One writer relates that the life expectancy during the time Jesus walked the earth was “55” years. Can you imagine being in your fifties and considered an old person?
Today we read about Jesus healing an “old man.” (John 5:1-16).
“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.”
We ask why St. John included the fact that a particular man had been coming to the pool for thirty-eight years, which means he was a “senior” probably well into his fifties.. Why not heal a young person who had a longer life ahead?
“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?’”
We are puzzled that considering all the sick people in the area, Jesus picked out this one man. Why didn’t he go around healing the other people?
What did the lame man say to Jesus’ question?
“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.”
Instead of saying, “Of course I want to be healed,” the man started making excuses. Apparently from time to time an angel would swoop down and stir the water of the pool, bringing some of heaven’s healing power into it. First one into the water received a miraculous healing. For thirty-eight years, this man didn’t make it on time. And also, we wonder why no one felt sorry for this crippled man and help him to the pool.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.”
We find out later that Jesus didn’t bother to identify himself and slipped quickly into the crowd. The Jews jumped on the man for violating the sabbath by carrying his mat and asked him who cured him. The man didn’t know. Later, Jesus found the man in the temple area and said to him,
“Look you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
What do you think the man’s sin was? Was he cursing God for letting him be a cripple? Was he cursing the people who refused to help him? It seems Jesus was tying the man’s condition into his sin.
We go back to why Jesus picked this old man to heal. He certainly didn’t deserve it, living in sin. Being elderly, he probably had only a few years left to live. He didn’t know who Jesus was and had no faith in him. And even when he was asked if he wanted to be healed, he didn’t say “yes.”
It seems the heart of Jesus was drawn to the least deserving, yet most pitiable, person in the porticoes—the one most in need of God’s mercy.
In a time when the aged are looked down upon by many, it is important that we imitate the merciful heart of Jesus. Do we avoid the elderly and the people who are least attractive to us? We are reminded also that it is our own brokenness and sinfulness, rather than our righteousness, that attracts the heart of Jesus.
“A clean heart create for me, O God…” (Ps 51:12)
