John 5:1-16 NRSVue
1After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7The ill man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a Sabbath.
10So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” 12They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” 13Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the Sabbath.
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Some thoughts on this scripture
Reflection
As a teenager Patrick – his feast is today - was kidnapped from a comfortable home in the Severn valley to the life of a slave herding swine on a hillside in northern Ireland. In that isolation he turned to God in prayer – that was his nourishment and protection. He left us ‘The Deer’s Cry’: ‘Christ as a light, illumine and guide me. Christ as a shield, o’ershadow and cover me. Christ be under me, Christ be over me, Christ be beside me, on left hand and right. Christ be before me, behind me, around me. Christ this day be within and without me. Amen.’