Tuesday of the 4th Week of Lent
March 8, 2016 8:30am
In today’s gospel, Jesus responds
to this man’s desire to be healed.
But notice: he does not help the
man to get into the pool of water when it is stirred.
The man thought that this is what
he needed to be healed.
Jesus simply tells the man to
pick up his mat and walk.
The man does what Jesus says and
he can walk.
So what happens is that Jesus
combines his power with the man’s effort.
And this is a good lesson for us.
Jesus expects us to desire
healing and wholeness, not just physical, but also personal and spiritual.
What we need to do is to turn to
the Lord and open ourselves to him.
When we do that, we allow God’s
grace and power to be coupled with our effort.
This means that it is both Jesus
and us at work.
That’s what we see happening in
this incident today
In not using or taking the man
into the water, Jesus apparently wants to be clear that it is his power and not
water, coupled with the man’s effort, it is his power that leads to healing.
That was the case when Jesus was
physically here on this earth.
In contrast, now, after Jesus has
risen and left the earth physically, he acts through water or through bread and
wine or through consecrated oil.
Jesus now brings us life,
empowers us, and heals us through the sacramental signs – through sacraments.
In these ways, he extends the
same power to us as he did to this man today.
We just have to do our part and
open ourselves to Jesus and the healing and wholeness that his power can bring
us in these sacraments.
