The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
January 18, 2026
St. Matthias Episcopal Church, Whittier, CA
The Rev. Jeannie Martz
“I have a question for you.”
This simple statement can have quite an effect on us. The nature of the effect varies with context and setting of course, but the statement itself still puts us on notice that something is going to be asked of us, something will be required of us. Whether the question is a mental challenge or part of a game, a simple request for information or the one card that will cause the house to fall down; even if it’s the greatest fear of most Episcopalians: “What if I mention my faith in public and someone asks me a question??” – to be told a question awaits us, any question, calls us to attention.
No one asks better questions than Jesus and so today I want to focus on three of his most important ones:
What are you looking for?
What do you want me to do for you?
Do you want to be made well?
All three of these questions appear at least once in the Gospels, and in each case the person at the receiving end of the question has never encountered Jesus before.
The third question I listed, “Do you want to be made well?” comes from the fifth chapter of John, a little further along from today’s reading. While Matthew, Mark, and Luke in their Gospels have Jesus traveling to Jerusalem only once as an adult, a journey that will end at the cross, John places the adult Jesus in Jerusalem three separate times. This conversation takes place during his second visit:
John writes, “Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called Bethzatha, which has five porticoes. In these lie many invalids – blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”
In this morning’s Gospel reading, John the Baptizer specifically says that he didn’t recognize Jesus as the one who is “greater than he” until he witnessed the revelation of Jesus as the one on whom God’s Spirit remains. In this Gospel, revelation precedes recognition, and the man in the porticoes at Bethzatha – also known as Bethsaida and Bethesda – this man has received no such revelation. To him Jesus is just some stranger who has stopped by the mat he’s been lying on for thirty-eight years and has asked him a question that seems to be a bit of a no-brainer.
But questions in John’s Gospel operate in more than one dimension. They operate first in the dimension of the story where they’re part of the flow of the narrative; but they also have a spiritual dimension – so that Jesus isn’t just asking the man if he’d like to be healed physically; he’s asking both the man and everyone who hears this question in any time or place, any century, any fellowship, including us, if we want to be healed, to be made whole; if we want salvation, because in the Bible wholeness and salvation are two sides of the same coin.
At the story level, the man may have heard Jesus’ question as a reproach, because his response is more an explanation than an answer. The footnotes in the NRSV say that some of the other ancient manuscripts of John include the sentence, “…an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water; whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from whatever disease that person had.”
With this in mind, it makes perfect sense for the man to say to Jesus, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Yes, the man wants to be made well, he’s been trying to be made well; but he can’t get to the water by himself.
Every time we hear this question, “Do you want to be made well?” we need to ask ourselves if we have the same courage this man has, because to be made well is to be transformed; to be made well is to receive new life; and to set aside all the wounds, large or small, that may have defined us in the past; all the wounds, large or small, that we may be clinging to, allowing their familiar pain to shape our identity, to frame how we see the world and how the world sees us. If Jesus makes us well, if we become whole, then who are we? Then what do we do?
To the man, Jesus says, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” “At once,” says John, “the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” (Jn. 5:2-9) In the man’s healing, and in ours, is the revelation of who Jesus is. Within the revelation of who Jesus is lies the imperative for us to respond.
The second question, “What do you want me to do for you?” is a popular one in retreat and meditation settings. Included by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Mark’s version reads (Mk. 10:46b-52):
“As [Jesus] and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’”
As I said, these days, encountering Jesus and hearing him ask this question is often the climax of a guided meditation, or perhaps the focus of a prayerful reading of Scripture. In such a guided meditation – and this is a general example - the facilitator slowly leads us, within our own minds, to a place of beauty and safety, sometimes a favorite place of our own that we’re encouraged to visualize. Very gradually, we’re invited to see a figure standing before us, or sitting next to us, shadowy at first, but then recognizable as Jesus, face to face. Radiating love, Jesus looks deep into our eyes and asks, “What would you like me to do for you?” The answer, coming from the depths of heart and soul, is ours and ours alone to give.
One of the ironies in Mark’s story, of course, is that from the very beginning, the only one who really sees the face of Jesus, the only one to whom Jesus’ identity as the Messiah has been revealed, is the blind man. While he’s shouting “Son of David!” – a primary messianic designation – everyone else is trying to keep him quiet. When Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants, because he already knows Jesus to be the Messiah, Bartimaeus doesn’t hesitate to ask for wholeness. In response to Jesus’ question, he promptly says, “My teacher, let me see again.”
“Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately [Bartimaeus] regained his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.”
In complete faith that Jesus is God’s Messiah, Bartimaeus asks him for healing, for transformation and new life – and receiving what he has asked for, he goes forth into his new life as a disciple.
We sometimes say, “Be careful what you ask for, or be careful what you pray for, because you might get it.” We say it tongue in cheek, making a little joke out of it because we know it’s true, and because we know it’s scary: as we pray, as we encounter Jesus face to face and hear this second question, we might find ourselves faced with the invitation to be transformed, to receive new life.
The third question, the one we heard this morning, is the greater context for the other two. “What are you looking for?” These are the very first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John. “What are you looking for?”
At Christmastime the shepherds were looking for a newborn. At Epiphany the Magi were looking for a king. Today, in this season of God’s ongoing self-revelation, John’s disciples are looking for the Messiah, and in response to Jesus’ question, they ask him where he’s staying.
True to form, this question also operates on two levels. On the level of the story, John’s disciples are literally asking Jesus where he’s staying. They’re near Jerusalem, near the Jordan where John has been baptizing, and they want to know where they can find Jesus again.
At the spiritual level, this is a deeper question about discipleship. In the words of John the Evangelist, John the Baptizer says that he saw God’s Spirit descend upon Jesus at his baptism and remain upon him – the Spirit is permanently with Jesus; it won’t come and go, leaving him sometimes in the power of the Spirit and sometimes not. In the same vein, the two disciples are now asking Jesus if and how they too can share in this relationship that he has with God through God’s Spirit. In John’s Greek, asking where Jesus is staying is the same as asking where Jesus is remaining. And Jesus says to them, “Come and see,” a response one author has called “an offer to see Jesus with the eyes of faith.” (NIB, 531)
Another author has said, “You will see the kingdom of God, but it will not be what you expected to see. And you will see the day when you will rejoice that [the kingdom] was so much more than you could have expected.” (Christian Century, 12/21/16, p. 21)
What are we looking for? When we come together in this place, when we come together to worship, what are we looking for? Fellowship? A sense of belonging? A place to give, to serve, to do the Loving Thing and make a difference in our community and in the world? Certainly these are aspects of our life together here at St. Matthias, but they’re not unique to this parish or even to the Episcopal Church. Each of these things can be found and experienced in other organizations as well.
What would we tell Jesus we’re looking for? That we want to know and feel God’s love? That we want to show the world a new way of being and living together, a way that honors and values all people? That we want to share in a life that has eternal significance? Yes, and more.
C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters purports to be an exchange of letters between Screwtape, a senior demon in the Nether Regions, and his young nephew Wormwood, a junior demon stationed in the world and charged with winning human souls for Hell through what are disconcertingly ordinary means. The “patient” (as he’s called) that Wormwood is currently working on has recently had a conversion experience and is a new churchgoer, filled with faith and idealism, and Screwtape gives his nephew the following advice:
“Wormwood, the Church is a fertile field if you keep them bickering over details, structure, money, property, personal hurts and misunderstandings. One thing you must prevent: don’t ever let them look up and see the banners of victory flying, for if they see the banners flying then you have lost them forever. Never let them see the Glory of God.”
What are we looking for? We are looking for transformation and new life; we are looking for a relationship with Jesus and with each other in the presence of God and in the power of God’s Spirit.
We are looking to carry Christ’s banners of victory and transformation into the hurt and pain of this world, so that all of us may see the Glory of God everywhere.
“Teacher, where are you staying?”
“Come and see.”
Amen.