I take a lot of photos, so when I wanted to find a photo of water it was a matter of going through the stuff from the holidays: finding things I have not used on the photo blog. The first question Christ asked here reminds me of a conversation last night — when we discussed recovery, and how it has been defined as living a good and fruitful life with the presence or absence of illness.

And then we talked about how to measure it, and models of care, and the internal politics of health. Not for here. Because Christ was interested less in the invalid living well with his disability than removing it.

I am not sure if the health bureaucrats would like it if Christ came and went around all the various hostels, shared care flats and supported homes where the disabled abide, and left them whole. I’d rejoice, but many of these people want to preserve their jobs and station, which requires that recovery is defined to include disability and pain.

I am quite sure they would be horrified to find God among them.

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

(John 5:2-18 ESV)

Can you pay attention to the last paragraph. The Jews were not theological dummies. Jesus said the Pharisees sat on the seat of Moses — and after the fall of Jerusalem the Pharisee’s teaching made up a fair amount of the Talmud, and therefore orthodox Judaism.

They knew what Jesus was saying: that he was God incarnate. And their response was to try to kill him. Which brings me back to another conversation on facebook. Charlie Hebdo followed up the all is forgiven muslim issue with one that had the trinity in various sexual positions.

Number of death threats…. zero. For our God is bigger than our sense of outrage. Christ used humour when confronted by the outraged: and then they wanted to kill him. It is those on the weak horse who have to proclaim they are right, using guns.

For us, pens and words alone suffice.