Today, on the Sunday of the Weak, the fourth Sunday after Easter, dedicated to the miraculous healing of a weak patient, (John 5, 1-14), the faithful in the Church of St. Nicholas in the Old Town of Kotor were addressed with a sermon by the hierarchal vicar of Kotor-Tivat, the parish priest of Kotor, Archpriest-stavrophor Nemanja Krivokapić.

“In today’s Holy Gospel, the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John reminds us of the event that took place near Jerusalem in the Pool of Bethesda, where the Lord Jesus Christ healed a sick man who had been sick for 38 years. In addition to reaffirming again and again the truth that the Lord God is omnipotent, that He can do everything, we also reaffirm the truth that the Lord God loves humanity and that His love for man is immense. Through this event, the Church reminds us to think about where we are in that story, what our relationship is, that is, if the Lord God loves humanity, are we too, do we reciprocate that love, and what kind of person we are towards other people,” said Fr. Nemanja, recalling the dialogue between the Lord Jesus Christ and the sick man, when he says to him “Do you want to be made well?” and he replies “I have no one to take me to the pool.”

According to the Holy Gospel, an angel would descend into the bathhouse from time to time, stirring up the water, and whoever entered it first would be healed, no matter what illness they had.

“Since this man was immobile, he could not enter by himself. The one who would enter first would be healed, and the sick man says: “I have no man to put me into the water”. Therefore, in order for him to be healthy, someone would have to help him enter, to say to himself – I will not enter before him, but I will help him, that is, he should be a man first and foremost. Examples like these show whether we are human or not. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ asks of us. The love that He gave us, that He showed us, we should return that love to Him through love for our neighbors. In this way, each of us remains a man. This is what God also asks of us. To manifest ourselves as true Christians. But we cannot be that without another person, without communion with another, without our relationship with him. Every problem, every situation where someone is powerless, is an opportunity for us to to show, to show that we are true, that we have understood the words of the Lord, the words of Christ, and those commandments “Love the Lord your God” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”, continued Fr. Nemanja.

This, he emphasized, is also an opportunity to defeat the greatest enemy in us, which is the ego.

“It is putting ourselves at the center of the world, these are our needs, I need this, I need that, while from this desire to please ourselves we do not see the needs of others. It does not have to be some special help to do something special for a person, but just our concern and the general desire to look around us a little, to look at other people, whether someone besides us needs something, whether someone else has some desires of their own that they cannot fulfill. This is what the Lord asks of us, and through this Holy Gospel, one of the wonderful sticheras that are sung for this holiday reminds us of this. Then, when the latter answers, "I have no man," and Christ says, "I became a man for you, I took on human flesh for you, I suffered for you, and you say I have no man."

He wants to say that Christ is the one who teaches us how to live and to gain the Kingdom of God, because he first of all showed us by his example how to live. He did not just say that you should do this and that, but he showed everything he said by his example. And he showed us how to be human towards each other. May the Lord God grant that such examples, such holy gospels and such events in these times when we celebrate the most joyful event of the Resurrection of the Lord Christ and all that Christ did for us, the love that He showed us, may we also show love for the Lord, through love for our neighbors and thus be saved, amen”, said, among other things, Fr. Nemanja.