Do you want to get well?

This morning at St John's Seven Kings we had our dramatised nativity service which involves a number of the congregation in acting out the Christmas story before this evening having our traditional Nine Lessons and Carols by Candlelight. For the latter, our choir is joined by other local choristers to expand the range of choral pieces they are able to sing. They had an excellent selection of varied pieces which they performed to a very high standard.

Our curate, Geoff Eze, gave the following brief but challenging reflection in the evening service:

Jesus said to a man by a healing pool, ‘Do you want to get well?’. The man who was paralysed had been there for a long time. The writer of John’s Gospel puts the time he was there as 38 years. About 38 years ago VAT was first introduced in this country. It is a form of consumption tax that is placed on some goods that we purchase.

Anyway this man came up with lot of excuses (as to why he did not want to get well). You see the pool he was laying by was believed to have some particular healing qualities. Some angels would come down and stir it up and whoever got in there first would receive the benefits of the healing powers.

Sometimes life can be full of excuses. Full of ‘what ifs’. We look out on our TV screens and like the man by the pool we lay motionless as the world seem to take its own course. It is like we have no say in the matter. We have seen pictures of our capital decimated by so-called protesters; news stories of more soldiers taken away on far flung battlefields. Closer to home we hear about cuts that are yet to take affect; austerity measures that seem absurdly unfair and we have seen our loved ones pass away and we seem powerless; VAT is due to go up to 20% and West Ham are likely to go down and like the man by the pool all we can seem to do is watch.

Christmas comes around and we are left wondering that all that has changed are that things are not as secure as they were before. Our lives seem that bit more precarious; we are a year older and we might as well just lie by the pool. We come here tonight again to do what we did a year ago wishing for more but essentially hopeless as we sing the same hymns and like the man by the pool wait for someone to push us in.

You see today you may have to ask yourself the question, ‘ Do I want to get well?’. Do I want to be the person who lies by the pool, or do I want these words that we will hear and sing not be so familiar that they breed contempt, but actually plant in me a seed of hope. A hope that resounds like the Angels song to the shepherds and a hope that was like the Star in the East for the Kings. You see Jesus came and gave that man an opportunity to shift, to no longer live for his circumstances but to live with them. The mat on which he lay became the testimony of his life; a reminder of where he had been and a sign of where he was going.

You see God may have come down from heaven to earth but he is not going to change the circumstances that we find ourselves in. Why not? Because he is wanting us to act and join in with him. To reach out our hands to him and more importantly to each other; because we need to look and see if we can, for once, this Christmas actually hear the Angels song in our hearts and feel the heat of hope of the Star of the East. Let not the words we hear and sing tonight be ink on a page, but a chance to ask the question we dare not answer, ‘Do I want to get well?’

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Beverley Knight - Change is Gonna Come.