It had already been determined that I would be talking about John 5:5-42..

The image of the angel touching the waters is very powerful. I can imagine the anticipation of the sick people, waiting around the pool, just on edge as they waited to see the waters disturbed. I wonder what they saw - could they actually see the angel descending, or just the way the water rolled when he touched it with his feet. It seems so incredible to our modern sensitivities that there could be a pool of water in the center of a city that was actually touched by an angel and capable of healing. Yet it was real-- the Bible says so - and this man had been sitting there for almost forty years just hoping to get into the water. I can hardly imagine that kind of faith - sitting there for forty years, just hoping against hope that somehow I could get into the water first, despite the fact that I can't

And then Jesus comes, and offers to heal the man. He doesn't even know who Jesus is yet, he's obviously confused... all he can think about is being healed the way he's always planned. Maybe this is why he's called the impotent man in the King James - he's impotent to think in new ways... he's go great faith, but he's stuck in a rut. He thinks Jesus can help him get into the water, but it never occurs to him that Jesus can save him. It seems like a lot of us are like that - we're stuck with our plans, and we've been dedicated to them for a long time. We think we know how God is going to save us - that an angel is just going to come touch the water and if we're fast enough or faithful enough we'll be cured - but we're so invested in this one way of thinking about miracles that we don't even recognize it when Jesus comes to us offering a different kind of miracle.

There's a very interesting flow to this story - at one moment it's historical, going over the conflict between Jesus and the Jews - and at the next moment Jesus is proclaiming himself as the second member of the Trinity, and introduces the idea of the resurrection. "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live," he says. The impotent man who was able to rise and take his bed is only the beginning, soon Jesus says that all the dead will rise.

The impotent man isn't the only one stuck in a rut here. It's obvious that the Jewish religious leaders have the same problem. Here they have the messiah in their midst, and all they can do is go on about the Sabbath. Someone was just healed - the lame are walking - and the Jews obsess about minute little laws. They accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath, and at last he tells them the truth that is more important than the sabbath - That he is one with the Father. He tells them about the resurrection, about the time when the dead will all walk, and still all they can think about is how if the dead walk, they hope it won't be on the Sabbath.

Another interesting issue is the use of the setting, with its five porticos. Five is a theme which recurs in the Bible, according to McGough (1995) and is associated with life. This "association between Life and the Number 5 begins in the beginning with the creation of Life on the Fifth Day. It is reiterated in the Fifth Commandment...[and] This passage records the only time Jesus caused someone to "rise and walk" in John's Gospel. It is profoundly integrated with the theme of "walking with God" that begins with Enoch in Genesis 5." (McGough, 1995)

What's really powerful about this section, though, is the way that Jesus talks about himself as the Son and his relationship with the Father. He sees himself as an extension of the Father, he can do nothing without him. The love

Some common words found in the essay are:
Jesus God, King James, Attentive Reading--, Esther Franz, Sensitive Listening, Critical Understanding, Son God, Dynamic Interpretation, Theological Reflection, Father Son, we're stuck, stuck rut, raise dead, purim ad 28, sitting forty hoping, forty hoping, purim ad, son god, sitting forty, voice son god, raised impotent, dead hear voice, jesus comes, hear voice son, ad 28,
Approximate Word count = 1870
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)