Tuesday of the 4th
Week of Lent
March 8, 2016
Reflection by Rev. Dr. Faustin Kamugisha
“Do you want to get well? “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I
have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred?” (John 5: 6-7)
Jesus visited a famous pool. Its
name was Bethesda which means House of Mercy. There was a paralytic who
had been there for thirty eight years.
Desperately he tried to reach the pool but the people around the house
of mercy pushed past him or brushed him aside. The man was helpless and
friendless near the House of Mercy without mercy. Jesus showed himself as the
helper of the helpless and the friend of the friendless. He cured the invalid. The
man’s waiting was turned into believing. He was cured. “The man might well have
said with a kind of injured resentment that for thirty-eight years his bed had
been carrying him and there was not much sense in telling him to carry it” (William
Barclay). Nevertheless, he carried his bed.
With Jesus a house of mercy without mercy was full of mercy. Jesus is
the incarnation of mercy. Let your house be a house of mercy; let your home be
a home of mercy.
Prayer
Ever Merciful God, I wish to receive mercy,
help me to show mercy to my neighbours. Amen.
