I Missed Him

Good Morning Gentle Readers

How often don’t we see what is right in front of us, how often do we miss the real story, how often can’t we see the forest for the trees. Today’s gospel is very much a reflection of that fact; while we are going through our day today let’s try to be aware, let’s keep an eye open…..

You never know who you might meet

Take Care and God Bless

Good Enough

John 5 1-16

There was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethesda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

In this season of Lent, we focus much of our prayer on healing and cleansing; nearly every day of this holy season, the Christian liturgy asks Christ to heal us from our brokenness and cleanse us from our sins. Today’s Gospel returns, once more, to this central Lenten theme. Jesus approaches a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda and bestows his healing grace upon him.

Strangely, though, the man does not know who his healer is. He experiences Jesus’ grace, his life is radically changed, and yet he remains ignorant of his savior’s identity.

As we reach the halfway point of Lent, we might ask ourselves: Has our Lenten fasting improved our spiritual vision? Do we recognize Jesus when he approaches us with his grace? 

C.S. Lewis conjectured that when we meet Jesus after death, we might be surprised to find him appear like people we knew in our daily life. Then we will realize, to our chagrin, that it was Jesus all along, incarnate in our brothers and sisters, and yet we missed him.

Jesus is here among us this Lent, accompanying us on our 40-day pilgrimage towards Easter. He accompanies us in the disguise of our family members, friends, and colleagues. He waits for us in the distressing disguise of the poor and the marginalized. He longs for us in the tabernacles of our churches. He speaks to us in the Scriptures and in the words of the liturgy. He offers healing, just as he healed the crippled man in today’s Gospel. 

Will we recognize him? Will our Lenten fasting attune our eyes to see his face breaking through the veil of our world? 

Jesus Christ is in our midst. Let us see and believe.