Do you want to be healed?

Mass Readings: March 4

First:	Ezekiel 47:1-9,12
Resp:	Psalm 46,2-3,5-6,8-9
Gospel:	John 5:1-16

John 5:6  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?" 

Do you want to be healed?  Seems like a simple question, yet the man doesn't directly answer yes, but rather informs Jesus of the struggle he has trying to get to the pool.  The Jews when they find out that he had been healed don't rejoice.  Instead they want to kill Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath.

Sometimes you wonder if we really do even want to be healed.  They say misery loves company and I think that to some degree we choose to stay in our sufferings and live with our limitations.  It is almost as if we are afraid of being healed.  What if we were?  What would that mean?  Would it change our life?  Probably.  And maybe we are afraid of changing our life.  Yes we are suffering, but we are familiar with that.  We don't know what being healed might mean. Jesus says "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. " 

Father, it can be a scary thing thinking about what it might mean to walk away from the way I think life should be.  To actually get up and walk and be healed.  I ask that you can heal me and give me the courage to let go of the limitations that I place on myself.

Amen