In our first reading, an angel shows the prophet Ezekiel the healing properties of a river that flowed by the east side of the temple. The River only grew in intensity, yet it flowed from the Temple. The further he was escorted through it, the deeper it got—from ankle-deep to knee-deep to the depth of his waist and then to a depth that could only be traversed by swimming, Ezekiel is made to understand by the angel that wherever this river flows it brings life which was attested to by the lush vegetation and plant life sprinting forth on both sides of the river. The river, therefore, is a beautiful symbol of Christ, who alone can bring us life in abundance. “If you only knew the free gift of God and who it is that is asking you for water, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” As the living water flowed from the Temple as its origin, in Christ, the river flows from the Lord of the Temple. The grace he wished to bestow on the Samaritan woman by the well, is the same grace he continually offers us, and has given us gifts like the sacraments as conduits of that grace so as to bestow on us the fullness of life.
In the gospel we see a fulfilment of Ezekiel’s vision. We are told about a pool at Bethesda, on the east side of the temple reminiscent of Ezekiel’s angelic tour. The pool is adorned with five porches, an otherwise strange feature for a rectangular pool, only excavations revealed to archeologists that it was precisely as the gospel described it, and the people believed it had healing powers. Bethesda means, “House of Mercy” and was seen as a special place where God’s compassion could tangibly be experienced. We too, as a Church, are a house of mercy, and that special place where we can receive God’s special healing of the spirit is in the confessional. The confessional for us becomes God’s house of mercy, where repentant and desiring to reconcile ourselves with him, Christ purified us through his life-giving water of grace and we are restored and healed each time. It is a limitless storehouse of supernatural cleansing power and he administers it to us through the priest, a specially called and beloved man of God, whom he has made a conduit of his mercy only after cleansing him with that same purifying divine mercy. Both priest and penitent—God’s beloved children forever, cleansed and forgiven, helping each other make the same journey towards our heavenly homeland.
The pool was situated by the sheep gate. This is the gate through which all the animals for sacrifice in the temple would pass. It is very powerful imagery therefore to have Christ, visiting this area, who himself is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
As the gospel relates, in these five porches “lay a large number of people who were ill, blind, lame, and crippled.” Among all of these poor, suffering people, “one man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.”
Jesus goes to this man and asks if he would like to be made well, but the man responds that he is not able to reach the pool in time when the waters are stirred to their healing properties.
At this, Jesus heals the man without sending him to the pool, because Jesus is the healing water. He tells the former paralytic to pick up his mat and walk home. This shocked the witnesses on two major levels: First, they saw that Jesus had this tremendous and godly power to heal, but also he then commands the man just healed to do something which was prohibited on the Sabbath for it was considered “work”… to pick up his mat, and head on home. The Lord or the Sabbath was in the house!
His persecutors are aroused to diabolical plotting. In his seeming violation of the Sabbath law, they now believe they have yet another pawn with which to move against him with a formal condemnation. How sad a thing it can be, when in our pride and arrogance and the stubbornness of our hearts, we become blind to the beauty that is wrought before us each day by God and miss the opportunity to discern it, and rejoice. What should have been a cause for celebration, inflamed in some, a vicious and bloodthirsty wickedness.
In Jesus’ reaching out to this man, we see that mercy, and helping someone in need, transcends the written rules which seek to help us bring order and rest into our lives. Not working on the sabbath, was ultimately given by God so one could rest so as to have the energy to serve his struggling neighbour. So in healing the man, Jesus was demonstrating the spirit of the Sabbath in all of its splendor. In the same way, Jesus is continually calling us to reflect on what we think is important or not and how that would match God’s way of looking at things.
Then, like the miraculous river that flowed out from the temple, we who have been born again (baptized) in Christ, flow out from him into the streets of the world, to bring his healing and compassion and the good news of his Kingdom. We started off small. Twelve, to be precise, but that river has grown to hundred and hundreds of millions. The River that only gets deeper with time like God’s love in and through us, is limitless. May he continue to make of each of us whom he has healed, treasures of mercy. Freely we have received of that water of life, now freely we give. All praise to the Lord of the Temple and the Lord of the Sabbath.
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