The Paralytic of Bethesda

This paralytic man is a third narrative among the stories of the Paschal Sundays. We have already gone through two stories in the first two Sundays: the story of Thomas and that of the Myrrh-Bearers, and we are left with two stories, the Samaritan Woman and the Blind Man. A paralytic without any hope in life, this was our man before Jesus healed him. Jesus came to the place where the paralytic had been lying for about forty years, and restored him from this great nothingness to a new existence. Pascha is creation, resurrection from death, from all forms of death, into a new life. The amazing part of the story is that Jesus tells the man to rise, and he rises. The years described in the story collapse as if the healing of the man is a new birth. But what is even more amazing is that the raising of the paralytic gave him great eloquence. Only he who believes that the Living Christ is the One Who creates testimony on earth can understand this amazement. People without existence are given a new existence by the resurrection; this is the extension of Pascha. This is the mystery of the new life.