The Physician and the Paralytic

He brought their words as a gift, so that they might be justified by their words. For God, who knows the hearts, does not ignore what is said, but welcomed the word so that the question might draw out the energy. Thus the physician, having approached and having run to the one looking, asked this man: 'Do you want to be made well?' (and it is nothing to wonder if he had passed by the one lying beside the pool, if he had run from heaven to us), drawing him by the question into knowledge and stirring him up to inquiry. It was a gift of great grace, for he was unpaid. For this reason, he had the healer running to him.

As for the man toward him: 'Yes, Lord. For my long-standing sickness makes health desirable to me, but I have no man.' Do not be discouraged, man, because you have no man. You have God present, partly as man and partly as God; for both must be confessed. For the confession of humanity is not useful if the divinity is not confessed together; rather, it is a curse to the one who brings it. For it is a curse to those who place hope in man. If we, even while hoping in Jesus, also hope in man without intertwining the divinity with our hope, we are heirs to a curse.

But now we confess both God and man, and both truly: God truly, born of the true Father, and man not according to a fantasy, but having been born according to truth; worshipping, we await true salvation. 'I want to be made well, but I have no man.' See, where salvation is lacking, there he gave the energy. For many of those suffering had houses, and even acquaintances, even if they had others. But this one, truly crushed in all poverty and having no power of external help, having been left most alone, had a helping son of God, the only-begotten.

'Do you want to be made well?' 'Yes, Lord, but I have no man, so that when the water is stirred, he might throw me into the pool.' You have the spring, for from you is the spring of life, a spring of spring-making.

But whoever drinks from this water, rivers will flow from within his belly, not water flowing downward, but water leaping (for Jesus does not make one leap from above to below, but from earthly things to the heavenly), water leaping into eternal life. For Jesus is the spring of good things. And why do you wait for a swimming pool? You have the one walking upon the waters, the one who rebukes the winds, the charioteer of the sea, the one who not only had the sea submit to him as a foundation of law, but also granted to Peter the similar energy of walking. For as soon as the night was without moon, the light was present, but it was not recognized (for Jesus walking upon the waters was unknown as far as his face appeared as a joy to a beast, but the uniqueness of his voice testified to the one present), and thinking he was a phantom, they were afraid. But Jesus said to them: 'I am, do not be afraid.' And Peter says to him: 'If it is you whom I know, but rather whom the Father testified to me, command me to come to you upon the waters.' And he who says to him with the most abundant transfer says: 'Come.'

Thus, beside the waters of the swimming pool, there was the charioteer and maker of the waters. To whom the paralytic says: 'I do not have a man, so that, when the water is troubled, he may throw me into the swimming pool.' The Savior says to him: 'Why do you wait for the troubling of waters? Unperturbed, be healed. And what apparent movement do you expect? By the word the command becomes sharper than thought. Only through the energy of the spring, fly above the one appearing in the flesh as God, and do not look at the one appearing, but at the one working through the one appearing. I do not have a man, so that when the water is troubled he may throw me into the swimming pool.' But he says to him: 'Why do you wait for small things? Why do you seek a healing of waters? Arise, the resurrection has said to you.' For everywhere to all people the Savior becomes all things: they hunger, he is bread; they thirst, he is water; to the dead, a resurrection; to the sick, a physician; to sinners, a redemption.

Arise, lift up your bed and walk. But first arise, first cast off the sickness. Then take up the cord of faith. First be strong against the one carrying your bed, and learn to carry the wooden vessel of long-revered things. And that one, the Savior, commanded to carry the wooden vessel, about which it is written: 'The king made a vessel for himself from the woods of Lebanon. He made its pillars silver, its canopy purple, and inside it was paved with stone.' The symbols of the passion are in the [...]