Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent
A Gentleman in Moscow is a novel by Amor Towles about a Russian aristocrat living under house arrest in a luxury hotel for more than thirty years. Count Alexander Rostov is a wealthy man sentenced by the new Communist regime to a life of exile within the Metropol hotel. Over the years, Count Rostov leads a full life within the confines of the Metropol Hotel. He has great friends among the staff, meets a charming actress whom he comes to love, and makes the acquaintance of foreign journalists and diplomats staying at the hotel and enjoying good food and wine. In some way, Count Rostov has become complacent with his lifestyle as a prisoner in the luxury hotel. Nonetheless, he realized that at some point, he needed to find other ways to fill his life. So, he needed to challenge himself, so he started a career as a waiter in the hotel and continued to learn many new things, including reading many new books. Finally, he learns to become a father to his adopted daughter, an experience that transform his life beyond his life sentence at the Metropol Hotel.
In the Gospel reading today, we hear the story of a man who has been ill for thirty-eight years. That question, how is it possible that for 38 years, no one has done anything to help this man? How could that happen that this man could have been lying just a few meters from the healing pool for nearly four decades without any assistance? Presumably, he receives some food and drinks from others that give him sustenance, but why could no one help to carry him to the pool? One plausible answer is that this man has become complacent with his infirmity. For that reason, Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be made well?" Jesus is hinting that something bigger is at stake beyond his physical problem. Being healed means that this man must live a different life than he experienced in the last thirty-eight years. Similarly, Jesus performs the miracle of healing the man, but it transcends the physical miracle, and it raises the issue concerning the Sabbath, in which Jesus transcends the theological and legal demands of the Sabbath. The Jews have become spiritually complacent with the Sabbath observance, and they fail to understand that the Sabbath is a memory of God's creation and redemption, which invites people to recognize God's Lordship.
In the remaining days of the Lenten season, perhaps we can reflect on how we have become complacent in our lives and challenge ourselves to become better people by recognizing what is most important for us in our relationship with Christ.