So the elections are past.  Not that they seemed to run too smoothly.  The new electronic counting system had a few bugs in it.  The different methods of indicating your choice on ballot papers led to confusion – 100,000 papers were spoiled.

I’m not a political person yet during these elections with Westwood Church hosting an election forum I felt obliged to know something about what was going on and in particular what was required in hosting and chairing an election forum.  The Election forum held in Ballerup hall attracted around 250 people.  The forum held here attracted less that that.  At least my reaction was that if I saw that number of people present on a Sunday morning I would be disappointed in attendances!  The thing is I expected that the church would have been full that night of 25^th April when eight candidates were addressing very local issues, the kind of issues that most of us have concerns about, just the very things that we all moan about – Hospitals, schools, housing, care of the elderly, green belt areas, the general state of disrepair and lack of maintenance around East Kilbride.

I came away from our own Election Forum with the very real sense that politicians struggle to get people’s interest.  Sometimes the turn out at the Polls is less than 50% of the population, which means that Councillors, Councils and even Governments are sometimes elected by a minority of people!  I wonder why the population is so disinterested.  Maybe we feel that our one vote doesn’t really change anything.  Maybe we feel that politicians are ineffectual, don’t listen and change nothing anyway.  Maybe we feel that none of them can really be trusted, there is so much “Spin” making things sound better than they really are, truth manipulated to create the best picture, so many things covered up.  Half truths!

Now Half-truths give such an unfair picture. In some ways they're worse than downright lies, for they usually contain just enough of the truth to point people in totally the wrong direction. And that's their function. We tell half-truths in order to mislead, in order to mask the whole truth, which may well be unpalatable and painful to receive.

So I was quite surprised to discover that today's gospel reading could be termed a half-truth. Jesus was in the north eastern area of the temple in Jerusalem, by the big double pool of Bethesda with its five porticoes or arcades. In each of these arcades lay a variety of invalids; the blind, the lame and the paralysed.

Jesus picked out one particular man. Someone who'd been lying there for thirty-eight years. "Do you want to be healed?" asked Jesus.

The man said, "There's no-one to help me into the water at the right time." So Jesus said, " Rise, pick up your mattress and walk." And the man was instantly healed. He picked up his mattress and walked. End of today's story.

But is that the whole truth? If you go on to read the rest of the story, then a somewhat different scenario emerges.

The very next fact we learn is that all this happened on the Sabbath, on that most sacred of days, when no Jew was allowed to do anything which might be construed as 'work'. The Jews spotted the man carrying his mattress and challenged him. "It's the Sabbath. You're breaking the law. You can't carry that mattress on the Sabbath."

The man said, "Don't blame me. The man who healed me, he told me to do it."

So the Jews said, "Who is this man who healed you on the Sabbath?" The man didn't know who Jesus was - but the story goes on! It seems Jesus searched out the healed man, and found him in the temple. Why did he look for him? I can't think of any other occasion when Jesus searched out someone he'd healed. It's usually the other way round, the healed person seeks Jesus. But on this occasion Jesus searched for the man because he had a specific message for him. "Make sure you stay well," warned Jesus. "Sin no more, that nothing worse befalls you."

Already I begin to feel differently about this whinging, whining man. And what he did next reinforces my opinion, for he went straight to the Jewish authorities and pointed out Jesus to them. "That's him," he said, "That's the man who healed me." And from that moment onwards, the Jews began to persecute Jesus. What an interesting way of showing gratitude!

So let's look at the first part of the story again, the part that's set for today. This time in the light of what happened later.

We're at the side of the pool, with all the invalids lying in the five colonnades. Out of all those invalids, Jesus picked out one particular man, someone who'd been lying there for thirty-eight years. Why him? Perhaps we're given a clue in the very interesting question Jesus asked. "Do you want to be healed?" Perhaps Jesus didn't need to ask the others that question, for he knew they all wanted to be healed. But did this man really want to be healed?

It's interesting that the man didn't reply directly. Perhaps he couldn't, because with Jesus' eyes searching his soul he was unable to directly reply with integrity. Instead, he made a kind of excuse. Almost as though he identified blame in Jesus' question. Perhaps he was making a good living out of lying by the pool, begging, playing on people's emotions.

So he whinged. "It's not my fault," he said. "I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the spring bubbles up. All these other people, they get help. I do try. While I'm going down the steps, someone else gets there first. Poor old me."

Jesus just looked at him, with those eyes, which see into the heart and said, "Get up, pick up your mattress and walk." And the man immediately did precisely that. He picked up his mattress and he scuttled away, unable to face the truth about himself. He didn't even bother to say, "thank you," but instead went straight to the authorities and denounced Jesus, the person who had healed him.

Did he want to be healed? By his response after the event, it would seem not. Jesus had disturbed his lifestyle, which may not have been as uncomfortable as it sounds, and he was out to get Jesus if he could do so without landing himself in trouble.

So the whole story could be interpreted in a very different way to the half story.

Half-truths are always dangerous, whether they're Biblical half-truths or any other sort of half-truth. Taking a verse out of the Bible here, or a phrase there, and basing judgement on that one verse or phrase, nearly always leads not towards the truth, but away from the truth. It misleads.

To lead a Christian life it's necessary to take Bible stories and Bible phrases in context. In the context of the rest of the story, and in the context of first century customs and ideas, and most importantly, in the context of the whole ministry of Jesus, delving closely into the detail to discover as much of the truth as possible.

And to lead a Christian life it's important not to rush into hasty judgement based on the flimsy half-truths of hearsay evidence or newspaper reports.