A Short Reflection: Rise, Take Up Your Mat and Walk

After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep [Gate] a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?”

The sick man answered him, “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.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”

Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

John 5:1-9

I didn't learn how to swim when I was a kid. People are surprised by this. While some of my friends lived for days at the pool in the summer, I was reluctant to dip my toe in for fear of drowning.

I think this is why I found today's Gospel reading so impactful. When you think about it, the man waiting at the pool of Bethesda has the cards stacked against him. He's been ill for 38 years. He can't life himself into the pools, which were believed to have healing properties. He doesn't have anyone to help him. And he's aching to be well.

In fact, it seems he wants so badly to be healed that he's willing to suffer in order to get there. I imagine that as he waited for the waters to be stirred up, this man has been pushed and shoved as others tried to make their way into the pool. And after 38 years, he had to have been thinking about what would happen if he wasn't healed...what was the possibility that he would be sucked into the water with no one to pull him out? And yet, when Jesus asks him "Do you want to be well?" he doesn't respond with an emphatic yes. Instead, he has an explanation of why he hasn't been healed yet.

In his voice, I hear my voice. I hear an excuse; I hear avoidance; and I hear disbelief. I hear a loneliness that's reaching for a friend or even a compassionate bystander to offer a helping hand. I hear fear of failure that's born of competition with the person next to me who's going to get what I want before I can even get close.

But I also hear Jesus saying, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk." And this is when I know that He is the compassionate friend who I've been looking for. He doesn't seek to compete with me. He only desires to love me. I don't have to say a word becuase He already knows what's in my heart. He listens to my pain and His Heart is moved by my suffering. He knows what I want because He knows me.

How about you?

What thing have you been holding on to for years that you desire to have healed?

Who are you looking to to heal you?

What do you say to Jesus when He asks you if you want to be well?

What are you going to do when he tells you to rise, pick up your mat, and walk?