Acts
9:32-42; John 5:1-15
Christ
is risen!
In this glorious
season of Pascha, we continue to celebrate our Lord’s victory over death in His
resurrection on the third day. Today we
proclaim that He liberates us not only from the grave, but also from the
paralysis and weakness that keep us from living with the freedom and strength of
His sons and daughters. Our hope for
sharing in the joy of the empty tomb is not reserved exclusively for the
eschatological future, but includes our healing today from the diseases of soul
that keep us stuck in suffering and pain.
The
man in today’s gospel reading was certainly stuck, as he had been waiting for
38 years for someone to put him in the pool where he could be healed. Perhaps because it is possible to get used to
just about anything after such a long time, the Lord asked what seemed like an
obvious question, “Do you want to be healed?”
After a lifetime of being one of the blind, lamed, or paralyzed, a
person might simply accept that that is who he or she is and try to make the
best of it. The Savior challenged the
man by asking that question because he would have to obey the command “Rise,
take up your pallet, and walk” as soon he was healed. The Lord did for him what he could never have
done by himself, but the man had to respond faithfully in order for that great
blessing to become effective in his life.
It is clear that this fellow really wanted to be healed, for he obeyed
even as he was criticized by legalists who said that it violated the Sabbath
laws to walk around carrying a bed.
In
order for us to find healing as those who are spiritually blind, lame, and
paralyzed, we must embrace the good news of our Savior’s resurrection, of His
victory over death and the corrupting power of sin. We proclaim His resurrection not merely as an
abstract truth or a unique event long ago, but as the very meaning of our
lives. We must learn to hear our Risen
Lord asking each of us, “Do you want to be healed?” Do you want to be set free from bondage to
your sins and how they have weakened you throughout your life? Even as we cannot raise ourselves from the
grave, we cannot make ourselves participants in God’s holiness simply by trying
really hard on our own terms. But
because of what Christ has done by conquering the tomb and the enslaving power
of sin, we may share personally in the restoration of the human person in God’s
image and likeness that He has worked. Like the paralyzed man in today’s gospel
reading, we may embrace liberation from the corruptions of sin by responding to
the Lord in faithful obedience.
The
good news of Pascha is that we do so, not by our own ability to fulfill the legal
requirements of a religion, but by humbly uniting ourselves to Christ. He has
triumphed over death and the paralyzing power of sin. He has emptied the tomb. So already as we live and breathe in this
world, we may know the joy of His resurrection by rising up with Him into a new
life of holiness.
Our
own paralysis is probably not as obvious as was that of the man in today’s
gospel reading, but it is equally as real.
We may be so used to the disabling power of our passions that we are hardly
even aware of them anymore. To the
extent that we are aware, we may have given up hope for finding healing from
them. Perhaps for more than 38 years we
have been beset by pride, anger, lust, envy, slander, or a refusal to forgive
those who have wronged us. Perhaps we have found ways to become comfortable
with our sins or simply to accept them as our personality traits. Perhaps we
have tried to justify indulging our passions as a way of being true to
ourselves; if so, we have chosen paralysis over true freedom.
The
hard truth is that we cannot enter into the liberating joy of our Lord’s
resurrection as long we refuse to rise, take up our beds, and walk. To refuse to accept His healing is to refuse
to embrace the good news of His resurrection.
Remember that the knowledge of God is personal and experiential. We do not simply think, speak, or have
emotions about Him, but truly participate in His life by grace. In order to know Him, we must turn away from
our addiction to sin in all dimensions of our lives. That requires the humble obedience of getting
up from our comfortable beds of sin and moving forward in a life that is truly
human, that embodies what it means to live as one who bears God’s image and
likeness.
The
paralyzed man surely struggled with fear and doubt as he stood up and began to
walk around. He had to give up what had
become second nature to him in so many ways.
He had to think and act differently than he had throughout the course of
his entire life. He had to hear the
criticism of those who told him it was wrong to walk around carrying his bed on
the Sabbath. He had a difficult road
ahead of him as he learned to live in a totally different way than he was used
to. He may even have thought at times
that it would have been easier to remain paralyzed.
We
have a lot to learn from his good example of obedience despite fear and
discomfort. Every step that we take for
the healing of our souls presents similar challenges. We are so accustomed to catering to our own weaknesses
that we may be terrified at opening them to the healing strength of
Christ. It hurts to strengthen muscles
that have become weak; the same is true for stretching those that have become
tight. In the Christian life, it is unfortunately
much easier in the moment to remain weak and paralyzed than it is to do what is
necessary to become healthy and strong.
It
would not be surprising if the formerly paralyzed man actually stumbled and
fell down at times, for he was not at all used to walking around. We should not be surprised when we fall back
into familiar sins of thought, word, and deed.
That is when we must commend
ourselves to the Risen Lord in Whose
strength we are always able to rise up and take another step into the joy of
the Kingdom. The One Who rose from the
dead provides the strength that we need in order to advance in the healing of
our souls. He graciously enables us to share
more fully in His eternal life and to know the joy of His resurrection.
This
Pascha, let us turn our attention away from what we think we cannot do and
toward what our Lord can do in us. Let
us stop defining ourselves by our own brokenness and weakness, and instead
embrace the Savior’s victory over sin and death as the deep truth of our
lives. Regardless of our fears, worries,
and lack of self-confidence about finding healing for our souls, let us simply offer
ourselves to Him in humble obedience, time and time again. That means turning away from the power of the
grave and toward the blessedness of the Kingdom as we struggle to rise up from
our sins into a new life of holiness.
The
alternatives are clear. To continue in
sin is simply to weaken ourselves further, while to rise up in obedience is to
embrace the holy strength that conquers even death itself. If we believe in Christ’s resurrection, let
us live the resurrection as we open ourselves to a liberating strength that can
enable even a lifelong paralytic to walk around carrying his bed. This man shows us how to receive healing from
even the most debilitating sins: humble
obedience in response to the unfathomable mercy of the Lord. And since Pascha manifests His mercy so
powerfully, there could be no greater call to embrace the healing of our souls
than what we celebrate in this blessed season—for Christ is risen!
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