Healing

Come! behold the deeds of the Lord,

The astounding things he has wrought on earth.

The Psalmist tells of those wonders and of the running stream with God in its midst.

Ezekiel tells of his vision.

Water flowing from the temple of God.

Wherever this miraculous water flows, every creature shall live.

Every month the trees on the banks will bear fruit for food and leaves for medicine.

In John’s Gospel we hear of the pool at Bethesda.

Whenever the Spirit stirs the water of the pool,

Someone is miraculously healed by the power of God.

Jesus himself comes to the pool and sees the many sick lying there.

Including the man who’s been ill on his mat for 38 years.

Jesus shows that he can heal just as miraculously as the pool.

The man knows that he’s been cured.

But he doesn’t know who it was that cured him.

Only later does he come to realize that it was Jesus.

It might seem to us that the days of Jesus’ miracles are over.

That the stream of God’s miraculous healing power is no longer flowing freely to us.

We don’t see the direct and clearly miraculous healings that we read about in the Scripture.

We do sometimes hear of a rare, unexplainable miraculous healing.

But even then, many people dismiss the idea of a miracle.

They chalk it up to simple good luck.

But could it be that the flow of healing miracles is actually now heavier than ever?

That the Kingdom of God is expanding ever more rapidly?

And that His agents are working millions of healing miracles?

Consider what God has given us through His agents.

Through His gifts of intelligence and insight to medical researchers.

Through His gifts of knowledge and skill to doctors, nurses and surgeons.

We have our own healing pools of Bethesda.

One just a few miles from us even bears that very name—Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Many of us here today would have died years ago, perhaps in childhood.

Without the “miracles of modern medicine” that we now take for granted.

Vaccines, medicines, surgeries, emergency equipment and treatments.

Yet, we can be even less aware than the man with the mat.

We may not even realize that we’ve been miraculously cured.

Or like that man, we may know we’ve been cured but not realize who actually cured us.

Jesus told the man with the mat, Look, you are well; do not sin anymore.

With us, as with him, Jesus’ physical healing, wondrous as it is,

Is small and temporary in comparison to his miracle of spiritual healing.

In our humble prayers of thanksgiving.

In our Lenten conversations with God.

Let’s not forget to mention these truly astounding things He has wrought on earth.

4th Tuesday of Lent

Jn 5:1-16     Read this Scripture @usccb.org