March 30, 2011. Homily, Tuesday, April 5, 2011.

John 5:1-16.

There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame and crippled. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him laying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk." Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." He answered them. "The man who made me well told me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?" They asked him, "Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?" The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, "Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you." The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Jesus, not the pool at Bethesda, is the pool of life. Jesus is the life-giving water.

This whole Gospel shows violations of the sabbath yet Jesus is the one persecuted by the Jews:

the sick man was one of many by the pool at Bethesda in the temple area waiting for an opporunity to be cured.

each of the sick had to be carried down to the pool when it was stirred up.

Jesus did not carry the man to the pool but instead cured him in place then told him to take up his mat and go home.

The man was cured and was carrying his mat but the Jews were not concerned that the man had been sick for thirty-eight years but were only concerned that the cured man ws carrying his mat home.

And the Jews were only concerned not of the cure after thurty-eight years of sickness but only that the cure had been done on the sabbath.

And because of the cure on the sabbath (a technicality in the face of a miracle) the Jews began to persecute Jesus.