The Lord Comes in Disguise
”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.” (John 5:7)
I can’t imagine what it must be like to sit and wait for help for 38 years. So there’s a part of me that pities the crippled man sitting beside the pool of Bethesda. But then there’s also part of me that wants to suggest to him that after 38 years it may be time to try a new strategy.
Because the man had been ill for 38 years, we might assume that this story is not about us. We’ve all had our illnesses, but most of us haven’t had anything like that. But what if the story really is about us?
Metaphorically we can all waste big chunks of our lives. Metaphorically we can all sit around and wait for the dramatic intervention that will change the course of our lives. And when that doesn’t seem to happen, we just sit and wait some more. And all the while Jesus walks by, day by day, quietly inviting us to get up from our mats and do something.
If we don’t see or hear the Lord’s invitation, is it because we’ve become blind or deaf on top of everything else? Or is it because we expect the Lord to barge into our lives with a trumpet blast or a gold-embossed invitation? I would offer that it’s pointless to wait for those, simply because the Lord generally doesn’t do business that way.
The fact of the matter is, Jesus tends not to make dramatic guest appearances. Rather, as he said on more than one occasion, he will be coming in the form of the least of our brothers and sisters. So the next time we look up from our mats to see who’s walking by, it may very well be the Lord — in disguise.
NOTES
+On April 2nd I presided at the abbey Eucharist. Today’s post is a variation of the homily that I delivered that day.
+Currently I am in the course of staying away from the airport for an entire month. Months ago I knew that February and March would be hectic, and so I marked off the month of April to stay home and get other things done. Among those “other things” has been a thorough cleaning of my office, which I try to do at least once a year. This spring my goal is to clear everything off of the floor, except for the furniture. In the course of that I’ve found some neat stuff, and also a bunch of stuff that has made its way to the dumpster. This exercise is a good parallel for what we might consider doing with our lives during Lent. With several days left in the season, there’s still time to do something.
This also turned out to be a fortuitous time to stay home because my car got recalled for the repair of the air bags. Since I never use them I hadn’t realized that they were not well. Anyway, for seven days my car has been in the car hospital, but the prognosis is good. I’ve not visited it, but the mechanic says it will need neither intensive care nor hospice.
+On April 6th sixty students and faculty from Saint Olaf College visited the abbey and while here joined in our Saturday Eucharist. It was nice to add their voices to ours when it came to singing.
+It should not come as a surprise that nearly-contemporary artists should render sacred themes with different emphases. In today’s post I’ve included four paintings from the National Gallery in Washington, DC. At top is The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Saint Jerome and Saint Mary Magdalene, (1480), by the Umbrian artist Pietro Perugino. Second is a crucifixion by the German Mattias Grünewald (ca. 1475). Below that is one by the Venetian artist Paulo Veneziano (ca. 1340); and at bottom is a work by Francesca del Cossa (Ferrara, ca. 1473.)
