February 8, 2026
Indianola Presbyterian Church
"Seen Among the Crowd"
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
February 8, 2026 Based on John 4:46-54; 5:1-11
We don’t often read healing stories back-to-back. Instead we single each one out to stand on its own.
There’s something about reading these two stories together, placed back-to-back like this, that makes them a natural thing to compare and contrast.
Let's start with the first story. We're in Cana of Galilee — the same place where Jesus turned water into wine — and word has reached a man from the king's court that Jesus is nearby. This is someone with power, with access, with resources. If his son were sick in our time, he'd have the best doctors money could buy. He has every advantage the world offers. And none of it is enough.
So he travels to find Jesus. And when he gets there, Jesus doesn't exactly roll out the welcome mat. He says, essentially, "You people only believe when you see a spectacle." It's a rebuke — not just of this man, but of the whole culture of sign-seeking, of demanding proof before offering faith.
But here's what strikes me: the official doesn't argue the theology. He doesn't defend himself. He just says, "Come down. It's life or death for my son."
That's a man who has run out of options. His Pride, status, strategy — none of it matters anymore. All he has left is the raw, desperate love of a parent, and he is willing to lay it bare in front of a stranger.
And Jesus hears him. Jesus sees what this man is carrying — not just fear, but the kind of helplessness that only comes when you love someone and you cannot fix what's happening to them. Jesus doesn't make him prove his faith first. He simply says, "Go home. Your son lives."
The man believes. Not because he saw a miracle. He believes on the bare word. He walks home trusting something he cannot yet verify. And by the time he gets there, his servants meet him with the news: the fever broke. Yesterday. At the exact moment Jesus spoke miles away.
This event sweeps over his household and causes them all to believe. Not because of a spectacle. Because a father was seen in his pain, and someone met him there.
Now we cross into the second story, and the contrast is immediate. We've moved from a man of the king's court — named, respected, powerful — to a man who isn't even given a name. He's just a man. No family mentioned. No one to advocate for him. He's been lying by this pool for thirty-eight years …watching as others get helped, get healed, get chosen, while he remains unseen. Think about what that means. For perspective.. That’s my age, that’s the same number of years I've been on this earth. He has watched seasons change hundreds of times from that spot. He has watched other people get healed and walk away. He has watched the world move around him while he stayed perfectly, terribly still. And when Jesus finds him out of the hundreds of people there who are also sick — when Jesus sees him — the first thing Jesus asks is not, "How long have you been here?" He already knows that. The question Jesus asks is remarkable: “Do you want to be healed?” “Do you want to get well?"
I've been sitting with that question all week. Jesus gives him the power. Jesus gives him the autonomy; Jesus gives him the chance to choose. Thirty-eight years this man has been sick and incapacitated
I wonder what it does to a person, carrying something that heavy for that long. What happens when suffering becomes so familiar that it’s all you know? Would the pain you know feel safer than the unknown of transformation? Of healing?
Jesus doesn't ask him, "What's wrong with you?" He already knows. Jesus has eyes. He can see this man stretched out by the pool. He asks something far more intimate: "Do you want to be healed?"
On the surface, it seems almost absurd. Of course he wants to get well. He's been lying there for thirty-eight years. But I don't think Jesus is being flippant. I think Jesus is doing something very intentional. He is asking this man to say it. To name what he wants. To stop being a body lying by a pool and become a person with a desire, a will, a voice.
And the man's answer is heartbreaking. He doesn't say yes. He explains why he can't. "I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in."
Thirty-eight years, and what he's learned is not that he's sick. He's learned that he is alone. That no one is going to help him. That the system wasn't built for someone like him, and no one has ever shown up to change that.
Jesus doesn't debate the logistics of the pool. He doesn't explain how the water works or argue about whether the man deserves healing. He just says, "Get up. Take your bedroll. Start walking." And the man does.
Rich or Poor, Named, or unnamed, I think we all could use a little healing right now. After these past weeks of watching horrific arrests, senseless murders, humans inflicting unimaginable pain on one another—we are enduring a collective trauma. We have been walking through days that feel impossibly heavy. Some of us are carrying griefs and anxieties that have been with us for years already, and to make it all worse now they're compounded by the weight of what we're witnessing in our world.
So I want us to sit with Jesus’ question this morning. Not as an abstract theological exercise, but as a real, personal invitation. If Jesus approached you today, singled you out from a crowd of hundreds of people all in need of healing… And asked you… Do you want to be healed? How might you respond? What healing might you want? What affliction comes to mind that you have been carrying for far too long? What pain have you grown so accustomed to that you've stopped even naming it as pain? If Jesus asked you, "Do you want to be well?"—how would you respond?
Would you let yourself answer truthfully? Or would you, like the man by the pool, immediately explain all the reasons why healing isn't possible for you? Why your situation is different? Why you don't have what you need, or the right people, or the right timing? Could you allow that healing? Or have we become so accustomed to the tension and anxiety of this era—of our personal histories—that we could barely let ourselves experience what wholeness might feel like?
Here's what strikes me about both these healings: they're so intimate. This isn't Jesus preaching to thousands. This isn't the feeding of the five thousand. These are one-on-one encounters. In the first story, a father desperate for his son locks eyes with Jesus and won't let go until he gets what he came for. There's something almost uncomfortable about that persistence, that raw need laid bare.
In the second story, it's Jesus who does the pursuing. Out of hundreds of sick people—blind, lame, paralyzed, all waiting by that pool—Jesus sees this man. Learns his story. Knows how long he's been there. And asks him that piercing question.
I wonder if one of the most healing things Jesus does in these stories is simply seeing people's pain with his own eyes. Understanding their hurt directly. Not as a category. Not as a problem to solve or a theological point to make. But as them—in all their specificity, their desperation, their long-suffering.
Being seen like that changes us.
The man by the pool had been overlooked for thirty-eight years. Passed over. Forgotten. And then Jesus walks up and singles him out. You. Out of all these people, you. How does that feel—to be chosen like that? To be seen when you've grown used to being invisible? For some of us in this room, being seen has not always been safe. Being singled out has meant judgment, rejection, condemnation. Some of us have been told that parts of who we are need fixing, need healing, need to be cut away. We've been approached with a kind of scrutiny that wounds rather than heals. That's not what's happening here.
Jesus isn't looking at this man as a project. He sees him as a person who has suffered, who is suffering still, who deserves wholeness. The question isn't "What's wrong with you that I need to fix?" It's "Do you want to be healed?" It centers the man's own desire. His own agency. His own longing for something different.
So what about us? What are we carrying?
Maybe it's shame that has been with us so long we don't even recognize it as shame anymore—just as "the way things are." Maybe it's grief that we've been told we should be over by now, so we've learned to carry it silently. Maybe it's exhaustion from trying to hold everything together, from being strong for everyone else, from never letting anyone see us stretched out by the pool. Maybe it's the trauma of these recent weeks—images we can't unsee, headlines that sit like stones in our stomachs, the helpless rage at systems that keep grinding people down. Maybe it's the cumulative weight of years of being told you're too much or not enough, that your love is wrong, that you need to be someone other than who you are.
What would you name, if Jesus asked you directly?
And here's the other thing I notice: Jesus doesn't heal on our timeline or in the way we expect. The court official wanted Jesus to come with him, to be physically present. Jesus heals from a distance with a word. The father has to trust that bare word all the way home. The paralyzed man thought healing meant getting into the pool first. Jesus bypasses the pool entirely and just tells him to get up and walk.
Sometimes healing looks nothing like we imagined. Sometimes it comes when we've stopped expecting it. Sometimes it asks something of us we didn't know we had to give. "Get up. Take your bedroll. Start walking." That bedroll—that's the thing that held him for thirty-eight years. That’s been his whole identity, his whole story. And Jesus tells him to pick it up and carry it. Not to leave it behind and pretend those years didn't happen, but to integrate it into his new reality. You were paralyzed. Now you're walking. Both things are true.
So here's my invitation this morning, and I'm going to be quiet after I offer it, to give you space to sit with it:
If Jesus approached you right now, out of this whole congregation, out of the crowd of your own life, and asked you "Do you want to be healed?"—what would you say?
What have you been carrying for too long?
What would it mean to be seen in your pain, not as something to be fixed, but as someone deserving of wholeness?
Can you even let yourself want that?
I don't know what your healing looks like. I don't know if it comes as a word spoken from a distance, or an invitation to get up and walk, or something else entirely.
But I know this: Jesus sees you. Out of the crowd, out of the hundreds of people all carrying their own hurts—you are seen.
And the question isn't whether you're worthy of healing. You are.
The question is: Do you want to be well?
May we have the courage to answer honestly. May we have the strength to get up when healing calls. And may we have the grace to carry our stories with us as we walk into whatever newness is coming.
Amen.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE “There Is a Balm in Gilead” arr. Ronald A. Nelson
INTROIT
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch
One: This is the day that the Lord has made
All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
*CALL TO WORSHIP
One: Come, all who long to be seen and known.
Many: We come with our whole selves, trusting God meets us here.
One: Come, all who carry hope, pain, and unanswered questions.
Many: We come believing God listens before God speaks.
All: Let us worship the God who restores life, one person at a time.
*HYMN 301 “Let Us Build a House” (All Are Welcome) TWO OAKS
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION
God of mercy, we confess that we often miss the people right in front of us. We cling to rules, routines, and assumptions instead of compassion. We rush past pain we do not understand and overlook stories that make us uncomfortable. We confess that we sometimes confuse healing with fixing, and wholeness with conformity.
Forgive us when we fail to listen, when we judge too quickly, and when we forget that every person bears your image. Turn us again toward love, toward humility, and toward the kind of attention that gives life. Amen.
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON Rev. Trip Porch
*RESPONSE OF PARDON 583 “Gloria, Gloria” 2 times GLORIA (TAIZE)
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM "Let There Be Peace on Earth” Sy Miller & Jill Jackson Miller
arr. Craig Courtney
GODLY PLAY
Congregation: May God be with you there
Children: May God be with you here.
CHILDREN’S RECESSIONAL 175 “Seek Ye First” vs. 1
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
SCRIPTURE John 4:46-54; 5:1-11 MSG & CEB
Now he was back in Cana of Galilee, the place where he made the water into wine. Meanwhile in Capernaum, there was a certain official from the king’s court whose son was sick. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked that he come down and heal his son, who was on the brink of death. Jesus put him off: “Unless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe.”
But the court official wouldn’t be put off. “Come down! It’s life or death for my son.” Jesus simply replied, “Go home. Your son lives.”
The man believed the bare word Jesus spoke and headed home. On his way back, his servants intercepted him and announced, “Your son lives!” He asked them what time he began to get better. They said, “The fever broke yesterday afternoon at one o’clock.” The father knew that that was the very moment Jesus had said, “Your son lives.”
That settled it. Not only he but his entire household believed. This was now the second sign Jesus gave after having come from Judea into Galilee.
Soon another Feast came around and Jesus was back in Jerusalem. Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of people who were sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed sat there. One man had been laid up for thirty-eight years was there. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and learned how long he had been there, he said,
“Do you want to get well?”
The sick man said, “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”
Jesus said, “Get up, take your bedroll, start walking.” The man was healed on the spot. He picked up his bedroll and walked off.
That day happened to be the Sabbath. The Jewish leaders stopped the healed man and said, “It’s the Sabbath. You can’t carry your bedroll around. It’s against the rules.”
But he told them, “The man who made me well told me to. He said, ‘Take your bedroll and start Walking.’”
One: Holy wisdom, Holy Word,
All: Thanks be to God
SERMON Rev. Trip Porch
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
*HYMN 792 “There Is a Balm in Gilead” BALM IN GILEAD
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE followed by the Lord’s Prayer
TIME OF OFFERING online giving is available at www. indianolapres.org/give
On Sundays where uncredited African American Spirituals are sung, any loose offering will go to support the Columbus Cultural Orchestra, whose mission is to advance a collective of multi-generational musicians of color by performing high-quality jazz, classical, and hip-hop music.
OFFERTORY “I Will Be a Child of Peace” Traditional Shaker Hymn arr. By Elaine Hagenberg
Illuminati and the IPC Chancel Choir
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 607 “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow” OLD HUNDREDTH
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION
God of abundance, receive these gifts and use them for the work of healing and hope. May what we share become a sign of your care for the world. Shape us into people who give freely, love deeply, and serve faithfully. Amen
*HYMN 547 “Go My Children With My Blessing” AR HYDY Y NOS
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
CHARGE & BENEDICTION
CHORAL RESPONSE “By Our Love” Christy Nockels
POSTLUDE “Go My Children With My Blessing” arr. Michael Ware
Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452