Fourth Sunday after Pascha. Sunday of the Paralytic, Tone 3; our Venerable Father Theodore of Syceum (613)
Read
Acts 9:32-42; John 5:1-15
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
Imagine going into a hospital waiting room and seeing many sick and scared people desperately waiting, some more and some less patiently to see the doctor. You’d be fairly confident that if we asked one of those suffering people if they “wanted to be made well” they would respond with a strong “yes!”
Now imagine finding an old man hidden in the corner who had spent the majority of his life in that waiting-room waiting for the doctor and asking him the same question. I think the response would be less strong: “yeah, sure, that’d be great if that can ever happen…”
Our Lord asks a surprising question in our Gospel reading today. You would think that anyone who has been coming back day-in and day-out for thirty-eight years (longer than most people lived at that time by the way) and obviously needed help to get there, that he would desperately want to be healed. And yet, the first question Christ asks him is if he really wants to be healed!
We can grow accustom to being sick brothers and sisters, and in some cases, we must resign ourselves to this. But even more frightening is that we can resign ourselves to being sinful. This is the real danger, and what Our Lord warns the sick man in our Gospel- not to sin, in case something worse should befall him.
As we continue our journey towards Pentecost, make the firm conviction, that you, like the paralytic, truly wish to be well. Don’t look for healing in the “pools” of self-help, financial security or pleasure-seeking, but visit Christ, the True Physician in the sacrament of confession. Then rise and walk in the freedom of the Lord!