Homily on the Paralytic. St. Kirill of Turov

The height of heaven is immeasurable, the depth of the abyss is unfathomable, and so too is the mystery of God's providence, for His mercy towards humankind is great and indescribable. We have been granted mercy. Therefore, we must, brothers, glorify, sing praises, and extol our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, proclaiming His great miracles, as many as He has performed, for they are incomprehensible even to angels, let alone humans.

Today, let us speak about the paralytic, whom the Lord Himself mentioned today, whom He looked upon and had mercy on—one whom the physicians had neglected, and those who lowered the sick into the pool had forgotten. When the water stirred, they were concerned with the health of the wealthy and pushed aside the one whom the benevolent Christ healed with a word—for He is the healer of our souls and bodies, and His word was deed.

The evangelist says that Jesus came to Jerusalem in the middle of the Jewish feast when many people from all cities gathered in Jerusalem according to custom. Then the Lord came, helping His servants in every way and exposing the folly of the disobedient Jews; truly, He came to seek the lost and save the perishing. He performed many miracles throughout Palestine, but they did not believe Him and, in response to grace, blasphemed Him, calling Him a deceiver and a liar. Therefore, He came, amid the multitude of people, to the pool of Siloam, called Bethesda or the Sheep Gate Pool (for the entrails of sacrificial sheep were washed there). Above it was a temple with five porches, where many sick, lame, blind, and afflicted lay, waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord came and stirred the water, and whoever stepped in first after the stirring was healed.

This was a foreshadowing of holy baptism. For the water did not always heal, only when stirred by the angel. But now, the very Lord of the angels, the Holy Spirit, comes to the baptismal font, sanctifying it and granting health to souls and bodies and cleansing from sins. If someone is blind in mind, or lame with unbelief, or withered from despair over many transgressions, or paralyzed by heretical teaching—the baptismal water makes them whole. That pool received many but healed one, and not always, but only once a year—while the baptismal font revives and heals many every day. Even if people from all over the world come to baptism, God's grace, which gives healing from the ailments of sin, will not diminish.

Let us speak of the Lord's grace, how He came to the Pool of Bethesda and saw a paralyzed man lying for a long time in affliction, and, calling to him, said: "Do you want to be healed?" "Yes, Lord!" answered the man, "I have long wanted to, but there is no one to put me into the pool after the angel stirs the water. And since you asked me, Master, about my health, kindly listen to my plight and illness. For thirty-eight years, I have been lying, nailed by affliction, on this bed; my sins have paralyzed all the members of my body, and my soul has been torn by reproaches before the mortal judgment. I pray to God, and He does not hear me, ‘for my transgressions have exceeded the measure above my head.’ I have given all I had to the physicians, but I could not get help, for there is no medicine that can cancel God's punishment. My acquaintances shun me, for my stench has deprived me of all rest; and my relatives are ashamed of me, so I have become a stranger to my brothers because of my illness. Everyone curses me, and no one is found to comfort me. Should I call myself dead? But my belly asks for food, and my tongue dries from thirst! Should I consider myself alive? Yet I am unable not only to rise from the bed but even to move! My legs do not walk, my hands are not capable of work, nor can I feel myself with them. I consider myself an unburied dead man, and this bed is my grave. I am dead among the living and alive among the dead, for as a living one I take food, and as a dead one I do nothing. I am tormented, as in hell, by the shamelessness of those who reproach me; I am a laughingstock to the young who mock me, and I lie before the elders as an example for instruction. Everyone laughs at me, I suffer doubly: inwardly from the disease, and outwardly torn by the insults of those who scorn me. I am covered with spittle from everyone. And another sorrow grips me; hunger, more than the illness, overwhelms me; if I find food, I cannot put it in my mouth with my hand; I beg everyone to feed me, and sometimes we share my poor piece with those who feed me. I groan in tears, tormented by my affliction, and no one comes to visit me; I suffer alone, and no one sees me. And when the leftovers from the meals of godly people are brought here, the attendants of the Pool of Bethesda immediately rush in, and they devour the alms given to me more greedily than dogs licked Lazarus' sores. I have nothing to pay a single person who would care for me, for I have squandered the wealth given to me in paradise; the garment of my purity was stolen by the serpent in Eden, and I lie here naked without God's cover. There is no one who, without disgust, would serve me! Enoch and Elijah are no longer on earth, taken up on the fiery chariot and dwelling where God knows; Abraham and Job, who briefly served those like me, have departed to eternal life. Lord, there is no faithful man before God! Moses, the seer and lawgiver, sinned before God and did not enter the promised land; wise Solomon, who spoke with God three times, opposed God in his old age and, led astray by women, perished. Lord, there is no one to place me in the pool! Everyone has left and has not helped, and there is no one to do good, not a single one; and no one among the evildoers understands this!"

Hearing all this from the paralytic, our good physician Lord Jesus Christ replied to him: "How can you say there is no one! I became man for you—generous and merciful—not breaking the promise of my incarnation. You have heard the prophet who said—a child will be born, the Son of the Most High, given to us, who will bear our diseases and infirmities. For your sake, leaving the scepters of the heavenly kingdom, I wander among the lowly, serving them—for I came not to be served but to serve. For your sake, being incorporeal, I took on flesh to heal the soul and body of each one. For your sake, invisible to the angelic hosts, I appeared to men, for I do not wish to leave what is made in my image lying in the dust, but I want to save it and bring it to true understanding. And you say; ‘There is no one!’ I became man to make man God! For I said: ‘They will become gods and sons of the Most High.’ And who else more faithfully serves you than I? I created all creatures to serve you; both heaven and earth serve you—one with moisture, the other with fruits. The sun serves you with light and warmth, and the moon with the stars illuminates the night. For you, the clouds water the earth with rain, and the earth grows all seed-bearing grass and fruit-bearing trees to serve you. For you, the rivers carry fish, and the wilderness rears beasts. And you say: ‘There is no one!’ Who is more faithful than I, a man! For I did not break my promise of incarnation: I swore to Abraham and said: ‘By your seed the nations will be blessed, through Isaac your offspring will come, and in him I will cancel circumcision and create living water, generating many children by baptism,’ about which Isaiah said that ‘water sprang forth in the desert.’ Those who thirst, go to the living water! I am the lake of life! And now I pour out on you from my mouth a living spring, and you thirst for the Pool of Bethesda, which will soon dry up. Rise, take up your bed, let Adam hear me and be renewed now with you from corruption, for in you I heal the curse of the first Eve's transgression! I revived Lazarus with a word, already decaying in the tomb and dead for four days, and now I say to you: ‘Rise, take up your bed and go to your house!’"

And quickly the paralytic jumped up from the bed, full of strength and healthy in all his limbs, and, taking up the bed on which he lay, began to walk among the people.

And it was the Sabbath that day; and the Jews, seeing him, did not rejoice at the recovery of the infirm, did not praise God for raising the paralytic from his bed of affliction, did not ask: "How have your sinews and limbs strengthened, brother?"—but like beasts upon an armed man, they attacked and retreated, and, shooting blasphemous words like arrows against a stone, they began to break. For they preferred to speak falsehood rather than truth, and they began to threaten the one who carried the bed:

"It is the Sabbath now, and it is not lawful for you to carry the bed! Why did you rise from infirmity? Why were you healed of affliction? Why did you stop being sick? It is not good for you to carry your bed now!"

And the one healed of the affliction said to them: "What are you saying, Pharisees! Being wise, you have become foolish with malice! Have you not had enough for thirty-eight years of seeing me lying half-dead on the bed? And now, when I have risen by God's word, you have become blind in mind and, limping, stumble over your falsehood. If my rising was not good, neither was it evil. If you do not rejoice at the great miracle, then at least do not envy the health given to me. Do not be like mules without understanding! The Lord helped me on the bed of my affliction and turned all my infirmity into health. Tell me, elders and judges of Israel, from whom of you was the health given to me stolen, that you lament and threaten me so? For none of you has been wronged, and no one of you has been deprived, to be given to me; the one who healed me said: ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk!’ And now I am entirely healthy."

The scribes answered: "Who is he who healed you?" The one carrying the bed did not know this, for Jesus had withdrawn from the crowd, but he said: "He is neither a sorcerer nor a magician, neither an envoy nor an angel, but the Lord God of Israel Himself. For He did not touch me with His hands, nor apply ointments to the sores of my limbs, but His word was the deed. He said to me: ‘Rise and walk!’—and the deed followed the word and bodily health. Therefore, do not seek the face, do not blaspheme God's grace, but judge rightly: say to God that ‘Your deeds are great in Israel’ and honor the Sabbath with the Lord's miracle, and glorify God, and adorn the feast!"

But the Jews did not relent and said: "Who healed you on the Sabbath? Show who commanded you to carry the bed on the feast day!"

Jesus found him again in the church and said to him: "You are healed; sin no more, so that nothing worse befalls you!"

And let us not think that Christ said this to him alone, no—to all of us who have received the grace of baptism, by which we are cleansed from the ancestral filth and healed from the sin that corrupts us; it is as if the Lord said to that healed one: "I have healed in you the sores of all Adam, and raised him who fell because of the breaking of the commandment, and annulled now the curse lying upon the whole human race because of him, washed away the filth of every transgression with baptism, sought and found the one going the wrong way of idolatry, bandaged the wounds inflicted by demonic robbers, poured wine and oil of My blood on his sores, and, placing him on the beast of My body, brought him to the inn—the holy church, gave two silver coins to the innkeeper, that is, the Old and New Testament to the holy teachers, that they might diligently teach people; promised a reward upon My return to those who save sinners. Behold, you are healed and sin no more, for woe—to him who sins knowingly!"

Understand then the meaning of the words, that the Lord does not permit us to sin after baptism, lest the renewed man by God be corrupted again. And woe to those who sin after receiving any holy orders; and I say, after receiving monasticism, and priesthood, and even in the episcopate—woe to those who do not fear God!

But that man was faithful, for after healing he did not plunge into bodily filth and did not blaspheme Jesus before the Jews, but stayed in the church where Christ found him. And recognizing the one who healed him, he said: "You are righteous, Lord, and Your word is truth! From now on, I join all those who fear You and keep Your commandments"; and he went throughout the country, spreading the news that "He is Jesus, who made me whole."

Let us also glorify, brothers, Jesus Christ, our God, who has healed us from sinful ailments, and, coming to Him with faith, let us say: "Do not remember our former transgressions and cleanse our present sins—for You are the God of all, heavenly and earthly. Have mercy on us, who hope in You, the Creator of man, the Maker of angels, the King of the world, the Lord of archangels, the Creator of cherubim, the adornment of seraphim, that, saved by You, we may glorify You with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages!"

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