Today’s Gospel Text:
After
this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by
the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za'tha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of
invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. 5 One man was there, who had been
ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew
that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to
be healed?" 7 The sick man answered him,
"Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled,
and while I am going another steps down before me." 8 Jesus said to him, "Rise,
take up your pallet, and walk." 9 And at once the man was healed,
and he took up his pallet and walked.
Now that day was the sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who
was cured, "It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your
pallet." 11 But he answered them, "The
man who healed me said to me, 'Take up your pallet, and walk.'" 12 They asked him, "Who is
the man who said to you, 'Take up your pallet, and walk'?" 13 Now the man who had been healed
did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the
place. 14 Afterward, Jesus found him in
the temple, and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing
worse befall you." 15 The man went away and told the
Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16 And this was why the Jews
persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the sabbath. John 5:1-16
Reflection: There
was a story told by a religious, of a man who had once gone to a retreat centre
and he came back testifying everywhere and to everyone that he was healed of
his illness.
The reason for the man’s confidence was the
absence of the symptoms which accompanied his debilitating condition.
A
few months later, the man could no longer testify about this healing, as the
sickness had returned.
This
was reason enough for the critics to condemn such indiscriminate testimonies
which lay claim to healing, when they felt there was no such healing in the
first place.
The
critics felt that it was never a healing in the first place but may have been a
placebo effect on the mind or some sort of amelioration at the psychological
level.
What
may have happened, in this particular case and which the critics may have never
bothered to find out or may have overlooked is this: The concerned person may
have actually got the healing but on account of his slip and falling away into
sin the sickness may have returned.
But
the many critics who passed a judgment against him also did so against the
retreat centre and its works. In other
words they considered all the healings as humbug!
In
the gospel we could have a similar situation, if not for the warning of Jesus to
the man who was an invalid for thirty-eight years:
"See, you are
well! Sin no more, that nothing worse befalls you." (vs. 14)
One of the sin that the
invalid needed to avoid in his life was not to fail in testifying to what Jesus
had done to him. He would thus assert the truth of his new found faith in a God who works in
creation; a God who even goes against his own law in order to heal a person.
God heals even in our
day if only we believe in his merciful love and put our trust and confidence in
him.
Prayer: O
Lord of the Sabbath and all that you have created heal the many fears in my
heart that I may proclaim you fearlessly.
DD = Dedicated
Discipleship: Come grow
in the Lord with us
