Lenten Journey 2011

Father, may our Lenten observance prepare us to embrace the paschal mystery and to proclaim your salvation with joyful praise.

John: 5: 1-16

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“Do you want to be well?”
The sick man answered him,
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is stirred up;
while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
“It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.’“
They asked him,
“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.

In today’s readings we find the potential benefits of water as a recurring theme. We hear of water in the desert and a pool with potentially healing powers. In the last month, this has not been many people’s experience of water, rather than life-giving, water has shown itself as destructive. Rather than abandoning God in our moments of unforeseen crises, these moments tend to bring us closer to the Transcendent. Perhaps these times remind us of our human frailty. Perhaps it grows out of a human desire to be in control and these moments remind us on a grand scale how little control we really have. It is also interesting how in times of difficulty people often blame their situation, even when it is a natural disaster or physical limitation on their personal actions. Again, I think this comes back to our desire for control. These situations that occur are typically out of our hands, but by blaming it on our own sinfulness, this somehow brings it back under our control (our cause for our effect). It is interesting that even the commentators on today’s Gospel find a need to make it clear that the physical invalidity of the man in John’s Gospel was not related to a previous sinful act.

Our prayer today is for a willingness to grow in trust in the Lord.
We pray for the openness to see God as my stronghold.
We pray for those suffering from situations that are beyond their control.
Come to the waters, all who thirst;
though you have no money,
come and drink with joy.
Isaiah 55:1

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Equipped by the Holy Spirit
Sent to boldly proclaim the love of Jesus Christ to all people.