6th Sunday of Easter 2025

Texts: John 5:1-9
Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I believe the phrase a “shining city upon a hill”, rooted in Jesus’ teaching about salt and light during His Sermon on the Mount, has had a life of its own in American history. The pilgrims that founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th century first used the phrase to declare that Boston was to be this shining city, a beacon or example of hope for other places. I don’t know if that title continues to fit, but that is beside the point. A former president of this nation then used it to refer to the whole of the United States, an image used to foster the sense of American Exceptionalism in contrast to other nations. However, both from a biblical standpoint and even a historical one, we can affirm that no city or nation on earth really equates to what Jesus was referring to. It only takes a good look in the mirror, and then affirm if we really are following the self-emptying way of Christ and universal brotherhood. We heard today from Revelation about the Heavenly Jerusalem, the actual shining city, that is not lit with the sun or moon or stars, nor by the brightness of its monuments or buildings, but it shines bright only through the glory of God. God is the light of the city, it is the image of the Kingdom that God desires to build, a kingdom whose gates will never be shut, whose fruit bring healing to the nations, and its waters are life-giving and abundant. We can safely say, any nation that has used this term usurps it unworthily, because you don’t have to be of any one nation to be part of it, rather it is Christ who opens His arms to all peoples. The marks of the heavenly Jerusalem are rather found in all who follow God’s love in Christ Jesus, and not because of the passport you carry.

In the Gospel we heard of the healing story of the sick man by the pool of Bethsaida, who waited 38 years to be healed in the pool of water as per a tradition that rose around it. And in that healing story, we see something very powerful about how Jesus sees the world, a vision of whose culmination is the creation of this community of light and love. The sick man was probably lying there again, waiting for his chance that never materialized. Life had dealt him a rough hand. So much so that even standing close at this place of healing, he could not access by his own power the yearned for restoration of his health. A heartbreaking detail we can notice in this story is that no one seems to have helped him get to the pool. 38 years, and no one noticed him. They all prioritized themselves. The dynamic around this pool seems to have been that as long as I get my fix, nothing and no one else matters. Every man or woman for him or herself. But then Jesus walks in. There is probably a whole host of other sick people, but Jesus sees and approaches this man in particular. “Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks. We might say this question has an obvious answer, but there is power in it: Jesus asks the man if he still hopes for the thing he has been waiting for so long. Then that heartbreaking answer: “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”. There are two sets of problems the sick man identifies. First: “I have no one”. Secondly: “While I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me”.

How many of humanity’s problems multiply when there is absence of community and compassion. This is a man who has been abandoned by the wider community. His place has been relegated to insignificance, just another sick man by the pool of Bethsaida. But Jesus upends this trend. This man’s plea is heard, his healing is a sign of the Kingdom coming down to gather those left behind and bring them close to God’s embrace. He is healed not by the pool, but by Jesus’ word. Jesus shifts the focus of where healing and wholeness come from, they come from the life of Christ, from that compassionate gaze that can uplift us from the mire, the response to both of the sick man’s grievances: He is indeed not alone in affliction, and God’s Kingdom isn’t about leaving people behind. In today’s world, I have observed that often we are afflicted with many similar anxieties about our place in the world. It being a competitive world, we might feel lonely in our pursuit of fulfillment. We have so much access to the different curations of people’s lives, that often we believe we are somehow left behind on the race towards success or what our society deems as achievement or happiness. We might feel like the sick man in the Gospel, unable to get up in time to receive the wholeness we yearn for so much. We can be impeded by many things, like physical illness, social status, marginalization, financial instability, you name it. We can’t all reach the pool of success, and we all persist in the system that leaves others in the lurch while only a few get what they want. It is a story that reveals in a way, the price of competition, those marginalized by a system built for the able and the strong, while the weak are left behind. Notice how in 38 years, no one seems to have helped this sick man into the water. Isn’t that a similar story today? How many remain waiting for a helping hand or a good word to reach their hearts from the neighbor?

Jesus however won’t leave us behind. He notices us. He instructs us to take up our mat, rise up and walk. In Him and through Him we move about with a new vision of what the world is, a world that is being created anew in the love of God for what He has made. In that heavenly city, we no longer have to cry like the sick man in the Gospel: I’ve been left behind and nobody helps. The world that Jesus ushers in is one where all are carried towards the waters of the river of life, all of us are called and held, we need only be to reach out and receive. The God revealed in Jesus Christ is a willing giver, having already given Himself totally for us on the cross.

The church then is called to follow Christ in His gaze and compassion. On whom do we cast our sight? To whom are we reaching out to? Are we fostering in our common life the fruits of Jesus’ example, to be the community that does not leave people behind? We are in many ways counter-cultural because here you receive grace and forgiveness not on the basis of your worthiness or ability. Here, in this pool of water that is the church, we take the time and effort for all people to receive from the waters of life. Martin Luther once had a wonderful counsel to give the church about how the strong should relate to the weak, and he said the following: “When a strong man travels with a weak man, he must restrain himself so as not to walk at a speed proportionate to his strength lest he set a killing pace for his weak companion. Christ does not want his weak ones to be abandoned”.

We will not be measured by the greatness of our success or power or ability, nor by how many awards or prizes we have accumulated in the eyes of the world, but rather by our patience born from love and compassion, by our faithfulness to the Christ that asks us to stand alongside those who are in need. Perhaps the love we show will not be broadcast, perhaps it is inefficient and wasteful, perhaps we might be questioned, why waste your time eating with those that can’t give much to you back.

Beloved, we are called to be the difference. We are made to shine with the light that illuminates that Heavenly Jerusalem that God is forming through our very lives. No power or nation can claim this mantle, only God revealed in the face of Jesus, growing the Kingdom of Heaven lifting up one weak hand at a time. There is no competition to reach the table of the Lord, you don’t need any prerequisite or performance to receive grace, all are already invited. And in that light, we shall be fulfilled, in that extravagant love, we will be enriched with the treasures of God measured in human lives coming fully alive by God’s grace. Let us pray for God to widen the embrace of our hearts, so that at least another person might say: “God sees me, I have a community that cares for me”. A wonderful sight, a glimpse of the shining city that Christ is building in the human heart for all peoples. Let us pray.