...the grace is not spent, the power is not exhausted...

Date: 13 January 2005 09:44:51

I'm reading through The Miracles of Christ by Archbishop Dmitri, and am finding it a a great help in looking at the miracles of Christ in a fresh light and, especially as I read Part II [on "The Signs" in St John's Gospel], seeing how these relate to the sacramental life of the church. The Gospel of St John is read in the Orthodox Church in the weeks following Pascha (Easter), which has traditionally been a period for the instruction of new Christians who were baptised and chrismated at Pascha. Why St John? Archbishop Dmitri says:

Because it was recognized that the Lord's miracles are really "signs".... pointing to the sacramental basis of the Christian life. There are signs, for example, in which water is not only a necessary element of cleansing or for satisfying the thirst, but also symbolic of the water of baptism.
It is evident throughout the New Testament that Christ's presence transforms everything. The signs bear witness to that transformation. This is especially true in the fouth Gospel. St John's use of certain elements -- water, bread, wine -- and their continued presence in the holy mysteries are a sign of the Lord's presence.

Reading the miracle of the Healing of the Paralytic at the Pool and Archbishop Dmitri's explanation of it yesterday, I was particularly struck by the comments of St John Chrysostom(*) in his Homily 36 on the Gospel According to St John:

The sick man cannot now say, "I have no man"; he cannot say, "While I am coming another steppeth down before me"; though the whole world should come, the grace is not spent, the power is not exhausted, but remaineth equally great as it was before. Just as the sun's beams give light every day, yet are not exhausted, nor is their light made less by giving so abundant a supply; so, and much more, the power of the Spirit is in no way lessened by the numbers of those who enjoy it.

though the whole world should come, the grace is not spent, the power is not exhausted, but remaineth equally great as it was before -- what words of comfort! Grace and the cleansing from sin is available to all through dying and rising to new life with Christ through baptism. As one of the hymns for the day on which this passage is read says:

Of old an Angel came down to the Sheep's Pool and healed one man every year,
but now Christ doth cleanse endless multitudes by divine Baptism.

(*) St John Chrysostom is honoured -- together with St Basil the Great and St Gregory of Nazianzus -- as one of the Orthodox Church's three great hierarchs and teachers. He is called Chrysostom, or "Golden-mouth", because of the surpassing eloquence of his preaching.