Space Enough, and Time

From Augustine’s On Christian Teaching:

So there are these three things which all knowledge and prophecy serve: faith, hope, and love.  But faith will be replaced by the sight of visible reality, and hope by the real happiness which we shall attain, whereas love will actually increase when these things pass away.  If, through faith, we love what we cannot yet see, how much greater will our love be when we have begun to see!  And if, through hope, we love something that we have not yet attained, how much greater will our love be when we have attained it!  There is this important difference between temporal things and eternal things: something temporal is loved more before it is possessed, but will lose its appeal when attained, for it does not satisfy the soul, whose true and certain abode is eternity.  The eternal, on the other hand, is loved more passionately when obtained than when desired.  No one who desires it is allowed to think more highly of it than is warranted (it would then disappoint when found to be less impressive); but however high one’s expectations while on the way, one will find it even more impressive on arrival.

From the Gospel of John (English Standard Version from biblegateway.com):

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.  In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.  One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”  The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”  Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”  And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath.  So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”  But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”  They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”  Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.  Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him,“See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”  The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.  And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.  But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

A lot going on in this passage, this Wednesday’s Gospel reading for Lent.  The strange practice at the pool of Bethesda, the compassion of Jesus, the ambiguous actions of the healed man, the religious leaders starting their opposition to Jesus, the Son’s articulation of His connection with the Father.  I also found the evening prayers for Wednesday night quite fitting to the topic of the week.

O God, you so loved the world that you gave your only-begotten Son to reconcile earth with heaven: Grant that we, loving you above all things, may love our friends in you, and our enemies for your sake . . .

and

O God, you manifest in your servants the signs of your presence: Send forth upon us the spirit of love, that in companionship with one another your abounding grace may increase among . . . 

Amen and amen.