When I entered the seminary, in what seems like a million years ago, I had to go through psychological testing, just like seminarians have to do today. When I took the tests, they employed the Rorschach test, which is a psychological assessment tool that uses a series of inkblot images in which the person describes what they see. The idea is that the way people interpret those images can reveal hidden aspects of their personality.

In a way, the entire Bible is one big Rorschach test, because people interpret it in so many ways. In fact, one could argue that the Reformation happened because of different interpretations of the Bible. In my reading, there is one passage that seems to have more different takes than any other, and that is the story of Jesus curing the man near the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 38 years (Jn 5:1-16). There are so many interpretations of what is said by the man, by Jesus, and of whether the man who was cured was a jerk for ratting out Jesus after the cure or a saint for the way he replied to Jesus. My point is this: Read 20 different commentaries on this passage and you will get 20 different interpretations.

So here is my take: this passage has to be more about a spiritual cure than a physical one, and the reason I say that is because of the seemingly nonsensical question from Jesus. 

As already stated, the Gospel says the man had been ill for 38 years, and Jesus asks him, “Do you want to be well?” Imagine asking someone who had been wheelchair bound for 38 years if they wanted to be cured. Of course the answer is obvious — yes!

There has to be something other than the physical at play here; the question is too silly to point only to the physical. We know that in the Bible, most often a person’s physical ailment is only a symbol of a spiritual ailment. The man had physical paralysis, but he also had spiritual paralysis, and all spiritual paralysis comes from sin. All sin is habit-forming, and when we get trapped in a habitual sin, then we truly are paralyzed.

With this in mind, Jesus’ question makes more sense: “Do you want to be well?” In other words, do you want to break your sinful habit? The man’s response is also open to interpretation. He says to Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up ...” Some could interpret that response as an excuse or as a form of laziness, or it could be a truly profound response. The man could be admitting that after decades of spiritual paralysis in habitual sin, he could not get better on his own strength. As one spiritual author points out, in acknowledging our inability to heal ourselves, we open the door to Christ’s healing power.

“Do you want to be well?” is a question Christ asks of all of us. Do we actually want to stop our sinful habits — the ones we have had for decades? If we do, then we have to go to Him, because none of us has the ability to heal ourselves when it comes to spiritual paralysis.