The Whole Package (1)

Jesus, upon seeing this man lying there and knowing that he had already been in that condition for a long time, *said to him, “Do you want to get well?”  John 5:6  NASB

Get well – Such an unfortunate translation.  hygiḗs génesthai can be translated this way, as it seems obvious that the crippled man is at the pool of Siloam in order to be healed, but by translating it into English in the obvious way, the underlying suggestion is lost.  Clearly what Yeshua said to the man seemed odd.  His response was, “What do you think?  Why else would I be here?”  It seems to me that the obvious is not really the intention.  Suppose we translated this as “Do you want to be generated sound?”  Now the question seems odd and that’s the point.  Only a fool will ask a lame man waiting at the pool if he wants to get well.  And Yeshua is no fool.  Something else is happening here.  If we translate the question as “Do you wish to be generated sound?” then it is no longer about waiting at the pool.  It’s about the circumstances of life itself.

Consider this:  “Perhaps total certainty is ultimately not only unachievable but undesirable in human affairs.  The apprehension of beauty . . . may rather educate one to a lifetime struggle for truth, within a field of error—as though madness and error, questioning and conflict, were the unavoidable hazards of being human, and as though sin and confession were the unavoidable paradigm for life in the wilderness.”^[1]  We might add, “as though suffering and healing were the unavoidable dynamics of becoming human.”  Yeshua doesn’t ask if this man, waiting years to be healed of his paralysis, wants to be well.  He asks him if we wants to be born whole, to become the full man God intended him to be.  That’s much more than being able to walk.  That’s an acknowledgement that life is the dynamic of struggle, suffering, growth, and healing.  Of course the man wants to walk.  But he needs more than the use of his legs.  He needs to understand the role of suffering in the process of becoming human.  That’s the real healing.

As long as we think God’s wonderful plan for our lives has been thwarted by illness, loss, affliction, or emptiness, we will think that somehow we have done something that deserves punishment.  We will conclude that God is the great moral policeman and the divine judge, demanding reparations for our pitiful condition.  This is the essence of the pagan deity.  If you want a comfortable life, prosperity, and health, then you have to appease the gods.  You have to do something to make yourself worthy, and when you don’t, well then, illness, ruin, loss come calling.  The argument is best voiced in Job’s friends, but it’s just as popular today.  God wants you to be happy and healthy.  If you’re not, you did something wrong.  Yeshua’s real question overturns all such mistaken thinking.  Becoming human, God’s real intention for each of us, requires expulsion from the Garden of Bliss.  Becoming human means struggle, suffering, affliction—and victory, healing, and joy.  If you want beauty, you’ll have to work through ugliness.  There is no other way.  Just ask the Messiah.

So, do you want to be generated whole?

Topical Index:  hygiḗs génesthai, get well, generated sound, become human, John 5:6

[1] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg,  Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers, p. 61.