The Healing of the Paralytic Country

In our Church, this Sunday is called “the Sunday of the Paralytic” (John 5:1-15). This, we always receive it with joy because of its great consolations to us as individuals and as communities. It meant a lot to me that Lebanon’s election of its new Parliament occurs on the Sunday of this year. Lebanon resembles no one the way it resembles this paralytic. Not only does it resemble him in its weakness, or its long years of waiting for someone to come and lead it to a new life, but also in the fact that it has no one to help it. The years have grown weary of our neediness. I am writing these lines before the polls close. I have two hopes, one for today and the other for tomorrow. For today, for this day to end in peace, and then for tomorrow for our new representatives to gather to an agreement that the rising up of our country from its paralysis cannot wait any longer. How do we rise up? For decades, we have tried many solutions. We have put our hands in many hands. Is it not time for us to put our hand in the hand of a God other than Whom no one can heal us?