The Least Expected

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 9, 2010, the 6th Sunday in Easter.

Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5
John 5:1-9

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, or rock and our redeemer. Amen.

My favorite word in Hebrew is ruach. I love to hear it, I love to say it. I love what it means, both its simple definition and all of the wonderful meanings it carries with it. In Genesis 1:2, this is the word our bibles translate as “the Spirit”[1] or “the wind.”[2] Listen to the word again, ruach. It sounds like wind and spirit. There is a breathy, otherworldly quality to this word that mystifies me, ruach.

In Genesis, this breath of God, this spirit is imparted just before the light is created. It is the breath that blows across the chaos, across the darkness, across the void. This is the breath that precedes life. This is the breath that gives life to all creation.

This is the wind that comes off of the water in the morning. It’s the cool breeze that brings the dew that falls on the grass. It’s the summer breeze that rustles the leaves in the trees and tells us that all is right in the world. It is the Spirit that reminds us that God is in charge and regardless of the chaos of the world around us, it is the Spirit that says Emmanuel, God is with us. This is the same wind, Spirit we read about a couple of weeks ago from John’s gospel when the disciples received the breath of Jesus. It’s the same wind that will blow in two weeks on Pentecost.

Our gospel reading this week begins during one of the Jewish festivals and Jesus is walking by the Sheep Gate by a pool called Beth-zatha. In some translations this pool is called Bethesda. The Sheep Gate separated the North Eastern part of Jerusalem from the Temple Mount. The pools at the Sheep Gate were used to wash the sheep prior to their sacrifice in the Temple. This use of the pools gave the water a halo of sanctity.[3]

Many invalids came to the pools to be healed Local legend said that when the pool was stirred, its healing power was activated, and the first person in the waters would be made well. Legends from the third century said the ripples in the pool were caused by angels bathing in the waters. Since the pool was surrounded on all sides by the city walls or the surrounding slope of the hills, breezes in the pool would be infrequent, so the waiting game had to be played with great patience.

The name of this spot means “House of Grace.” The name of this spot would be appropriate for a group of invalids who seek the unmerited favor of healing by the restorative, mystical powers of the waters. Is it any wonder a Presbyterian Church was founded near the sight of a bubbling spring in rural Maryland in 1820 would be called Bethesda? Is it any wonder one-hundred-and-twenty years later a Naval Medical Center built nearby would come to be called Bethesda?[4] A place named for the House of Grace would be the place to receive special treatment, both medical and spiritual.

So Jesus arrives at the pool seeing the sick: the blind, the lame, and the withered. There, Jesus spotted a man he wanted to know more about. He was probably one of the oldest men at the pool. He learned that this man had been lying there for a long time, thirty eight years to be exact. So Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be made well?”

Oh what a wonderful question! “Do you want to be made well?” Imagine how you would answer this question. “Oh my Lord, yes, I want to be made well!” I can imagine people being asked this question all over the world and just as easily imagine people crying from the roof tops, “Oh yes Lord, I want to be made well!” But you know, this isn’t the answer Jesus gets.

The man tells Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

So, is that a yes or a no?

No, really, I want to know.

Is this a yes or a no?

It really isn’t an answer at all. It is an explanation. The man explains to Jesus that he is unable to reach the waters. He tries. He really tries to make it on his own, because there is no one at the pool to help him. Alas, woe is he. He is unable to make it to the waters first.

So Jesus says to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

This man has waited thirty-eight years for the wind to blow across the pool. He has waited so very long for the wind to blow and for the healing power of the water to be activated for him. He waited to be caressed by the ripples in the pool caused by angels bathing.

Instead, he got something different. He got the thing he expected least in this world. He didn’t feel the wind blow causing the pool to ripple. He met the wind.

He met the wind. He met the living God. He met the one who caused the healing wind to blow. He didn’t meet an angel, he met God incarnate. He was waiting to feel the breeze so that he could race to the pool. Instead he met the one who is the wind. In the most real and least expected way, he met God with him; he had a personal encounter with Emmanuel.

For this man, there was no more need for the Pool of Siloam. In a way more real than I can imagine or expect, he was baptized not in water, but in the Spirit of the Lord, by which he took his mat and walked. That day, that Sabbath day, Jesus proved that he was present to reconcile all creation into right relationship with him. As the wind blew across the water in Genesis beginning all creation, Jesus blew across this man who was not able to get himself into the pool and gave him new life.

Our Lord, our Messiah is the one who is able to do more than we could ever hope or imagine. He is able to do what we least expect him to do. We read about this in Acts. We read about Paul’s first missionary journey into Europe. We are so familiar with our modern geography that it may be a surprise that this is the first recorded Christian mission to Europe, but this is not the big surprise.

No, verse 13 tells us that on the Sabbath, Paul and his traveling party went down to the river, down to the place of prayer, and spoke to the women who had gathered there. I am not going to go into the big explanation about why the women are the people we would least expect Paul to speak with on that day, we know about the subordinate roles women played in ancient times. Paul had crossed into Europe to share the Good News of Jesus Christ in the Roman Empire and chose to share it with women.

This slice of Bethesda, this slice of the “House of Grace” comes again to the water and the wind blows across it bringing the grace and peace of God to the world where it is least expected. By the grace and peace of God, these women are reconciled to all creation and begin their relationship anew with Jesus Christ.

This leads us to again, the thing we least expect. One of the women in the group, a believer in God named Lydia, was listening to Paul at the river. She was a dealer in purple cloth. To decode this phrase, she was rich and powerful. We know that she had very rich and powerful clients because only the richest people could afford to purchase purple and only the most powerful were allowed to wear it.

This woman, rich and powerful in her own right, brought her household to Paul for baptism. In effect, her household is the first toehold of Christianity in Europe. A woman’s home in Thyatira becomes the site of the first European Christian church. This easily qualifies as one of the things we least expect from this world.[5]

Even more unexpected is the vision of New Jerusalem that we saw in our reading from Revelation. The winds of change, the winds of reconciliation, the winds of life blow across the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. If you noticed, there is no temple in the city, simply because there is no need. You see, there is no need for a temple because New Jerusalem, the city where nothing accursed will be found any more becomes the new temple.[6]

This is the wonder and the glory of new life in Christ. The most glorious things we could least expect are just the beginning. The wind of new life blows across Bethesda lifting a man who had not walked in thirty-eight years. The wind blows across the river where the women pray and opens Europe to the gospel. The Gospel Incarnate, the Lamb of God will be seen again on the day of the New Jerusalem when there will be no more night.

This is the wind that blows. This is the ruach.

Pope John Paul II took the opportunity to “put Bob Dylan right” when the two megastars headlined a gig together in Bologna.[7] Dylan met His Holiness on stage during a Catholic youth event before playing three of his best-known songs. After the two men had shaken hands and exchanged a few words, the Pope stepped up to the microphone and took the singer to the theological cleaners.

“You say the answer is blowing in the wind, my friend,” he observed. “So it is. But it is not the wind that blows things away, it is the wind that is the breath and life of the Holy Spirit, the voice that calls and says, ‘Come!’”

Clearly enjoying the thunderous applause that greeted these words, the Pope continued in a style that would not have disgraced a television evangelist: “You ask me, how many roads must a man walk down before he becomes a man? I answer: One! There is only one road for man, and it is the road of Jesus Christ, who said I am the Way and the Life.”

As the wind blows, let us be blown by it.

[1] Jerusalem Publication Society, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, New Living translations
[2] New Revised Standard Version
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda, accessed May 12, 2007
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda%2C_Maryland and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Naval_Medical_Center accessed on May 12, 2007
[5] Cousar, Charles B, Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D. “Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, Year C.” Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994, pages 314-316.
[6] Ibid, pages 318-320.
[7] Ship of Fools Magazine Online, September 29, 1997 as found at HomileticsOnline.com, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1887, May 7, 2010.