The paralytic spent 38 years waiting to be healed at the miraculous pool.  He put all his hope in this cure, but had no one to put him into the water.  Can you imagine what this did to his soul?  Can you imagine the temptations that it created?  Not just the obvious temptations like anger and frustration, but the much deeper one of despondency.

Despondency is commonly defined as hopelessness, and it is a sin (i.e. a spiritual sickness) because despondent people no longer believe that they can obtain real joy.  While dangerous, this kind of sickness need not be fatal as long as we can still see that real joy exists.   What makes despondency even more dangerous is that over time it becomes natural.  We no longer long for the thing we have lost. 

Have you heard of the story from Aesop’s Fables about the Fox and the Grapes?

1. A FAMISHED FOX saw some clusters of ripe black grapes hanging from a trellised vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at them, but wearied herself in vain, for she could not reach them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and saying: "The Grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought."
   

In the case of this deeper despondency, it isn’t just that the fox dismisses the grapes she cannot reach as being sour; she gives up on wanting something sweet altogether.  When this happens, we have literally “lost hope”; we have come to believe that there is nothing really to be hoped for;   This is the way the world is now.  We have created a culture that accepts the way things are as natural.  We give lip service to our hope that things will get better, but even these hopes betray how much we have settled.  When the fox thinks only of finding a cleaner mud-puddle in which to slake her thirst, she has truly lost hope.  But this is what we have become: a people who dream only of cleaner mud to drink.  This is the culture we have created around our despondency, and we must break free of it.

What is this “muddy water” that the world has taught us to hope for?  What is the pool we wait beside?  More money?  Better job? Retirement?  Better politicians?  Better government programs?   An end to the war?   The ideal marriage partner?  While useful, in and of themselves, these are just cleaner mud-puddles.  Getting them may slake your thirst for a time, but on their won, these cannot bring lasting joy.

The example of money:

Many of us think that our greatest source of stress is money; it may be, but not for the reasons we think.  It’s not really that we don’t have enough money that makes us unhappy.  After all, look at what happens to most of the people who win big in the lottery.  It doesn’t make them happy.  It does not relieve them of their stress.  We can say that we are different.  But are we?  When most of us finally do get a raise, or find a better job, what do we do?  Instead of taking advantage of the financial freedom this offers, we bind ourselves with greater debt so that we are soon as stressed out as we were before.  Then we begin hoping for another raise or a better job to solve our new financial woes.  And the cycle continues.  How does that muddy water taste?

Even a dramatic increase in wealth does not really slake our thirst.  Again, look at the example of big time lottery winners – they just end up drinking a whole lot more muddy water.  Muddy water is all that we know, so it is all that we hope for.  But there is so much more for us to hope for, so much more for us to obtain, if we could just take our eyes off of the miraculous pool for just a moment.

Do you want to be made well?

The paralytic had allowed himself only one hope: to heal his body through the workings of the sheep pool.  But, like our dreams of financial security, even it seemed unobtainable.  But what Christ knew was that the man’s hope itself was too small; that if He only healed his body, that he – like us and winning the jackpot – would only bind himself with new causes for despair.  So Christ told him to change his life, to “sin no more”.

Do you want to be made well?  The healing ministry of Christ continues through His Holy Church, but it may not offer you the healing that you think you need.  It certainly will not offer you the solutions the world has taught you to expect.  For instance, it will not necessarily reverse the effects of age or dramatically increase the size of your bank account.  God could do these things, but why would He when He offers something so much better?   Unlike this fallen world, our Lord does not offer hungry people a stone, or thirsty people muddy water; even if these are the things they think they need.

He offers nothing less than the “Living Water” that brings true refreshment; He offers nothing less than the Bread of His Body that brings the true healing of soul and body.  He offers The Way that brings joy that transcends the recreations of this world.  Do not allow a life spent waiting by the pool keep you from wanting more.  Tell the Lord that you want to be healed.  Accept His healing touch, leave despondency behind, and grow in everlasting joy.