Today’s themes are healing, transformation and resurrection
“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24)
The wonders of the earth have so much to teach us about healing and transformation. We think now of the chrysalis crackling open to reveal an exquisite butterfly; of the irritation of a small grain of sand in an oyster which develops into a pearl; and then there is the picture of the leaf in Autumn which, upon falling, leaves behind it the small bud that will burst open in the spring. Each of these things can comfort and soothe us as we grow and learn in God.
There are many stories of healing and transformation in the Bible. Among its most poignant ones, of course, are those found in the four Gospels. Although the subject of much scholarly debate, they have never lost their staying power. When we are attentive to them and move closer to them spiritually, their message can change our lives.
This morning, as we greet and bless the new day God has granted, I invite you to take the healing story of John 5 into your day – as text and as prayer.
“Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie – the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured.” (John 5: 1-9a)
God, teach us your ways.
