mercy | …my temporary assignment.

This morning’s gospel John 5:1-16, was broken down into an amazing insight. At least for this guy. You can always read the words but unless deeper perspectives from others are offered and shared in a meaningful way, you may find yourself living in quite the linear manner.

The intention within this biblical discourse is apparent. But when other ways of looking at this particular interaction at a healing pool in Bethesda are provided, the connection takes on a whole new mass. It truly reflects what the name literally means, “house of mercy, or grace.”

“Do you want to be well?”

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”

Father pointed out that the man, invalided for thirty-eight some years, did not answer His question. Instead, he went on to describe his life, wrought of isolation, abandonment and hopelessness. Not just that I have no one to help me into the pool, but pure and simple, “I have no one”.

Father suggested that perhaps when he was younger, family may have helped him move about to partake in some of these healing moments in the water. But now, approaching the middle of his life, he is essentially by himself.

Alone.

“While I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me”, emphasizing the utter disregard of others and his worthlessness to society.

Imagine that.

Not just crippled for life, immovable and unable. But deemed unneeded, untouchable and unloved. Being so crippled by that horrific experience that he didn’t even hear the question posed.

And it wasn’t asked a second time either. He just healed him and sent him on his way. Too bad some of that healing didn’t waft its way over to the clerics admonishing him for having the audacity to carry his mat, for the first time in his life, on the sabbath.

Crippled may carry with it the connotation of strictly physical limitations. But it may come to impart its will on one’s mental or emotional state. Perhaps even spiritually. It can be an all inclusive state.

So while He mended his body, He truly mended the man’s spirit. Giving him life in more ways than one. We are all asked to do the same. To be there for others.

One way alms were described to me was to simply give of yourself. Your time. Your empathy and compassion. And therein lay the healing. support. Your love. Your presence. All forms of personal wealth we can access and share abundantly without ever breaking the bank.

So when you find yourself in a house of grace, do your part to offer alms of healing as best as you can.

You will never be expected to say ““Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

That is what He does.

But you can definitely listen with true compassion, offer them support and love, and help them to rise from defeat and isolation.

Simply be present for them, in that house of mercy.

For He would want you to.

And therein lay the healing.

“Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch; like me!

I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.”

– John Newton

This hymn swells my heart, fills my soul and wells up my eyes with true gratitude. Speaks to the twin blessings of both a divine and self forgiveness. How the sense of being saved rings true in a new found presence for life.

Whatever the source of one’s wretchedness, state of sin, spiritual need, distress or desperate need for rescue and redemption, His presence, love and loop of grace leads one to a saving source of repentance. Bringing forth an entirely different sensory affirmation of life in the world about us. An unmistakable melody of gratitude heightened by a new found vision.

Being lost is an orientation far more than simply geographical. It may not be readily apparent from an external perspective. But internalized, it can assume an excruciatingly painful and perilously winding nature, replete with false starts, stops and changes in direction. Dishonesty, self righteousness and a self absorbing sense of ego leads one to isolation and a perpetual nonexistence. Being present, engaged and invested are exchanged for absence, disconnection and apathy.

With renewed vision and a truer recognition of this existence born of His grace, that blindness gives way to an awareness of life and all it is meant to be. That loop born of His mercy for you is such that when you witness and receive it for yourself, you cannot help but to embrace the thoughts, words and deeds that can be freely given to those around you, so they might too live it for themselves.

Given the circumstances of the author of this replenishing hymn and that of the author of this post, we can all enslave others or enslave ourselves by and through sin. No matter our origin, that we all share in common. That is what gives us our original nature.

And as such, He encircles us with true redemption through grace in a heavenly embrace. A gift that once received that is intended to be given back. Not in terms of or in the form of a transaction. But just as freely as we ourselves were compensated as such. As a gift.

So that we all may know the sweetness of its sound. And follow its path leading our way back into His light.

Was truly blind.

But now?

I see.

…my temporary assignment.

Learning to live humbly within His grace.

Tag Archives: mercy

And therein lay the healing.

I see.