H.E. Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden’s, Homily on the Sunday of the Paralytic

St. George Cathedral of Stockholm

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Dearly Beloved Brothers and Sisters in the Risen Lord,

Christ is Risen!

On this fourth Sunday of Holy Pascha, the Church sets before us the Gospel of the healing of the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1–15). This is no ordinary miracle, but one filled with deep spiritual meaning, a sign of Christ’s divine power and His desire to heal not only the body but also the soul.

For thirty-eight years, the man lay paralyzed, forgotten by the world, unable to move himself into the waters stirred by the angel. When Jesus approaches him, He asks a question that might seem unnecessary: “Do you want to be made well?”

The Church Fathers tell us that this question is full of divine wisdom. St. John Chrysostom explains that Christ does not ask because He lacks knowledge, but because He wishes to awaken the man’s faith, to stir his will, and to draw him into a personal relationship. Healing in the Orthodox understanding is never mechanical—it requires synergy, a cooperation between God’s grace and human freedom.

The man answers not with a “yes” or “no,” but with a confession of loneliness: “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool.” His words echo the cry of every human being abandoned in suffering. And yet, before him now stands Christ—the One who came precisely for those who have “no one.”

The pool of Bethesda was believed to have healing properties when an angel stirred the waters, but only the first to enter was healed. What a picture of limitation, competition, and exclusion. Christ, however, brings not a stirring of water but the Living Water Himself.

The healing of the paralytic is thus a sign of spiritual resurrection. As St. Gregory Palamas teaches, our souls too become paralyzed by passions—pride, anger, despair, lust, and indifference. We may find ourselves unable to rise, unable to pray, unable to move toward God. But Christ comes to each of us with the same gentle, searching question: “Do you want to be made well?”

Healing begins with humility, with repentance, with the longing for God’s mercy. The Church, through her Mysteries becomes for us the true “pool of healing,” where the Angel of Great Counsel, Christ Himself, descends continually.

Let us therefore rise from the paralysis of sin and walk with Christ, Who is both our healer and our salvation.
Let us also remember those still lying by the pool—the lonely, the forgotten, the spiritually paralyzed—and bring them to Christ through our prayer, our love, and our actions. In the Risen Christ, no one is truly alone. Amen!