4th Epiphany
John 5: 1-18
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| Robert Bateman |
Some time later, there was a
Jewish feast, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem, near
the Sheep’s Gate, a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which is surrounded by 5
covered porches. Here lay a great many invalids, the blind, the lame
[crippled], the weak [withered], waiting for the water to begin moving. For
from time to time a powerful angel of the Lord descended into the pool and
stirred up the waters. The first one in the pool after such a disturbance would
be cured of whatever ailment he had.
And there was a certain man there who had been an
invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and became aware that he
had been ill for so long, he asked him,
“Do you want [have the will] to become whole?”
The invalid answered him, “Lord [Sir], I have no
one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to
get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Rise up, take up your
pallet, and walk.” At once the man was healed
and picked up his pallet and walked.
However it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore
the Jewish leaders said to the man who was healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law
forbids you to carry your pallet.”
But he replied, “The man who healed me said to me,
“take up you pallet and walk!”
And they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you
‘take it up and walk’?”
But the one who was healed had no idea who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, as there was a crowd in the place.
Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and said to
him, “Take to heart what I say: Behold, you have become whole. Sin no more,
lest your destiny bring you something worse.”
The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that
Jesus was the one who had healed him. That is why they persecuted Jesus and
sought to kill him, because he did these things on the Sabbath.
Then he himself countered them with the words,
“Until now my Father has worked, and from now on I also work.”
Then they sought all the more to kill him, because
not only had he broken the Sabbath, but also because he had called God his own
Father and had set himself equal to God.
4th Epiphany
January 27, 2013
John 5: 1-18
To get to a goal, we need to take actual steps. Wish and
desire can get us started. But we need the strength of our will to carry us
forward.
Last week we heard about two men who took the necessary
steps, the leper and the centurion. This week’s reading focuses on the element of the will itself. For it is
the paralytic’s will itself that is paralyzed and needs help. He has the wish,
but his will does not have enough force even to get him to the natural place of
healing. Christ must help him draw together sufficient will force to get him up
off his bed.
‘Is it your will to become whole?’ He asks the man. The man
admits that he has been unable to make it on his own for the last 38 years. So
Jesus helps. He gives him a kind of injection of Christ-Will—the same
Christ-Will that allows all of us as children to overcome gravity, to pull
ourselves into the upright and to walk. It is as though the man is reborn—and
he rises up and walks.
But there is a catch. There is a great risk of relapse,
since the hopeless, passive despair that had weakened his soul and body over
decades had become a habit of mind. ‘Sin no more’, Christ says; that is, do not
let yourself fall back into your old ways. Maintain your striving uprightness
of body and soul, lest destiny bring you something worse.’
Once one has stepped onto the path, one cannot go back
without damage to self. And Christ will always help. In the words of Teresa of
Avila
… God is always there, if you feel
wounded. He kneels
over this earth like
a divine medic,
and His love thaws
the holy in us.[1]
[1]
St. Teresa of Avila, “When the Holy
Thaws,” in Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by
Daniel Ladinsky
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