One Sabbath day, a Saturday, while all Jewish people observed the no work law, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to attend a festival. Along the northeast wall of Jerusalem stood the Sheep Gate where all sheep entered that were headed to the Temple for sacrificial slaughter.
Near the Sheep Gate was a large pool called the pool of Bethesda. This pool was as large as a football field, 20 feet deep, and had five porches where people could get in and out of the water. The pool was often crowded with sick people who believed that the moving of the water was an angel of God come to heal the first person to get into the water.
Jesus walked up to one of the sick people at the pool and asked him, “Do you want to get well?” The only healing the man believed in was getting into the water before anyone else. So, he tells Jesus he’s been paralyzed and unable to walk for 38 years and has no one to help him into the water.
Jesus didn’t ask for a statement of faith, deeply spiritual prayer, or a contribution to the Temple. Jesus simply said, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk”.
Imagine…
An adult male living by a crowded pool because he has no other hope.
Imagine a grown man who can’t get himself to a bathroom to relieve himself.
He has no bed and no place to bathe.
He begs for food and money.
He can’t go home or to church because his illness has made him an unclean, forgotten person.
And he’s been living this way for almost four decades, through three Herod tetrarchs ruling Israel.
Now Imagine…
A stranger walks up to a paraplegic man asking if he wants help. The paraplegic man imagines that finally someone is going to help him into the pool when the water bubbles. At last, he will be the first into the water and will win the lottery of all lotteries for which everyone else in his neighborhood wishes.
Instead of helping the paraplegic man move closer to the pool’s edge, the stranger says, “Get up!” The paraplegic is immediately healed.
“Pick up your mat and walk.”
But, what if he doesn’t believe he is healed? He sees his legs straighten and become healthy. But what if his legs have no strength and have forgotten how to walk? All he knows is four decades of misery, poverty, and marginalization. He has no career, no skills, estranged family and forgotten friends. Wouldn’t it be easier to stay on his mat and keep begging for money? It’s all he can remember how to do.
Besides, it’s Saturday, the Sabbath. It’s against the law to do any work on the Sabbath. The religious leaders have specified that carrying your mat is in one of the 39 categories of Sabbath-breaking work.
To the broken…
When you are curled up on the couch wishing you were acceptable and accepted by the people around you,
When all you can see is your brokenness and the long amount of time you’ve spent in your misery,
When your symbolic mat of spiritual poverty is more comfortable than the healthy life you dream about,
When you feel like religion and the people around you see you as filthy and worthless,
When your hope is in the wrong place and that hope is fading,
Jesus says…
Get up!
In Christ, you’re healed. The old you is gone. You’re not the person you used to be. You are free to leave your spiritual poverty behind, free to live a new life, free to walk with your head held high. You are forgiven. You are loved. You are a new creation.
Pick up your mat!
You’re not coming back to this place of brokenness, poverty, and begging. Put your symbolic mat away. Throw it in the trash. You don’t need it anymore.
Walk!
It’s scary. A new life is confusing. You might not be good at it at first. There’s many new skills to learn. How will you decide which direction to go next? Get up and walk anyway. You are not meant to be curled up in a ball, believing only in your inability and unworthiness.
What was it like in Jerusalem when the lifelong paralytic ran through the streets and declared himself healed in the church? Any time Jesus does great things, religious people get angry. You will get up and walk away from the false hope you were caught in and yet many people will stay in their delusion and their misery, waiting for water to bubble. You have to walk away from all you thought was truth.
Jesus heals. But you have to get up and walk. Walk to a new life. Walk to tell others the power of the Lord that has changed your life. Walk to the new opportunities to live for God. Walk because you are no longer broken and disabled.
It is because of the power of the loving, compassionate, and good God that Jesus says to you, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk” (John 5:1-8).
Copyright @ TA Boland 2025
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