Introduction
Every once in a while, the lectionary (the assigned readings for each Sunday), gives an alternate reading. Usually, it’s first reading from the Hebrew Testament, or it changes one of the letters of Paul in the 2nd reading. But occasionally they give an alternate reading for the Gospel text.
Most congregations in the ELCA this week will be hearing John 14. It is a continuation of the Farewell Discourse (on the night when Jesus is going be betrayed and arrested). It’s a good and beautiful reading and it promises the coming of the Holy Spirit. But we hear it fairly often around Maundy Thursday and the Easter season and we will hear a portion of that text on Pentecost and a similar theme on Holy Trinity Sunday in just a few weeks.
But this week’s alternate reading is a text that we never get at any other time. It is only offered as an alternate reading on this Sunday of year C in the lectionary. It has to be chosen to be read in church. Otherwise, it will never come about. So, this week, I encourage you to go with this alternate reading (especially since you will get John 14:8-27 on Pentecost).
Now, in preaching this text, we have to remember that there is a lot more to this story in the Gospel than what we hear today. So, let’s get into it a bit.
Narrative Context: John’s Gospel and the Pool of Beth-zatha
The healing at the pool of Beth-zatha (Bethesda) appears early in John’s Gospel, immediately after Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. That scene ends with Jesus extending living water to an ‘outsider.’ Now in John 5, he moves to Jerusalem during an unnamed Jewish festival and offers healing (living wholeness) to someone on the inside, but who is forgotten and marginalized. The location of this sign is important. It happens at a pool near the Sheep Gate, where a large number of those who are physically disabled (blind, lame, and paralyzed) lay in wait for healing.
The pool itself carried religious and social significance. It was believed to have curative powers when stirred. Some manuscripts include a verse about an angel stirring the waters. Notice that in the NRSV verse 4 is missing. The included verse would follow directly after verse 3, “3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed waiting for the stirring of the water, 4for an angel of the Lord went down from time to time into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.” While not included in many manuscripts, this tradition is still influencing this story, and this belief created a system of competition and exclusion. Those with more mobility or support had access, while others were left behind. Year after year, decade after decade.
Jesus walks into this system and sees a man who has been there for thirty-eight years. It’s possible the length of his suffering is supposed to echo Israel’s own wilderness journey (forty years of wandering, waiting for deliverance). It is in this space of prolonged disappointment and invisible pain that Jesus speaks one of the most interesting questions in the Gospels: “Do you want to be made well?” We’ll talk more about that in a moment.
The healing is instantaneous and disruptive. Jesus does not lift the man into the water; he bypasses the system altogether. “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” And the man does. But as John’s Gospel often does, this miracle leads not to celebration, but confrontation because it took place on the Sabbath. The verses immediately following this text describe how religious leaders question the man and then Jesus, setting in motion the first seeds of opposition that will build through the Gospel.
“Do you want to be made well?” and the Gift of Agency
There are many healing stories in the Gospels. What makes this one unique is not just its setting or the ensuing controversy, but this one critical question: “Do you want to be made well?”
Now, some will say that this question sets up a negative ending. This man, unlike the man born blind or the Samaritan woman, does not immediately testify to Jesus as a witness and become a disciple after he is healed. Therefore, this question of Jesus, “Do you want to be made well?” shares God’s grace even though some will only use God’s goodness and not reciprocate. However, I don’t think that should be our interpretation of this text today. This line from Jesus instead gives us insight in how to appropriately engage in ministry and service without expectation and making agency a priority.
Jesus, who already knows this man has been unwell a long time, doesn’t force healing on him. He doesn’t assume. He asks. That question, ‘Do you want to be made well?’, dignifies the man’s autonomy. It grants him voice. It recognizes that healing isn’t just about fixing a problem, it’s about restoring the whole person, body and spirit. And it gives the man a chance to share about the totality of the problem. Yes, he is immobile. But that’s not what he points to. The problem is no one will help him.
Notice the man’s response. He doesn’t say yes or no to “Do you want to be made well?” He says, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool…” It’s a cry of longing and of limitation. He wants wholeness. But he’s stuck. Trapped in a system that leaves him behind. Jesus’ healing word cuts through all of it: ‘Stand up, take your mat, and walk.’ Jesus heals the man, but more than that, he gives him his agency back. Jesus’ response honors that longing, bypasses the barriers, and restores the man’s agency to move, act, and participate.
The Indictment of the Text
John’s Gospel is all about the opposite examples. Those who see Jesus and know him and those who see Jesus and miss him. This is one of those texts that commentators like to point to this man as a negative example of discipleship. Afterall in verse 13 it says, “Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was [when interrogated by the religious authorities], for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd that was there.” Because he doesn’t recognize Jesus and because he doesn’t “follow” or become an evangelist, people like to indict this man as the negative example of this text. ‘He’s no Samaritan woman or man born blind.’
But I think that misses the actual indictment.
The real indictment here is not about the healed man’s lack of testimony. The real indictment is found in his words: “Sir, I have no one.”
There was a man who was in need for thirty-eight years—and there was no one to help him. That is the heartbreak of the text. That is the tragedy Jesus walks into.
This isn’t just about one man. It’s about a system—a religious system, a societal system—that allowed someone to suffer for nearly four decades and left him to fend for himself at the margins. It’s about a community that had normalized his presence by the pool. People likely stepped over him. People probably talked around him. Maybe even prayed near him. But no one helped him. “I have no one,” he says. And no one seems particularly bothered by that—except Jesus.
Jesus’ healing is not just physical. It is an act of protest against apathy. It is a critique of religious life that becomes more focused on rules and rituals than mercy and compassion. It’s a disruption of the systems that sort who gets help first and who gets left behind.
If there is any indictment in this text, it is not aimed at the man who didn’t recognize Jesus in the crowd. It is aimed at the crowd who never recognized the man at all.
Preaching Possibilities
The Church that Doesn’t Ask
This idea of service, ministry, and agency has long been a problem of the church. We feel that we know the needs of those whom we are helping before they even tell us what they need. We go into situations with a savior complex. Anticipating the needs and anticipating the aid that is needed without ever asking the question.
An example of this:
After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, churches in Houston and surrounding areas put out an ask for donations. And ELCA churches came out in droves sending boxes and boxes there. The contents of those boxes? Old LBW hymnals, the green ones, that hadn’t been used in a decade. Bishops from around the country put out notices, “Please do not send LBW hymnals to disaster victims. Send money, diapers, toilet paper, etc.” This is an extreme example, but it is a perfect example of the church these days. Rather than asking what is needed, we send or do what we think is best. Or, even worse, we use a catastrophe to clean out our closets.
Do you want to be made well? Jesus asks. Jesus, God incarnate, asked this one question. We probably need a few more. ‘Do you want to be made well?’ ‘Do you need help?’ ‘How can we help?’ ‘What is needed most at this time?’ ‘What will be needed later?’
But this isn’t just a question in moments of disaster.
Perhaps a question to ask ourselves: What ministry are we trying to do that others aren’t even asking for? What ministry are we being asked to do that we haven’t listened to?
We can see the practical application of this in our own lives. How often do we approach a situation assuming what someone else needs, offering unsolicited advice instead of simply listening?
Friends of mine with chronic pain often post online seeking solidarity, only to be flooded with advice like “try yoga” or “cut out gluten” (even when they never asked for suggestions). The intent may be kindness, but when we skip listening and jump to solutions, we risk making others feel unseen.
The same happens with generosity. We might give money to someone or a shelter and expect it to be used a certain way (on food, for example) when what’s truly needed is clean bedding or Narcan. When we impose our assumptions, we strip people of agency and dignity.
Agency is a value we don’t talk about enough. It means giving others the authority to accept or decline help. It means listening to their stated needs, not assuming we know best. It’s about trusting someone’s lived experience.
Connecting to the Farewell Discourse Anyway
This brings us back to the Farewell Discourse anyway. When Jesus tells the disciples to love one another as he has loved them, it follows his washing of their feet. He asks: “Do you know what I have done to you?… I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”
The church’s posture should be one of service, not saving. Not the privileged helping the needy, but neighbors loving neighbors. Beloved children of God serving beloved children of God.
With a posture of humility, curiosity, and respect for agency, we open ourselves to genuine relationship. We might actually know (and be known by) our neighbors. That’s how love spreads.
Jesus doesn’t heal for gratitude. He heals so that people may live fully. His love sets off ripple effects. So do ours.
We don’t serve for praise. We serve to share the life and love we’ve found in Christ. That others may find it too.
As Easter winds down and Pentecost approaches, we prepare to hear again the church’s sending into the world, led by the Spirit, led by Christ’s example. We lead by serving. We honor agency. And in doing so, we build relationships shaped by love.
Micah Krey 
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