Take Up Your Pandemic And Walk

In the midst of a pandemic, today’s gospel gives us significant food for thought. The pool of Bethesda was a place where people would go for healing. The narrative says the man was ill, but does not really indicate anything specific. I found this interesting today because we usually get a description like the blind man, or the deaf man, or the lame man, or hemorrhaging woman, etc. We just know he was ill. The idea of illness in general just struck a chord in me for because of the current pandemic our world is in, and how I can personally claim illness in the way I think sometimes, the way I react sometimes, the way I behave sometimes, the way I believe sometimes, the way I perceive myself sometimes, and the way I can stay stuck somewhere unhealthy. This food for thought allowed me to enter the story and get on the mat with ill dude. He was there for 38 years, inches away from said pool of healing! Raise your hand if you have ever known what you needed to do and you stalled, procrastinated, made excuses, blamed it on someone else, and didn’t budge at all!! I know that I’m embarrassed to say that I totally get this guy. When Jesus finds out how long he had been lying there on the edge of healing, he asks a question that has been my daily challenge since this gospel came into my life, “Do you want to be well?” It’s direct. It’s blunt. It’s chilling. It’s telling. It’s simple. “Jen, do you want to be well?” And I used to respond in the same way ill dude responds, “yes, but…blame, yes, but…people get in my way, yes, but…I’m comfortable on my mat, yes, but…I’m waiting for someone to save me, yes, but…” We like what we know even if what we know is lying on the edge of our healing for a long long time.

Jesus wants so much more for us, friends. So he says, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Here is where I find myself naming my mat: “unbelief”, “complacency”, “betrayal”, “insecurity”, “trauma”, “anxiety”, “grief”, and for the current state of the world “fear.” What is the name of your mat? Where do you find yourself stuck? What keeps you from walking? I encourage each one of us to read the Words of Jesus out loud and directly to whatever you named your mat, “Rise, take up your unbelief, and walk.” “Rise, take up your fear, and walk.” “Rise, take up your pandemic, and walk.” It says that the man became well immediately, he took up his mat, and walked. Let Jesus speak his Word over the things that have you stuck and then rise up and walk. I know it’s not easy, but nothing is impossible with God. I’ve had to ask myself the question that Jesus asks the ill dude over and over again, “Jen, do you want to be well?” I am inches away from immediate wellness, if I heed the Words of my Savior. Do I want to be well? The tagline of my blog everyday is, “It is well with my soul”, do I want to be well? Am I willing to take up my mat and walk? Am I willing to let his Word heal me? Am I willing to scoot my butt over a few inches and enter the pool of wellness that I’ve been teetering on for years and years? My answer today is, “Yes, I want to be well.” When the man took up his mat in the story, suddenly what had him stuck all those years became a testimony of his freedom. 

We have an opportunity in this very special time of “rest” to name our mat, to let Jesus love us into wellness, and to take up our mats so we can walk into the next season, which I believe will be a time of great restoration and fruitfulness. Don’t get stuck in the waiting, don’t become paralyzed by the fear that seems to be all around us, and don’t forget to keep your eyes on Jesus. It is well with my soul. 

Reading 1 EZ 47:1-9, 12

The angel brought me, Ezekiel,
back to the entrance of the temple of the LORD,
and I saw water flowing out
from beneath the threshold of the temple toward the east,
for the façade of the temple was toward the east;
the water flowed down from the right side of the temple,
south of the altar.
He led me outside by the north gate,
and around to the outer gate facing the east,
where I saw water trickling from the right side.
Then when he had walked off to the east
with a measuring cord in his hand,
he measured off a thousand cubits
and had me wade through the water,
which was ankle-deep.
He measured off another thousand
and once more had me wade through the water,
which was now knee-deep.
Again he measured off a thousand and had me wade;
the water was up to my waist.
Once more he measured off a thousand,
but there was now a river through which I could not wade;
for the water had risen so high it had become a river
that could not be crossed except by swimming.
He asked me, “Have you seen this, son of man?”
Then he brought me to the bank of the river, where he had me sit.
Along the bank of the river I saw very many trees on both sides.
He said to me,
“This water flows into the eastern district down upon the Arabah,
and empties into the sea, the salt waters, which it makes fresh.
Wherever the river flows,
every sort of living creature that can multiply shall live,
and there shall be abundant fish,
for wherever this water comes the sea shall be made fresh.
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow;
their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.
Every month they shall bear fresh fruit,
for they shall be watered by the flow from the sanctuary.
Their fruit shall serve for food, and their leaves for medicine.”

Responsorial Psalm 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9

R.    (8)  The Lord of hosts is with us; our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.
Therefore we fear not, though the earth be shaken
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.
R.    The Lord of hosts is with us; our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
God is in its midst; it shall not be disturbed;
God will help it at the break of dawn.
R.    The Lord of hosts is with us; our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
our stronghold is the God of Jacob.
Come! behold the deeds of the LORD,
the astounding things he has wrought on earth.
R.    The Lord of hosts is with us; our stronghold is the God of Jacob.

Verse Before The Gospel PS 51:12A, 14A

A clean heart create for me, O God;
give me back the joy of your salvation.

Gospel JN 5:1-16

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.

Now that day was a sabbath.
So the Jews said to the man who was cured,
“It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”
He answered them, “The man who made me well told me,
‘Take up your mat and walk.’“
They asked him,
“Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”
The man who was healed did not know who it was,
for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.
After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him,
“Look, you are well; do not sin any more,
so that nothing worse may happen to you.”
The man went and told the Jews
that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus

because he did this on a sabbath.