John 5:1-16: The World of Mystery and Miracles – Part I
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Bethesda Pool
A cure on the Sabbath. The work of the Son. Some witnesses to Jesus. The unbelief of Jesus’ hearers.
This might be a microcosm of our own lives.
We receive a gift of the miracle of life. We are given an instruction by the giver of this gift about the nature of life and who governs it. We have the choice to believe or reject the mystery we experience.
When we read this chapter of John’s Gospel, we have the opportunity to examine our willingness to believe the miracles we have seen and experienced. We read again the promise from Jesus that we are so well-loved that there is already a place reserved for us God’s eternity. We are offered the invitation to be one with the divine for we have been cured of all that limits us.
Today we receive a call to see, to acknowledge, to admit, to concede and to declare the story of the mystery we live. If today we cannot share this story of miracles with others, let us determine why not, and then let us witness as the Gospel writer John the Evangelist does.
When we suspect that we are called to mystery and miracle, let us rejoice and give thanks with our Lenten practice this week. Rather than thinking: “God’s generosity is sometimes not fair,” let us think instead, “When we put away the past and follow God’s example of enormous generosity, we are better able to welcome the lost back home into the kingdom . . . and to give thanks for our own part in God’s great rejoicing”.
A Favorite from May 6, 2010.
Explore a website that presents a model of Jerusalem in Jesus’ time and photographs of Jerusalem today.
Image from: http://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/rel211/jerusalem.htm
The Noontimes 