Get up! Pick up your mat and walk

Today, I invite you to walk with me to the pool of Bethesda found in John 5:1-9 where Jesus gave a command to the paralyzed man lying there: “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”
He offers a powerful peek into God’s transformative power and a call to step out of our comfort zone and embrace a new life.

It was a Jewish festival where Jesus was present at the pool known for its healing water, surrounded by the blind, lame, and paralyzed, who would wait for an Angel of the Lord to come and stir the water. The first person to enter the water after the stirring was healed from any sickness.

Jesus took notice of an invalid lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for thirty-eight years. He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus says to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
We all know what it feels like to wait for someone, anyone, to help. Waiting for our prodigal daughter or son to return home.

Waiting for those funds to come in so you can keep the lights on. So many times, in our lives we find ourselves waiting, sometimes for something small, just enough to get us through another day.

Other times, as we all recently witnessed, the unbearable pain of waiting for your child to be found, swept away by a river that rose 26 feet in 45 minutes before the morning sunrise. Waiting... How long God must we wait?

The man at the pool of Bethesda had surely been waiting for a very long time. He was a symbol of helplessness and despair, a human life trapped by illness and circumstance. He had been waiting long before Jesus was even born and yet Jesus looked beyond his physical limitations and offered him a profound and unexpected transformation.

“Get Up, Pick Up Your Mat and Walk.” This simple yet powerful command is more than just a physical act; it’s a call to transformation.

Get Up! The invalid is called to rise, to stand, to break the chains that bound him for 38 years, to be free from all that held him back in his past. It’s the emancipation from the grip of paralysis, both physical and spiritual.

Pick Up Your Mat! The mat he carried for decades was his sign, his symbol of weakness, dependence, yet now it becomes a testament to his healing.

Does anyone reading this have a testimony! If so, share it with others and stop hiding your mat, your past pain and shame, in the closet! Carry it with you so everyone can see and hear your living testimony and Walk!

Move forward, embrace life with purpose and direction knowing that you are a new creation, one that is healed, empowered, emancipated and free.

This story is not just about physical healing; it’s about spiritual healing and new beginnings. Our past does not define our future, and we need not be bound by it. Let’s all get up, pick up our mats, those reminders and beliefs of our past that made us feel less worthy, less lovable, less fortunate, and walk into the newness of life that has been prepared for us.

Jesus never even touched him, no anointing oils, no reaching out His hand to lift him up, he simply says, you want to be better, show me what you’ve got! Show me what you can do with no help, no support, no family or friends by your side, especially those you’re still angry with because they weren’t there for you when you needed them most.

He’s saying, I don’t want anyone helping you because I want you to know for certain, without doubt, that if it not be for God! God’s not going to share the glory when you’re back up on your feet.

So, my friends, know that your transformation, physical or spiritual, is coming and when it does the waiting will be over and the rejoicing will begin, for you trusted in God’s unfailing love and it’s nobody but God that you’ll be giving thanks and praise too!

Rev. Dr. Nannette Pierson, Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Pastoral Associate at Campbell Chapel A.M.E. in Bluffton, SC