus.  The article I analyzed last week falls into this category.  Man up and do what you're supposed to be doing.  

I'm all for manning up, and I'm all for encouraging others and myself to each day strive and struggle and try to live the way we are called to, the way that has been demonstrated for us.  The way that Jesus showed us how to live.  But every day, no matter how hard we try and struggle and strive, we will fail.  Miserably.  Like the compatriots of the invalid in John 5.  Men and women who probably lived most of their lives huddled around that pool, waiting for the waters to stir in hopes of being healed.  What sort of camaraderie they must have shared!  How much they must have known about one another's lives.  How they must have shared and struggled on behalf of one another.  On how many occasions must one of them have said to the invalid - next time the waters stir, I'll help you in.  Next time is your turn!  

And on how many occasions over 38 years, when the waters were stirred and hopes were stirred - was selfishness stirred also, so that those who had vowed to help one another suddenly fought one another to be the first one in?  How many times had the invalid himself struggled to keep someone else out so that he could get in first?  Good intentions evaporate when there's the very real chance of our lives being changed by seizing an opportunity right in front of us.  I don't think that the others around that pool were bad people - no worse than you and I.  And because of that, this man remained an invalid for 38 years until the Son of God appears in his life and asks him if he really wishes to be healed.  

We may go to Church for many reasons.  But the only reason that we ultimately are there is to be reminded that we are broken and sinful, that we aren't nearly as good or safe or even good enough.  To have the rationalizations of the past week and the past hour demolished with the clearness of God's law that none of us can possibly fulfill.  And then to be assured that by the same Son of God who healed the invalid by the pool, we too are healed.  We too are forgiven.  We are told to stand up instead of lounging around in our complacency or our rationalizations or our guilt.  To get up and walk.  And note Jesus' admonitions to the man later in verse 14.  A reminder that those who receive much are called to much.  

We should not imagine that we or the Church can accomplish what God alone can, or that we are so good and so wise and so perfect as to always be and do that which is expected of us.  We all need that forgiveness.  We all need to be reminded of just how much that forgiveness has changed our lives, and how foolish it would be of us to continue lying on our mats, now that we have been given legs.