In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Christ is Risen!

Today’s Holy Gospel is usually read during blessing of waters, these words are well known to all of us. The Lord Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem and came to the so-called sheep pool (Bethesda), a sad and dirty place where there lay the sick and where there were many pagans: till now on the walls of this pool there are pagan inscriptions in which they thank gods for their healing. From time to time the water in the pool was stirred up and the people swearing and pushing one another went into the water, because the one who was the first to step in was made well from whatever disease which he was afflicted. And the more difficult it was to reach the water, the more efforts each of them tried to make. There was envy, hatred, quarrels, groans of the sick; it was a hard, terrible place. And, probably, many people tried to pass this place. Deeply in the ground there were five premises and everywhere there lay groaning and stinking sick people. And Jesus Christ came to the Kingdom of sorrow to share suffering with them. He looked around and paid attention to an old grey paralytic lying without motion. The Lord came up to him and asked, “How long have you been here?” And the paralytic answered, “Thirty eight years, all my life.” All life. Probably some kind people brought him something to eat, somebody turned him over, he was like a corpse but there wasn’t a single man who could carry him to the water. And he had the only hope that some day he would be the first one to step in the water and then he would be healed. He said to the Lord, “I have no strength to crawl to the water, and even if I tried, others would pass and push me away.”

It’s the very limit of person humiliation: as a stone he has been lying in this stinking place all his life left by all, sick and alone and suddenly he hears the voice of Christ Saviour addressing him. He doesn’t know who is this man, who asks him, he answers as in a dream, as in distraction. And the voice says to him, “Arise, take up your pallet, and go home.” And he, as in a dream, began to rise to his feet without saying “thank you”, not thanking God he took his pallet and went home.

And the Lord Jesus knew what kind of person he was, that his soul was far from being irreproachable. When the healed was walking home carrying his pallet, pious people met him and said, “Today in the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet. Who allowed you to do it?”

By the law it wasn’t allowed to do it. And he answered, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, “Take up you pallet and walk.”And I am walking.” “And who has healed you? Who could break the law of God on Sabbath?” “I don’t know”, he answered, “I didn’t see His face.” Afterwards the Lord met him in the temple and said, “Don’t sin any more, so that nothing worse may befall you.” The old man looked at Him and recognized and then went away and told that it was Jesus who had ordered him to break the law of God on Sabbath. The old man betrayed the One who had healed him after many years of serious disease, after so many years of expectation without hope. He betrayed the Lord whom they will again persecute, condemn and say, “It is He who teaches people to break the law of God.”

So today’s Gospel tells us about this event. And at once we see ourselves as if lying just here with our sickness and sins; and we know that there is only the One Who can heal us. And if He extends his helping hand to us, we will be thankful to him. It is He who has become a life-bearing source of healing for us. Just think, there was a pool where the water became healing very seldom, and desperate people rushed to it.

We have another pool – God’s word, inexhaustible source of life, Holy Gospel, Holy Bible where there is all necessary for the life of people. Our source is the Communion Cup to which we come up, a prayer, our life in the Church; this source is stirred up not once a year but always; everybody can come up to it any time. Only touch, only wish, only press against the Lord and you will feel His healing power.

When we experience separations, grief, insult, disappointment, when we are really like dead men, paralytics, incurable sick, recall that we have the only Name, the sweetest Name, the Name Jesus that arises, heals and makes us alive. Amen.