Homily 685 – Paralytic
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
May 3, 2026
Epistle:  (23) – Acts 9:32-43
Gospel:  (14) – John 5:1-15

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Christ is risen!

I’m always struck by the hymns for this feast.  If you were here at vespers you’ve heard some of these verses before.  But for those who didn’t there are a few I believe important things to mention.

With Your pure hand, You created man;
You came to heal the sick, O compassionate Christ.
By Your word You raised the paralytic at the Sheep’s Pool,
You cured the pain of the woman with the issue of blood.
You had mercy on the Canaanite woman’s daughter.
You did not reject the request of the centurion.
Therefore we cry to You://
“Glory to You, O Almighty Lord!”

Another of the stichera:

The Paralytic was like an unburied corpse.
He saw You and shouted: “Lord, have mercy on me!
My bed has become my grave!  Why should I live?
What use is the Sheep’s Pool to me?
I have no one to put me into the pool when the waters are stirred.
I come to You, O Fountain of healing.
Raise me up, that with all I may cry to You://
‘Glory to You, O Almighty Lord!’”

Finally, the Kontakion we just heard:

By Your divine intercession, O Lord,
as You raised up the Paralytic of old,
so raise up my soul, paralyzed by sins and thoughtless acts;
so that being saved I may sing to You://
“Glory to Your power, O compassionate Christ!”

What we find is that this is not just a recounting of a miracle of our Lord.  It is so much more.  One of the first lines that jumps out is the line that describes the paralytic – The paralytic was like an unburied corpse, with the bed his grave.  He was a living man, but was dead.  He asks the question that has to be on the mind of anyone in that situation – “Why should I live?  What use is this pool, this miraculous pool, to me?”

He could never reasonably expect to be healed as the others would be healed.  He had no one to move him into the pool, and he couldn’t move himself.  This had been the case for 38 years.  38 years of futility.  38 years of being, as the hymn says, an unburied corpse.  Dead and useless, according to the society around him.

And then – Christ shows up.

Out of the people there, we are not told what attracted Christ to this man.  We are not told how big the crowd of the people wanting to get into the water was.  The gospel says “great multitude” but we don’t really know how many that was.  Perhaps a dozen, maybe two dozen?  Maybe more?

Either way – Christ seems to zero in on this one person.  Maybe, as the hymn says, it was the paralytic that made the first contact, seeing Jesus and crying out for mercy.

As we have noted before these Gospel accounts, and truly every scriptural reading, is God communicating to us, directly.  In this instance if we put ourselves into the picture, we can find a couple of lessons.

First, we are all dead without Christ.  We are all the unburied corpse, without hope, with no one able to put us into the pool when the angel comes.  We can’t jump into someone else’s baptismal font.  That is one thing this pool is – baptism.  The healing of baptism.

Also, we may need to cry out to Christ for mercy.  In fact, we have to cry out to Christ for mercy.  It is our most frequent and ferverent prayer – Lord have mercy.  The essence of our litanies, the essence of our private prayer, the essence of the Jesus prayer – Lord, have mercy.  We are all called by Christ.  The paralytic, and we also, must respond by returning that call.

Brothers and sisters, we are the paralytic.  To be quite direct, all our discussions about theology and our practices and our asceticism – all of them are useless if we are not healed.  And right now, we are paralyzed.  Some of us have been healed – our deformity has been corrected – but we are still re-learning how to walk.  How to do the things that we could do before our paralysis.

Christ tells us, and the hymns of the Church remind us, that we can be healed.  In fact, that is the only reason Christ was incarnate.  To heal us.  The hymns remind us of those He healed – the woman with the issue of blood, the paralytic, the man born blind, the widow’s son, the centurion’s daughter, the 10 lepers, the Gadarene demoniacs, and coutless others.

All of whom were raised from their own deformity, corruption, and death by our Lord.

He does the same for us.  It begins at baptism, even before baptism, when we are drawn to Christ, recognizing our own deformity and our own futility.  When we first call out to Him, and seek Him, knocking on the door of the Kingdom where we used to live, and where He rules now.

When we are healed, as we are all surely being healed, we are drawn closer and closer to Him, and to one another.  Humanity is whole again.  Personhood within that humanity is whole again.  Number, time, proximity, feelings – nothing that we experience matters anymore.

The only thing that matters is Him.  Christ.  Not the opinions of our friends, not the opinions of our families, not the opinions of the world.  Not even our own opinion of ourself.  Nothing else matters.  Only Christ.  Only Christ.  Only Christ.

Throughout this Paschal period, recount for yourself the deliverance from death.  The freedom we now experience.  Die to yourself today, that you may not die when your soul is separated from your body.

Christ will and has already healed us.  Glory to Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God. Christ is risen!