Faithfulness

Three weeks ago, we celebrated the Feast of Feasts, Great and Holy Pascha. We celebrated not just Christ’s resurrection from the dead, but through His resurrection we celebrate our deliverance from slavery to the enemy.

Two weeks ago, on Saint Thomas Sunday, we heard about our Lord appearing in the midst of His Disciples bodily after the resurrection, offering them His peace, and revealing to them the things needed to bolster and strengthen their faith, and said to them “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” We saw that our Lord cares for His disciples, even when they fail, even when they are afraid, even when they are uncertain in their faith. He does not forsake His disciples even when they forsake Him. He comes to announce to them their deliverance from the bonds of the enemy, but also deliverance from their fear and unbelief.

Last week, we heard about the Myrrhbearing Women who because they didn’t depart from Christ during His trial and passion, or even at the moment of His Crucifixion, and because they ministered to His body after He was taken down from the cross, and sought to minister to Him after the Sabbath, they became the first to behold the Lord risen from the dead. They are delivered from the enemy and also deliverance from the sadness and despondency that would bring them down into despair.

Today, we heard in the gospel about a man who was paralyzed and who sought healing for himself. This miracle took place before the resurrection of Christ, but speaks to us nonetheless of our deliverance in Christ. This paralytic knew of a miracle that would happen consistently every year. There was a pool in Jerusalem near the Sheep’s Gate, which was a well-known source of healing; and so at this time of year, the area was filled with people who were sick, blind, lame, or paralyzed. Every year this paralytic, along with a multitude of other people, would make sure that he was at the very place where that miracle would happen.

We aren’t told how he got there, nor how others made it to the pool; whether they were brought by family, friends, or just charitable people. Regardless, the paralyzed man lamented that he had no one to actually get him down to the water when the angel would move the water. He could find a way to the Pool of Bethesda, He could eventually get to the water, but he could never get there on his own fast enough to find healing. Nevertheless, for thirty-eight years, he faithfully went to the pool.

I’m sure in the early years, he was probably hopeful, even excited for that day. But as time wore on, he probably lost a lot of that hope and enthusiasm. He probably went through moments of despair. But he kept going. When Jesus appeared to Him on that feast, and asked him if he wanted to be made well, his reply shows a little bit of cynicism: "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." Of course he wanted to be made well, he just couldn’t make it happen.

We are like those in Hades. We need to be given life and raised up with Christ. We are like the disciples who followed Christ in that we want to learn from Him, but sometimes the fears and concerns of this world pull us from the perfect path. He comes to us nonetheless. We are like the Myrrhbearers . We serve Christ through caring for His body, the Church. The more that we are here and minister to His Body; the more often and the more quickly we will encounter Him and have renewed hope and joy. But we are also very often also like this paralytic.

How often have you lamented the same spiritual illnesses? How often do you get tired of confession being the same week after week? Do you feel like you are coming to a place where everyone else is getting healed and set free from their infirmities and here you sit paralyzed and unable to get the healing that is right in front of you? Perhaps at times you have become cynical and despondent or sunk into the depths of despair. Years will come and years will go and you will be the same person unable to move yourself to get to the healing that you do desperately desire. But the good news that we heard this morning is that Christ comes to this man too.

Christ comes to that man beside the water, not in it. This man was only at the Sheep’s pool one day a year, and yet Christ didn’t come to Him at His home or by the roadside where he might have begged. He came to Him where the man expected to find healing. Note also that Christ singles Him out for healing. He didn’t come to the Sheep’s pool and heal every person there. Christ came for Him and offered him what he had been faithfully seeking for thirty-eight years.

The Church sees in this healing of the paralytic an image of baptism. Instead of one person every year being healed by entering the water, all are invited to enter the water and meet Christ and be healed. But we need to set our expectations. We may not be completely changed in a single moment. Most aren’t. We won’t be healed if we don’t truly desire it. Most of us don’t really want healing because we’re still too attached to the things that are making us unwell. But we can be certain that we won’t be healed out there in the world, we will be healed in here; in the church.

The paralytic wasn’t healed because he believed in Jesus. He didn’t even seem to know who Jesus was. We don’t hear that he was pious or perfect. In fact, after Christ healed the man, He spoke these words: “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you." God came to him in his faithfulness, but also in his sin. This life of constant falling down and getting back up can wear us down, and it can be humiliating to fall into sin and have to come into the presence of God, but we need the humility, and it is in our consistency, in our perseverance, and in dragging ourselves to Church (kicking and screaming if need be) that we will find ourselves healed even if it takes decades.

This may sound bleak, but it is offered in this time of great joy. By taking up His abode in the tomb, our Lord descended into darkness and death so that light, life and joy might be given to all, even to those in the lowest depths. The struggle against sin which seeks to enslave us, and the struggle for living virtuously are one and the same. If we want to be made well, we need to stop focusing on the fact that others are being made well before us, or how long it is taking for us to be healed, or on how many times we have failed; we need to stop looking at those things and look to Christ Who is standing with us and asking, “Do you want to be made well?” He can accomplish those things that we cannot, but we must continuously turn to Him in repentance and confession and express our desire to be made well.