Wednesday 25 August 2021

More alone

Lord, I have no one to dive into the pool when the water is rough, and as I go, another goes down before me. John 5.7

Many sick people stood before this water, and when it was stirred, the first to jump into it was healed. But for this paralyzed man, this grace was unattainable, his handicap prevented him from going fast.

Double pain : his physical handicap, and his loneliness which confines him to pain.

Did he know Jesus, he who had to spend all his time in this place ? When Jesus said to her : "Do you want to be healed ?" He must have thought he was talking about healing that you had to take the plunge for.

His response is a cry of moral suffering : I have no one ! But Jesus is there, in his mercy and his power. The cripple is no longer alone, but does not know it !

Jesus responds to his two sufferings : he heals him physically, and this man realizes that with Jesus he is no longer alone in the face of adversity.

We all have more or less crippling difficulties. Perhaps, as with this patient, it is the loneliness that prevents any hope of deliverance. By faith you too can realize that with the Lord you are no longer alone.

By ourselves, we could not access grace. But through Jesus Christ, grace comes down to us, it heals the most desperate souls and hearts. We are no longer alone, Jesus Christ is the Savior on whom we can always count.

Francis Rivere

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Proposed reading : Gospel according to John, chapter 5 verses 2 to 8.

5.2 Now in Jerusalem, near the sheep gate, there was a pool which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, and which has five porches.

5.3 Under these porticos a great number of the sick were lying : the blind, the lame, the paralyzed ; they were waiting for the water to move,

5.4 for an angel from time to time descended into the pool and stirred the water ; and the first one that went down into the water after she was stirred was healed, regardless of his illness.

5.5 There was a man who had been crippled for 38 years.

5.6 Jesus saw him lying down, and knowing that he had been sick for a long time, he said to him : Do you want to be healed ?

5.7 The cripple answered him : Lord, I have no one to plunge me into the pool when the water is agitated, and while I go, another descends before me.

5.8 Get up, Jesus said to him, take your stretcher and walk.

Source (Live Today)