Take Up Your Bed and Walk

5 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 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.” 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. 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.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ”
John 5:1-11
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Take Up Your Bed and Walk
The man at Bethesda lay helpless for thirty-eight years. No strength. No hope. No movement. Then Jesus came. He spoke only a word, and the man rose, bed in hand. What no effort or waiting could accomplish, Christ gave freely. We are not so different. Sin leaves us powerless, unable to rise to God. But Jesus comes, not to help the strong, but to raise the dead. On His cross, He bore our weakness, carried our guilt, and in His resurrection, He speaks life into our graves. When Jesus commands, “Take up your bed,” He gives what He commands. His Word creates faith and gives strength where there was none. We walk, not by our will, but by His mercy. Today, take heart: the crucified and risen Christ meets you in your helplessness and says, “Rise.” And by His Word, you do.