Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Christ is Risen!

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

On this fourth Sunday of Easter, we always hear the same Gospel reading from St. John, about the paralytic who was healed in a miraculous manner after an illness of thirty-eight years. Remember that he lay all those years beside certain pools in Jerusalem with the hope that he would be cured, for once a year an angel would descend into the water and would grant healing to the first person able to climb into the pool.

It is probably not a coincidence that John the Theologian mentions the name of the pools and porches where this miracle took place. The Hebrew name ‘Bethesda’ is translated as ‘house of mercy.’ This name, of course, is wonderfully suited to that place where people were miraculously healed and where the Lord, still at the beginning of His earthly ministry, showed in such a clear manner His sublime love for mankind. The Saviour healed many people, but usually He looked for signs of faith in Him from those seeking His help. At Bethesda he did not call for such faith. He Himself found the paralytic, came to him, and offered to heal him. Therefore, we can say that this miracle, more than others, was an expression of God’s mercy.

The liturgical canon devoted to today’s Gospel reading has the following words: “Of old an Angel came down to the Sheep’s Pool and healed one man each year; but now Christ doth cleanse endless multitudes by divine Baptism.” The liturgical texts give us a hint as to how to correctly understand the Gospel texts. That miraculous troubling of the water which happened during the earthly life of our Saviour was not a simple miracle, but a foreshadowing of something so much more wonderful, that is, of Christian baptism, which gives not simply physical healing to one fortunate person per one calendar year, but instead, grants spiritual health and God’s mercy to all who participate in this Mystery.

Since we can consider everything that took place at Bethesda as a foreshadowing of our Christian baptism, we baptized Christians should pay particular attention to the concluding words of the Lord from today’s Gospel excerpt. They are directed personally to each of us. The Saviour said to the paralytic: “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” Let us also try to sin no more, nor to repeat our past mistakes, so as to be able in the future life to inhabit the heavenly Bethesda, the house of mercy, the Kingdom of Heaven.

priest Alexis