Scripture/Bible: 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healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd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: We
talk about imitating Jesus and going about doing good. This good could mean for
some the act of reaching out to others in trials, troubles, sufferings and
pain. For others it could mean reaching out to the despised, the marginalized
and the rejected. For some it could mean
the proclamation of a corrupted gospel with a human agenda.
Those
who have been taken up by ideologies and confuse Christ’s teaching with it go
to the extent of talking about establishing a kingdom of justice, peace and
brotherhood. Some after the initial
shock have got carried away by such teaching because they are bombarded by it
and that too constantly.
Jesus’
attitude in the Gospel is always the norm of behavior and to give it a pure
humanistic tinge aimed at human emancipation apart from Christ is like teaching
a person to eat with hope from an empty plate.
He
is the bread of the life, the heavenly manna in whom the rich and the poor can
find their ultimate fulfillment.
Whatever
works of mercy and charity one maybe involved in, if its beginnings are not in
Christ and its end not oriented towards Jesus Christ then it is purely Satan’s
agenda that we promote. No matter how
noble and good it may be, no matter how benevolent it may sound, no matter how
empowered the recipients may feel about it, no matter how much peace and
harmony is restored in society, you are being shortsighted and ultimately substituting yourself and your agenda in place of Christ
Jesus, the savior of the world.
If
one wants to imitate the master then in the Gospel text we have an example of
Jesus action in an abundant situation of human misery and sufferings. We are told that here lay a multitude of
invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed. Yet he
by ignoring all he healed only this particular man who was ill.
If
that invalid would have received his healing in that pool, he would never have
heard the real truth of his life; "See, you are well! Sin no more, that
nothing worse befalls you." Similarly we receive our many healings from the many places
and sources available in human knowledge and worst still, even in New Age spirituality,
thus we may never allow nor proclaim the truth of the Gospel to speak to us or
to others.
Prayer: “Sanctify
them in the truth; thy word is truth.” John 17:17
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