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Gospel: John 5: 1-16
There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate
a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.
In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him,
“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.”
Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”
Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
“It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.'”
They asked him,
“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus
because he did this on a sabbath.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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“After this, Jesus found him in the temple area.”
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The Gospels are filled with miracles like the one today – the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised. Often these miracles are the conclusion of the story; we don’t know what happens to a person after being healed.
Today is different.
The Gospel tells us that Jesus found the man in the temple area. Meaning, the first thing that he did with his fresh set of legs was walk – or probably run – to the temple to give thanks to God.
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Gratitude.
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I’m sure we’ve all had a prayer answered by Jesus.
It may have been something minor like finding a lost set of keys or being forgiven after a family spat. Or, perhaps, something major like being healed from an illness or accepted into our top college.
When a prayer is answered, where do we go afterwards? Or what do we do?
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The best place to be is where Jesus found this formerly crippled man – in the house of God.
Perhaps we can recall something we’re grateful for, then visit the Lord’s house to thank him today.
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Image credits: (1) Believers Portal (2) crosswalk.com (3) Pinterest