John 5:1-18

“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk”.  That’s what I woke up to on my radio this morning. The familiar story of Jesus healing a man who has been paralyzed for 38 years.

I’ve read this story a thousand times and have even written about it.  There are so many amazing analogies here.  But until this morning, I had missed one.

“Pick up your mat and walk.”  I had always thought about this as merely the declaration of this man’s healing and his faith being put into action.  But the guy talking on the radio this morning offered another analogy…

When Jesus met this man, he was sitting by a “pool of healing” where many disabled people gathered for a chance to be the first in the water to experience “healing”.  A scene of passive waiting for something to change in their lives.  No action, no proactive measures, just waiting.

When Jesus approaches the man, he asks him, “Do you want to get well?”  Seems like an obvious answer for a man who has been an invalid for 38 years.  But instead of answering yes, the man makes excuses and blaming others for his not being able to get to the pool first.

And that’s when Jesus calls him to action.  “Get up.  Take up your mat and walk.”  In other words, “Trust me.  Obey me.  Get into position and move forward.”

All of this was clear to me before.  But here’s what I missed.  In asking him to pick up his mat, Jesus is asking him to leave the spot where he was, knowing that as soon he leaves that spot open, it will not be available again.  He would not be able to return to that place where he had spent so much time waiting for change.  He had to walk.  Actively move forward.

How many times have I longed for change or sensed God asking me to do something different in my thoughts, attitudes or actions, but just sit there waiting for something to just “happen”?  How much time have I wasted sitting next to the “healing pool” when I can go to the Healer Himself and experience healing and change and a fresh start? Why do I blame others or my situation for my “condition” when it is actually my own passivity, my own lack of trust?

Jesus, when you ask me to do something, when I need to change, help me to listen to and obey Your  words in my ear, “Get up. Pick up your mat and walk…”