Synaxarion for the Sunday of the Paralytic

On the fourth Sunday of Pascha we keep the memory of the paralytic, and as is fitting, we likewise celebrate the miracle wrought by our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Verses
The word of Christ was the strengthening of the paralytic;
And thus did this word alone serve for his healing. 

It hath been established to celebrate this miracle on this day because Christ performed it during the Jewish Pentecost. For, having come to Jerusalem for the feast, He went to the pool built by Solomon, which had five covered entrances, and which was called the Sheep Pool, because it was there that they washed the entrails of the sheep which had been slaughtered as sacrifices in the Temple; and also, perhaps, because the first to enter it when, once a year, the water in it was troubled by an angel, recovered his health. There, He found a man who, because he lacked anyone to help him into the water, had lain in that place for thirty-eight years. From this we understand how good are patience and persistence. And also, because baptism was to be given to wash away every sin, God arranged in Old Testament times to work miracles by means of water, that when the time came, it would be readily accepted. To this paralytic, Jarah by name, came Jesus, and questioned him; and he complained that he had no man to help him. And Christ, seeing how infirm he was by reason of his condition, said: “Take up thy bed, and walk!” And he, his health immediately restored, took his bed upon his shoulders, lest the event turn out to be an illusion, and walked with it to his home. But since it was the Sabbath, the Jews forbade him to walk. But he referred them to the One Who had cured him, Who had told him to walk, though he did not know who He was; for Jesus had hid Himself from the people who were in that place. Later, Jesus met him in the Temple and said to him: “Behold, thou art made well; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” Some mistakenly say that Christ said this precisely because the paralytic would later slap Jesus in the face when He stood before the High Priest Caiaphas, and that for this his punishment would be in eternal life, far worse than paralysis, and not for thirty-eight years, but for eternity; but it is more likely that the Lord said this because the paralytic condition had been the result of sins he had committed. However, not every infirmity is the result of sins, but may be due to a natural illness, to satiety, to neglect of one’s health, or to any of many other causes. When the paralytic knew for sure that it was Jesus Who had cured him, and told this to the Jews; and they, motivated by vengeance, sought to kill Christ because He had violated the Sabbath. But He spoke to them at length, teaching that it is entirely legal to benefit others even on the Sabbath; and that He Himself is the One Who commanded that the Sabbath be kept holy, since He is equal to the Father; and as the Father worketh to this day, so doth He. One should note that this paralytic is a different man from the paralytic spoken of in the Gospel of Matthew. For the latter event took place in a house, where the sick man was attended by others; and he heard: “Thy sins are forgiven thee”; whereas this event took place on the porch [of the Sheep Pool], and this paralytic, as the sacred Gospel tells us, had no one, though he took up his bed as did the other. This is celebrated now because it took place within the fifty days of Pentecost, as did the encounter with the Samaritan woman and the healing of the blind man. We celebrate Thomas and the Myrrh-bearers as a testimony to the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and the rest of the events up to the ascension, because even though He performed them at different times, they all took place during the course of the Jewish Pentecost, and only John mentions this. In Thine ineffable mercy, O Christ our God, have mercy upon us. Amen.

Translated from the Church Slavonic by Monk Joseph (Isaac) Lambertsen. Copyright Lambertsen Foundation. All rights reserved.