Scripture: Acts 16:9-15; John 5:1-9
Title: Expect the Unexpected

**Sermons are meant to be heard, so listen along here**

In my 35 years of life, I’ve determined, very unscientifically, there are only two kinds of waiting.
Lines and anticipation.
Seriously.
Don’t believe me?  Try it.
Traffic? Line.
DMV? Line.
Post office? Line.
Grocery Store. Line.
Test results? Anticipation
Engagement? Anticipation
Pregnancy? Anticipation
Sitting at a restaurant? Anticipation.

See?

Lines or anticipation.
Sometimes it’s even both. Like at Izzy’s Ice Cream.
Always a line. Always anticipation.

Waiting.
No matter which of those two it is, waiting is not something we’re good at.
A study done by the New York Times said that when we wait, no matter if we view it in a positive or negative light, we overestimate the amount of time we wait by 36%.
36%!!
We don’t like waiting at all.  
In fact we do just about anything to make waiting less intolerable.
We bring a book.
We pull out phones.
We gauge which line is shortest or moving fastest before we get into it.
Anything to not have to wait so long.
What makes waiting so hard is the lack of action that happens.
We can’t move faster.
We can’t go back.
We’re just stuck.

In today’s Gospel we come across a man who has been waiting by the pools at Bethzatha (also known as Bethsaida, or Bethesda)
Bethzatha literally meant house of mercy.
It was a place in the temple courts where people believed healing could take place.

The traditional lore went something like this: occasionally, from time to time, but no one knew when exactly, an angel of the Lord would come and stir up the waters.  The first one into the pool after each stirring would be cured of whatever disease or ailment they had.  

Picture this place, these pools, surrounded by people in need of healing.  Verse three says there were “many individuals – blind, lame, paralyzed.”

And they are all keeping watch on the water.

Carefully, each day, they would come and wait, or someone would bring them to wait, for the stirring of the water.
And then it would be a race to be first.

So this man we come across today had been ill for 38 years.
THIRTY EIGHT.
And Jesus saw that this man had been laying there for a long time, and hadn’t yet been healed.
Jesus went up to him and said “do you want to be made well?”
If you were hearing this for the first time, you might expect the response to be YES.
I mean isn’t that what you would say?
Yes I want to be made well.
Obviously, Jesus.
I’ve been sitting here for literally decades.

But that’s not what the man says.
He says “I’ve been trying, God, but someone always gets there first.”
Someone always gets there first.
Wow.
Isn’t that the truth?
How often do we feel like this guy… waiting, and waiting, wondering when it’s going to be our turn.
I mean, we are TRYING here God.
Don’t you see us?

There’s something this guy says that I think is really important…
When Jesus asks this man his question, “do you want to be well?”
The Greek word is hygies (hoo gee ace).
It literally means to be made whole.
Jesus doesn’t ask him if he wants to be healed, but instead questions if he wants to be whole.
It’s more than just physical healing… it’s about being made whole, fully human, yes physically but also spiritually, mentally, and relationally.
Jesus invites him to stop waiting here in this place and rejoin the world outside the temple – get up and enter into a full life, a whole life.  

This is what Christ does for us.
He makes us whole.
All the work we do, all our trying, it does nothing.
We try and try and try and hope that God sees us working so hard over here and eventually pays attention to us, but that’s not how it works.
If we just pray harder.
If we just come to church more.
If we just give more money.
If we just try.

Pastor and Professor Elizabeth Johnson says “If we are ever tempted to believe God’s healing depends on the quality or quantity of a person’s faith, this passage offers a strong corrective. The man whom Jesus heals shows no sign of faith in Jesus, or of gratitude for what Jesus has done for him.”

This guy doesn’t ask for healing.
He doesn’t even put his faith in God.
He’s trusting in this folk lore of the water being stirred up.
Jesus is standing in front of him, and he’s looking at the water.
And he doesn’t even say thank you when Jesus heals him!
I mean gosh couldn’t Jesus have picked someone else?
Someone more, I don’t know, … worthy?

How often have you asked this very question?
I know I have.
So why this guy?
Why is THIS guy healed?

I don’t know.
I wish I could answer this question for you because it’s one I have as well.  
John’s Gospel doesn’t answer the question of why certain people are healed and others are not.

But today Jesus makes it clear that healing is not about the amount of faith one has.
And even more importantly, we get a clear reminder that God is about restoration.
Restoring us to wholeness.
This is no small lesson here today.
Jesus teaches us something about how God operates in our broken world.
So yes, this man was in need of physical healing, but I think something even more important happened when Jesus called him to get up and walk.
When Jesus comes to this man at the side of the pool and asks him if he wants to be made well, the first thing the man says is “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool.”

Did you hear it?
I have no one.
I have NO ONE.

The ailment this man has is much bigger than physical, and Jesus knows it.
He is alone.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, he sits there by the pool. Alone.
People who were a burden to their family, especially the poor, were often cast off and unwelcome.
The people who were sitting at the pool, waiting and hoping for healing, were not inside the temple.  
They couldn’t get inside the temple.
They were excluded.
Jesus’ act of healing does something more than fix the physical.
Jesus allows this man to rejoin a community.
To not be alone.  

In our first reading for today, Paul meets a woman, Lydia, who listens to the Gospel, gets baptized, and then the first thing she does as a newly baptized follower of Christ is hospitality. She invites Paul to stay in her home with her family.  She invites Paul into community.

Community is the result of hearing the Gospel.
When we are called into community, something that was broken gets made whole.
And God is all about that.
God is not a cash register.
God is not about getting something for giving something.
God is not a magic wand or a lottery ticket.
God simply sends Jesus.
Into this world of sickness and fear and hopelessness, God sends us Jesus.

A little later, when Jesus is questioned about this very thing – why did he heal that guy – he simply said “My Father is always at work, and so am I”
God is always at work.
Always taking the broken things of this world and making them whole.
Piece by piece.
Little by little.
Person by person.
WE look at people and see their worthiness or unworthiness for wholeness, for healing…
But God looks at the very same people and sees children.
Beloved children who are broken and in need of redemption.
That’s it.
And so God goes to his work of restoration, healing, and making all things new.

Today, we are invited to the table.
Just as he stood in front of the man at Bethsaida, Jesus stands in front of us and tells us to stop waiting, the time has come.
You are no longer alone.
You are invited into community.  

And it is here, at this place, we come to the presence of God and are healed.
It is here we can bring all our shame and doubts and brokenness and fear and Jesus looks at us and says, new life – for you.
Wholeness, for you.

One of my favorite authors Shauna Niequist says that God does the best repair-work around the table.
And I completely agree.
Because the repair work she talks about is the ways in which we are made whole.
And we know that wholeness comes from community.
Table are where we gather with people in our lives.
You have meals with your family at your table at home.
You have picnics at tables outside with friends.
You gather at restaurants with confidants and co-workers.
Think about some of the meals you have shared around tables.
Meals where you talked about your day or a dream you have or a heartbreak you are in the midst of.
Think about those meals where the conversation continues long after the food is finished.
Where you don’t even move to the more comfortable living room because you know the table is where real community happens.
Tables are where life is shared and relationships are built and healing happens.
So come.
Come to the table – come to THIS table.
You have been invited.
You don’t have to wait anymore.
You are welcome.   
You are healed.
Get up and walk.