The healing pathway program is an effort to carry on the healing ministry of Jesus. Just as Jesus' first disciples continued his healing ministry following his death, just as disciples throughout the centuries have ministered to the sick, so the people of this church, through the healing pathway ministry seek to walk with those who need healing of many kinds.

This morning, you have heard stories about people who have experienced this ministry, and people who have offered it. Perhaps you have realized that many of the benefits people experience did not fall into the category of cure, but were unexpected ways, offering relief from pain, a sense of peace, a sense of community, of support in difficult times.

Healing is like that. It often has less to do with the things we want, and more to do with being open to new possibilities, whatever they may be.

In the story of Jesus healing the invalid by the pool of Bethesda, the story contains some details that suggest that the healing the man received was quite different than a cure. The legend about this pool was that periodically the water would mysteriously be stirred up and the first person into the pool would be healed. And so it attracted many invalids who hoped to be healed.

The story goes that the man had been by the pool for thirty-eight years, hoping to get into the water. Jesus comes along and asks him, "do you want to be healed?" It seems like a rude question, if you think about it. I mean, obviously, the man has been there for 38 years. Of course he wants to be healed. Or does he? Has he grown comfortable with his life the way it is? Has he become so used to being an invalid that he no longer has any confidence that he could function if his life were to change? Has he made his peace and given up hope and is content to live out his days begging for a living?

It is something we all do to some extent. We make our peace with the unfulfilling marriage, the unrewarding job, the addiction, the routine, the familiar, because it is familiar. And when something or someone comes along and asks "Do you want things to be different?" "Do you want to be made well?" - Well, do we? Even if we could be guaranteed that what we had always longed for would happen, do we really want it? If Jesus came to you, at the point of your deepest longing, and asked, "do you want to be made well?" how would you answer? Would you want to rock the boat? To shake up the uneasy truce with your spouse? To break the pattern that keeps you estranged from the parent, sibling or child? To leave the job and the paycheck and try something new? To reach across the fence to the neighbour that you haven't spoken to in years? To give up the excuse that has kept you from making more of your life?

I know people who have worked in terrible work environments for years because they were too afraid to try something new. I know people who have put up with difficult family situations because they weren't sure what life would be like if they stirred the waters. I know people who have grown used to being dependent on caregivers, alcohol, drugs and literally don't know how they would live without them.

And it is easy in such situations to evade responsibility. That is what the invalid by the pool does when Jesus approaches him: "I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. Someone always gets there in front of me." How often have you heard a variation on that line? "I'm stuck. There's nothing I can do. It's not my fault."

And Jesus says to the man, and to you and to me: "Get up! Stand up! Take up your mat and walk!" Stop making excuses and stand on your own two feet. Yes, change is terrifying. The disciples on the first Easter morning were terrified too, but that is no reason to cower on the mat of our own complacency. Get up! Sometimes it doesn't matter what you change. You just start making changes and see what happens. You take a single step, and then another. There is an African saying: "pray, but move your feet!"

So maybe this story isn't primarily about a physical cure long ago, in a far away land. Maybe it is about Jesus reaching out to you and to me, offering us healing from our own complacency with a life that is less than what we were made for. Maybe it is about Jesus challenging us to rise up from the stiflingly familiar and to pick up the mat of our fear and to do what we need to do to claim the abundant life God wants for us. Maybe. The question remains: "Do you want to be made well? Do you really want to be made well? If so, Jesus offers you healing, but you have to stand up, pick up the mat on which you have become comfortable, and move your feet. "