Baptism is the gateway into the church, the body of Christ. While a person is baptised it is not a solitary experience. All baptised persons are in God’s saving grace together. Being a part of the Body of Christ, in spite of all our frailties, through baptism we are called to be Christ to the world. Remember, that Jesus said that by the love that we have for one another we show the world that he came from God.
John’s Gospel story (5:1-9) is about the man who waited 38 years at the side of the pool in Beth-zatha, in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Gate for the possibility of healing in its waters. We are reminded of human persistence in the face of suffering for many people. 38 years was a long time and he was waiting because his disability prevented him from being the first to reach the waters when they stirred. When this happened, people suffering with blindness, lameness, paralysis were healed, but others were always quicker. He never made it in time.
Baptism is the gateway into the church, the body of Christ. While a person is baptised it is not a solitary experience. All baptised persons are in God’s saving grace together. Being a part of the Body of Christ, in spite of all our frailties, through baptism we are called to be Christ to the world. Remember, that Jesus said that by the love that we have for one another we show the world that he came from God.
John’s Gospel story (5:1-9) is about the man who waited 38 years at the side of the pool in Beth-zatha, in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Gate for the possibility of healing in its waters. We are reminded of human persistence in the face of suffering for many people. 38 years was a long time and he was waiting because his disability prevented him from being the first to reach the waters when they stirred. When this happened, people suffering with blindness, lameness, paralysis were healed, but others were always quicker. He never made it in time.
The waiting on Easter Eve, on Saturday, after the horror of the crucifixion and Jesus’ death, must have been endless for Mary Magdalene and the disciples, all Jesus’ friends, his mother Mary and family, everyone who had journeyed with Jesus, now waiting anxiously in the aftermath of all the violence, noise and in fear of further retribution, remaining still, impatient, grieving and questioning, frightened and hopeless, despairing and wondering. The endless waiting, minute by minute, second by second, watching the sun travel across the sky, unable to eat, to share the sabbath, the Passover. The story of this extraordinary, different, beautiful, loving and challenging man, such as it was, was now apparently done, over, finished and with such a terrible ending. All that was left was to finish the burial properly, to be done by the women, who would anoint the body, make sure all was completed, nothing left undone; and then to grieve, to wonder and regret and remember.
At St Mark’s we meet to worship on custodial land of the oldest living civilisation in the world. We pay our respects to Kabi Kabi people and their Elders, past, present and emerging, for they hold the hopes, dreams, traditions and cultures of Aboriginal Australia. We acknowledge and respect their spiritual connection to country and their stewardship of the land that now sustains us all.
