Take Up Your Bed and Walk
Scripture: John 5:7-11
We ended the previous lesson with Jesus going up to a paralytic man, who had been at the pool for thirty-eight years waiting to be healed and asked him if he wanted to be healed. Jn 5:7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
People at the pool believed that the first one who entered the water when it was stirred up would be healed. Having missed that opportunity for 38 years, the paralytic man’s answer reflects his belief and what needs to be done to be healed. He didn’t say that he wanted to be healed, but instead answers from a position of lost hope.
Jn 5:8 “Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.” Without obtaining definite permission from the man, Jesus heals him and commands him to take up his bed and walk. This miracle is different than past ones where people came to Jesus to be healed. In this case, Jesus goes to the person and heals. Can you think of times in your life when God did something without first getting your permission? Remember, God makes the promise that he will conform his children into the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29). I am sure that will involve taking us through some hard training times that he doesn’t first ask our permission. As a Father, God is training us to be good family members.
Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath and commands the man to take up his bed and walk. Both activities are seen as unlawful by the Pharisees and could result in both Jesus and the man getting into trouble. As the man walked, presumably to his home or maybe to the temple, he was noticed by some Jews. Jn 5:10 “So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”’ A search of Old Testament law does not show anything that specifically prohibited such an innocent activity of carrying one’s bedroll on a Sabbath day. The man was, therefore, not violating the law but Jewish traditions which had been developed to control people’s behavior. These hundreds of minutely detailed and burdensome rules about what kind of work was prohibited, forbade carrying an object from one place to another on the Sabbath.
Like when God confronted Adam in the garden and asked him why he had eaten from the forbidden fruit, he blames Eve who then blames the serpent, here, the man blames the one who healed him. Jn 5:11 “But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” Trying to get out of trouble with the Jews, the man shifts blame for what he is doing to the one who commanded him to do what he was doing. His reference to being healed by the one who commanded him to go carrying his bedroll, shifts the focus of the Jews to know who the person was who did the healing.
We will leave the remaining few verses for out next lesson.
Conclusion
Things have not changed. Today people have made up rules for people to follow that provides them a platform of judgment and thus power over those they judge. We see this in various forms of persecution around the world. Power to control is important to the unsaved, but with those born spiritually, the sacrifice of love is to be what we should live by. Father help us live out your love toward others.
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