The Struggle for Life

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

After Jesus cured the man at the pool of Bethesda, the Jewish authorities argued with Jesus about performing such works on the Sabbath. Today's Gospel reading includes Jesus' answer to this criticism. Within that answer Jesus says: Amen, Amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing . . . (John 5:19b-c). He goes on to say that as God gives life to those who are dead, so does he.

The man who lay at the pool of Bethesda was not dead in the physical sense of the term. Yet Jesus argues that he simply restored him to life, much the same as God restored the captive people of Israel to life after the Babylonian captivity. Jesus did for the man at Bethesda what God did for the Israelites in Babylon. They restored them to life; they restored them to right relationship with God.

Lent is a time to examine our relationship with God and to work at restoring it as it was meant to be. Lent is about life. Those who live in the grips of sin are as helpless as the man lying beside the pool struggling to get to the water when it is stirred by God's angel. Lent is leading us back to the baptismal font, to the source of our life with God. Sin impedes our progress.

As we continue on our Lenten journey and draw closer to the celebration of the events of Jesus' passion, death and resurrection, it is imperative that we come to realize where we are still in the grips of the paralysis that is the result of sin. This is the acceptable time for our repentance.