According to one report, the average lifespan in classical Rome was between 30 to 35 years of age. If that is true, what does that tell us about the poor man in this morning’s gospel story, who had suffered paralytic illness for 38 years? Maybe it tells us that he had never known any other kind of life but suffering. He had never known what it was like to run in a grassy field or play with the other children or enjoy the discoveries of young love. Maybe at the moment he was born he was handed a feeling he would carry the rest of his life but that he did not ask for, the feeling that “I am always going to struggle, because I will never be enough.”

We do not know if our man was born a Jew, but we do find him in a Jewish context. Just over 100 yards away from the pool of Bethesda, near where our man is reclining, we find the courts of the temple. To enter those courts to worship the Lord, one must be pure, and to be pure one must wash in the pool, fully immersed in what was called the mikveh, or ritual bath. When our gospel opens, each one of the multitude of truly needy people is waiting for that moment in the water when he or she might be delivered of suffering. We know the description of that pool, surrounded by five porticoes, or five columns with roofs attached to each other. That pool has been found.

Beginning in the late 1800s and continuing in stages since then, archaeological excavations have occurred in the northeast quadrant of Jerusalem’s old city, and those excavations have revealed what is presumed to be the very pool we encounter in the gospel story. Images of it can be Googled. In addition to that literal part of this story, that the pool of Bethesda really exists, Christian interpretation also notices a metaphorical part to the story. Those five porticoes call to mind the five books of the Mosaic law, the Pentateuch, or Torah, which held a firm grip on both the imagination and the behavior of the observant Jew at the time our story happened. And just as ritual purification in the pool was not enough to be saved, so were the five books of the Torah with its Mosaic law not enough to save. As it turns out, our man is right. “I struggle, because I am not enough.”

Let’s remember that there are three kinds of suffering. First, there is what we may call common suffering. This is the suffering common to all persons. Common suffering is the kind that comes from simply being alive. If it’s not the world around us delivering the burden, it’s the world within. As St. Paul said in 2 Corinthians, outside were conflicts, inside were fears. Common suffering is not the result of sin; it is the result of simply being alive. You know this by experience. Plans go awry, hopes disappointed, expectations unmet, desires unrealized, and for every joy that is just out of reach there are a dozen pains that rush in to take its place. This common suffering burdens all of us, regardless of who we are, where we live, or what we do.

After this common suffering, a second kind of suffering is what we call carnal suffering. Carnal suffering is the kind our poor brother by the pool knows. The action in our story happens in two places: (1) by the pool of water and (2) in the temple afterward. After Christ heals the man by the pool—“Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.”—he finds the man later in the temple. Now that’s a good detail, isn’t it? After something good happens to the man he goes to church. But what does our Lord tell him? “See, you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you.” Unlike common suffering, carnal suffering is directly the result of sin. These are the consequences that come from sinful choices, and they smack all three parts of us: the body, when we suffer from indulging the flesh; the soul, when we suffer from running away from God; and the mind, when we suffering from dwelling on the wrong kinds of thoughts. This is carnal suffering.

Finally, after common suffering and carnal suffering, there is a third kind, experienced whenever we resolve to know and to walk the path of Christ. It is Christian suffering. To love those who do not love in return; to endure temptation when giving in would be so much easier; to stand firm when the group would lead us astray; to be kind to our critics when they give every reason to do them harm; to pray, to study, to fast, to give—when ignoring them all would bring a lot more pleasure—to take up the fight against what one author calls the three enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. This is the suffering of the way of Christ. It is a living martyrdom.

Common suffering, carnal suffering, Christian suffering. Originally, you and I were meant to find pleasure in God in his astonishing nearness, but in falling in love with ourselves, we began to seek pleasure instead in things we could see and touch and taste and feel, and this sinful condition is inescapable, insurmountable. But it is also precisely here where you and I join the story. This is where you and I join our struggle to the struggle of the 38-year-ill paralytic. “I struggle because I am not enough.” We join our insufficiency to his; we join our helplessness to his; we join our need for a savior to his.

“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water moves.” We will never know God, and we will never be saved, until we step up and say the same thing, but with our own words. “Sir, I want to handle the hardships of life, but I can’t.” “Sir, I want to change, but I can’t.” “Sir, I want to overcome this besetting habit, but I can’t.” “Sir, I thought I could trust and lead myself, but I can’t.” “Sir, I thought my intelligence could save me, but it can’t.” “Sir, I thought I was better than other people, but I’m not.” “Sir, the fact is I struggle because I am not enough.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk,” and at once the man was healed and he took up his pallet and walked. The pool with its five porticoes was not enough. The Torah with its five books was not enough. The individual with our five measurements of success—money, looks, intelligence, popularity, and accomplishments—is not enough. It is Jesus or it is nothing. He is either first or he is not even on the list. That in all things the Scripture says Christ may have preeminence.

It is the strong person who accepts the need for a savior; the weak person attempts to go it alone. For all those who come to know the grace of Christ, they are content to struggle, and they are content that they are not enough. They are content to struggle. The struggle is what we bring to God, only what we bring, because deliverance is his job. And they are content that they are not enough. As St. John the Baptist said, “I must decrease; he must increase.” We are created to be in relationship, in fellowship, in communion. Struggle and humility: this is what brought our paralytic toward the inner life in Christ, and this is what brings us toward the inner life of the Church, where there is grace upon grace upon grace. Struggle and humility.