Gospel: John 5: 1-16
A lame man, having been so for 38 years, sits day after day by the healing pool, unable to put himself in the waters. Even more astounding, each day for 38 years no one has been willing to help the man into the waters in order to find healing. Then one day, which happens to be the Sabbath, Jesus comes by and heals the man and sends him on his way.
The Pharisees object: why could this healing not have taken place the next day After all, he's waited this long for a healing; what's one more day? But the logic of Jesus is quite the opposite: if the man has been in this condition for so long, why should he wait one more day when it is perfectly fine for him to be healed on the Sabbath?
The healings of Jesus on the Sabbath day are suggestive, however, of a deeper idea: that the whole ideal of Sabbath is itself our healing as human beings. A day of rest, leisure, family, community, and reflection. And the Sabbath years that bring relief to the weary land, cancellation of debts, restoration of property, the correction of long injustices. If we but lived the Sabbath ideals we would indeed find healing for ourselves and our communities, for the Sabbath itself is our healing.
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