The Crushed Spirit He will save

Yesterday we read my favorite Gospel reading at Mass. The paralyzed man by the pool. Thirty eight years! Waiting for help for thirty eight years. It used to make me tear up when I was a little kid and I heard this reading. Especially when he says, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me." I pictured a mad rush of self centered people jostling to get to the pool first. And this poor man being crushed in the fray. 

But two things stood out to me yesterday. Jesus knew he had been ill a long time, and He also knew the man's sufferings had been ignored by everyone else. His suffering was willfully invisible to everyone except Jesus. And cured he was. Just like that. Talk about a life lesson in not "putting your faith in man, but in God". 

Jesus's help is always like that. We have all experienced it at one time or another. Without fanfare, without rush, quietly, unobtrusively, not expecting return on His investment....."for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there." There is just so much peace with Jesus. Straightforward peace. He gives freely to the humbled soul. The long waiting soul. One on one in the secret of our heart and His. Privately. The soul "whose spirit is crushed, He will save." Blessed be God forever.