Do You Want to Be Well?
Thirty-eight years beside a pool. Jesus didn’t stir the water. He spoke, and the man stood up.
Dear friends,
Letters from Leo is publishing daily Lenten reflections through Easter, available exclusively to paid subscribers.
Each day during Lent, I’ll be reflecting on the day’s readings — sitting with the scriptures, wrestling with what they demand of us, and asking the questions we’d rather avoid. These reflections are personal. They’re searching. They’re meant to be prayed with, not just read.
If you’re walking the Lenten road this year, I’d be honored to walk it with you.
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“Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” — John 5:8
Thirty-eight years beside a pool. Think about that number. Most of us haven’t done anything for thirty-eight consecutive years. The man in today’s Gospel has been lying beside healing water for longer than many of us have been alive, watching other people step into it ahead of him, and he still hasn’t given up showing up.
This is not laziness. It is a particular kind of suffering — the kind where hope has gone thin but hasn’t completely broken. He’s still there. He hasn’t left. But when Jesus asks the most direct question in the Gospels — Do you want to be well? — the man doesn’t say yes. He explains why he can’t get to the water.
I recognize that instinct in my own life.
