I am to present the Homily at Saint Nicholas Church, Cedarburg, this Sunday. I can only keep so many ideas in my mind at one time, so you all are about to read my Sunday “sermon”. (Any members of Saint Nicholas here present have my permission either to stop reading now, or to blank out and think of other things while I preach on Sunday.)
Christ is risen! Truly He is risen
Christos anesti! Aleithos anesti!
Al Massiah Kam! Hakkam Kam!
Christos Voskresh! Voistinu Voskresh!
The key word today will be Arise! Listen for it.
Today is the Sunday of the Paralytic. We are also in “Mid-Pentecost” week – an odd title which means we’re now halfway through the Great Fifty Days between Pascha and Pentecost.
In our Paschal Scripture readings we are now also halfway through the book of Acts and halfway through Saint John’s Gospel. The Fathers who set this up probably thought they were being very clever – and they were!
Before we proceed further, let’s stop for a commercial. Please, brothers and sisters, please keep up with the Church’s Lectionary, our daily Scripture readings. These are Words of Life. And we have it so easy. There was a time when books were extremely valuable, and Bibles had to be kept away, even chained, for fear they’d be stolen. Today just search on your computer for “Antiochian Archdiocese” and the day’s readings will pop right up. The Lectionary takes us through the Gospels twice a year, and the rest of the New Testament once a year. * Really, this might take three minutes out of your busy day, maybe a few more if you stop to ponder a bit. We hear a lot about Jesus these days, a great deal of it erroneous. Read the Gospels. Know the real Jesus Christ.
- But if you want to read the book of Revelation, you’re on your own. Why? Too much to go into now.
Back to the subject.
Last Sunday we heard about Steven and the first Deacons. In last Monday’s reading Steven was martyred. Persecution has begun in Jerusalem, and in today’s reading from Acts (Acts 9:32-42), most of the Apostles and many of the new Christians have fled from the city – which was the right thing to do. The Church does not expect people to hang around and be martyred. Christian teaching is: If you can avoid suffering for the Faith do so. Get out of town. It was also the right thing in another way: it turned out to be the will of God, because now the Good News of the Resurrection began to move out into the world.
That’s how many Christians came to be in Antioch – our Antioch, where our Antiochian (Syrian) Patriarchate got started. We’ll hear about that next Sunday.
But today Peter was only a little way down below Jerusalem, at Lydda near the coast where Aeneas had been bedridden for eight years, paralyzed. Peter had already worked miracles in Jerusalem: Christ’s power was flowing through the Apostles. So he confidently said to Aeneas: “Jesus Christ heals you. Arise and make your bed.” * What was holding Aeneas down was physical disability.And Aeneas arose. It says this became known and many in Lydda turned to Christ and the Church.
- I bet you mothers approve of that: “Make your bed!” Don’t just be healed, but also straighten up after yourself.
Meanwhile nearby in Joppa (modern Jaffa) Tabitha, a faithful Churchwoman had died. What was holding Tabitha down was that she was dead. She was one of those wonderful women of whom the Church has always had so many – of which our Saint Nicholas Church has so many – overflowing with good works and charitable deeds, who give so unstintingly of themselves for the Church and for needy people beyond the Church. It was this Tabitha who inspired our Tabitha Society here at Saint Nicholas some years ago, which did so much charitable work. It would be good if we had something like that again.
They had taken Tabitha to an upstairs room, and they sent for Peter since they had heard he was nearby. He came and found the people mourning – especially the widows, it says, who showed Peter the clothes, the garments Tabitha had made for the common good. She had been a skilled seamstress. Peter sent them all out, knelt beside her, prayed and said “Tabitha, arise!” (There’s that word again.) She opened her eyes saw Peter and sat up. He took her hand, lifted her up, called the congregation and the widows and presented her to them alive. This became known (not surprisingly!) and it says many in Joppa believed in the Lord.
Today’s Gospel (John 5:1-15) is a flashback to the middle of Jesus’ ministry. Our Lord had gone up to Jerusalem in secret, lest he be arrested too soon. He needed time to train the Apostles, and He was scheduling His death for the Passover, on Pascha. He came to the Sheep Gate where there was a pool called Bethesda where many sick people were waiting. Every so often the waters in the pool would move. People said it was by an angel, and the first one to get to the pool was healed. Modern hydrologists have another natural explanation. But people were healed, no matter: God can work either way.
A certain man (whose name we are never told) had been there 38 years. Imagine being crippled waiting from the year 1987 till now. Jesus asked “Do you want to be made well?” The Paralytic – probably too beat down to have hope – said only “I have no one to put me into the pool before the others.” Jesus said “Rise“, take up your pallet and walk.” And he did.
Some Bible commentaries say the pool symbolizes the waters of Baptism by which Christ saves us. Wrong. The man never got into the water. The point of the story actually is that Jesus Christ can raise people up any way He wants. Baptism is our normal Christian entry on the path to salvation, but never try to limit what Christ can do.
This took place on the Sabbath, Saturday, the day of rest. As the Paralytic (the former Paralytic) was walking, the Jews (John means the Pharisees who were strict about keeping laws) saw him and said: Hey you, don’t you know it’s illegal to carry your bed around on the Sabbath? One might have hoped they would be pleased to see the crippled man healed. Instead they complain that he’s breaking a law.
This is why Jesus opposed legalism. He said elsewhere: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” People do not exist so they can keep laws. Laws exist to help people, for peoples’ benefit. Good laws, that is. Not all laws are good. I’m old enough to remember when in some places it was illegal for black children to go to school with white children, when black people had to use their own restaurants and bubblers *, so white people wouldn’t have to associate with them. Bad laws. And sometimes even good laws can be used to put people down, as is self-evident today. (Let’s not go there now.) The Sabbath Law was good, intended to give everybody, including physicians, one day off work each week. However, the Pharisees used it to try to trap Jesus.
- Milwaukee word for “drinking fountains”
Why was this man was carrying his bed around on the Sabbath? He answered, “The Man who healed me told me to take up my bed and walk!” “Who is he?” they asked. The man didn’t know. Jesus had never identified himself.
John adds that later Jesus found him in the temple. (The former paralytic had gone to the temple to thank God.) And Jesus said: “See you have been made well. Now, sin no more lest something worse befall you.” The man went and told the Pharisees it was Jesus who healed Him.
“Sin no more”. I wonder what sin he had committed to get himself crippled. Maybe he’d just got drunk and fell. We’re not told.
“Lest something worse befall you.” We need to spend some time on this. What is worse than physical sickness, bodily paralysis? The answer: Spiritual paralysis, sickness of the soul which keeps us from rising to God. All of us have sickness of the soul, are spiritually paralyzed in one way or another.
Consider: What spiritual sickness might be holding you down? what paralyzes your soul so that you are unable to rise up and get on with what God wants you to do with your life? keeps you from becoming the person God wants you to be? the person that deep down you want to be?
There are many possibilities:
Pride: I can’t say I’m sorry, can’t admit I’m wrong, or I can’t forgive. And there I sit, wrapped up in myself, spiritually paralyzed.
Lust. That’s a big one today. There’s much good about being “on-line”. But push a 
few more keys, and you can be watching things that are not fit for the sewer. Many people today are trapped by online pornography. It’s addictive, extremely hard to escape from.
Or Greed: held down by the drive for ever more money, forever wasting money and valuable time chasing more stuff, more stuff, so they can’t rise to the important things in life.
OK, I promise not to list all the “Seven Deadly”. Just one more:
Sloth: I know many here present are very busy, and Sloth isn’t your problem. But for some it is: Sitting idly before the TV or the computer just watching… nothing much. Good deeds need to be done, letters written, prayers need to be said, the Bible read. I know I could get to church on time, but Sloth has got me, and I just can’t get myself moving. *
- I am not talking about those of you with young children. Sometimes that you make it to church at all is a miracle.
Or negativity, despair, anger, depression, grief, drugs, drink, worry, anxiety, fear – so many things can paralyze our souls.
A cheery sermon for Pascha season, eh?
So let’s turn it around. Take a look at yourself – and then take a look at yourself as you would be if you could rise, rise to God, rise to the life our Lord Jesus wants you to lead.
Our bodies and souls will be completely healed only in that place where “there is no sorrow or pain or sighing but life everlasting”, when He will raise us up even from death.
But here in the Church is the right place to get started. Here and now Christ and His Apostles and His Church can get us moving, can begin the process of raising up our souls, We who have been around the Church for a while know how many times He has already raised us up through worship, the Holy Eucharist and the sacraments, the Scriptures, the people of the Church. So often He has raised me up again through you, brothers and sisters – through you.
As long as we’re on this earth, we’ll all keep falling now and then. But Christ always keeps calling to us: Arise. Peter and the apostles say to us: Arise. The Church of Jesus Christ calls to us Arise. Again this morning, “Let us lift up our hearts”, and by the power of Jesus Christ keep moving ever onwards and upwards on the road into the Kingdom of Heaven.
For Christ is risen. Truly He is risen.
Next Week: Miscellany– some things I’ve been saving up.
Week after Next: Saint Augustine of Hippo – a brilliant, holy man who unintentionally caused a lot of trouble