Sunday is the sixth Sunday, the 36th day, of Easter. We continue to celebrate the meaning of the resurrection by attending to biblical discourses, narratives, and poetry and by enacting our communal love in the greeting of peace and the sharing of bread and wine. This week Jesus performs a healing miracle on the Sabbath. In doing so he both reveals divine creative power and teaches a richer, deeper meaning for the Sabbath as a healing and creative time.

Our Gospel reading [John 5:1-9] includes the third of the signs in the first half of John's gospel, Jesus manifests his divine power by healing an invalid. To contrast the late-first-century Christian community with its origins in Judaism, the evangelist John juxtaposes Jesus to the Jewish context by referring to a Jewish religious festival, the city of Jerusalem, the area called Bethzatha in Hebrew (actually Aramaic), and the Sabbath. The evangelist John understands that Christ's power to give life supersedes Jewish religious practice. Current scholarship has determined that the legend of the healing angel (vv. 3b-4) was added by a later editor to explain the hope for a cure from what may have been the activity of an underground spring. The reference to Sabbath (v. 9) leads to the subsequent verses, in which because of a law that forbade the carrying of one's bed on Sabbath, the Jewish religious authorities confront the healed man. [Sundays and Seasons, 2016]

At all Saints' we will include a rite of healing at both services that echoes for we who are like the invalid in John's Gospel, hearing the voice of Christ in worship, we are able to rise up and walk as followers of Jesus, having been enlivened by the Spirit of the resurrection. See you in worship!