Fourth Sunday of Pascha – Sunday of the Paralytic. Holy Priest-Martyr Januarius and Those with Him (305-11). Holy Martyr Theodore of Pergia (138-61).
Acts 9:32-42. John 5:1-15.
Read Acts 9:32-42
Christ is risen! Trulym He is risen!
What are the good times for? Are all the other times to be endured or persevered through just to get us to the good times?
Today’s epistle reading comes from a good time between two more complicated kinds of times. Before this, there had been murderous persecution of the Church, most recently at the hand of Saul of Tarsus. But then, on the road to Damascus, Saul became Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. But then his preaching too was murderously opposed, leading to relocation for his safety.
After today’s reading, Peter began his stay in Joppa with Simon the tanner, leading to both the greatest expansion of the Church but also her greatest early internal tension – the revelation that the gospel is also for the Gentiles – which tested the unity of the Church and her understanding of the gospel for decades.
In between these times we find Peter was able to go “through all parts of the country”. There was healing and resurrection and many conversions. A good time indeed.
Both kinds of times are part of a larger whole through which God calls us into a fuller engagement with what He is doing in this world. Instead of putting all our focus on what we, in our limited understanding, view as the good times for ourselves, our families, our parishes, our nation, our world – God’s world – by prayerfully opening up to God in anticipation of His work in and through all things, we can discover what our Lord is doing in and through us in all the kinds of times He calls us to live in.