Ani Weinman

Dear Friends,

In today’s reading of John 5:1-18, Jesus asks a man with a disability, “Do you want to get well?” But the man does not answer this question. He answers a different one, “Why don’t you get in the pool?”

This man is under the impression that there is one path to his healing. He is single minded in his pursuit. He is so intent on getting into the pool that this is all he can see. He laments others beating him to his goal. He bemoans his lack of support in getting into the pool. But here comes Jesus, who can see what this man cannot: his needs can be met, his full and complete healing is possible. It is such an extraordinary offer, but the man doesn’t hear it. He can’t even imagine it.

How many times in our own lives have we been so obsessed with our own problems and our single minded solutions that we also forget that Jesus is standing right beside us, offering us exactly what we need in the present moment?

How often do we go through life so focused on ourselves or on others that we don’t even notice that the God of the universe is for us, Jesus is with us, the Spirit is in us? We are often blind and deaf and oblivious to the love and offerings of Jesus.

Why is this? There are probably many factors, but I will mention one.

I suspect we often get the interpretation of a passage wrong because we tend to insert ourselves into the scripture. We make it about us.

Like every good fiction book I’ve ever read, by the end I picture the main character not unlike myself; I take over the story. That's what our imagination does and sometimes it can be a real gift.

But when we do this while reading scripture, we often miss the fact that every word of the bible is about God and what God is doing. We simply do a bad job of seeing God in the story.

Just like the man in this passage, when God is right in front of us we stretch our necks to see the pool in the distance rather than the extraordinary offer in front of us.

How would our experience of reading scripture change if we instead were stretching our necks to look for God at work in every story?

In faith, hope, and love,

—Ani