Hello everyone! My name is Elise Brooklyn and this is Scattering Flowers, a podcast where we scatter flowers of faith.
I’m so happy to be with you reading the daily Gospels together.
Let’s get started! Today is Tuesday, April 1st, and we’ll be reading John 5, 1-16.
Follow along your Bible if you have one.
Now let’s read John 5, 1-16. After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now there in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethsaida, which has five porticoes.
And these laid a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed.
One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him, he knew that he had been lying there a long time.
He said to him, Do you want to be healed?
The sick man answered him, Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool, when the water is troubled.
And while I am going, another steps down before me.
Jesus said to him, Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.
And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath, so the Jews said to the man who was cured, It is the Sabbath, it is not lawful for you to carry your pallet.
But he answered them, The man who healed me said to me, Take up your pallet and walk.
They asked him, Who is this man who said to you, Take up your pallet and walk?
Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.
Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, See you are well, sin no more, and nothing worse befall you.
The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who healed him.
And this is why the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath. Today made me think long and hard how blessed I am to have working feet and legs.
What if he had to get somewhere fast?
How would you do that?
You might have to get creative.
Maybe rolling?
Handstands?
Crawling?
In today’s reading, the man must have had a shock when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed.
He doesn’t even say yes.
He just tells Jesus his story to make Jesus understand how much he needed his help.
But Jesus knew the real power did not lie in bubbling water.
The power lies with God. This miracle was instantaneous.
Jesus just told him to get up and walk.
And the man got up, picked up his mat, and started walking.
It’s sad to think that the Jews were more bothered with the fact that the man was working on the Sabbath than with the fact that Jesus was a miracle worker.
Let’s pray.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Dear God, thank you for Jesus who can make things better, even when we feel stuck, like the man at the pool.
Help us not to be afraid to ask for your help.
Amen.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Thank you so much for listening.
I’ll be back tomorrow scattering more flowers.
See ya!klusive.