Get Up and Walk: Grace That Doesn’t Wait
A short reflection on John 5:1–9
In the shadow of the Pool of Bethesda, we witness a tragic irony: a place of healing becomes a stage for suffering. The waters were believed to hold curative power when stirred – but only for the first person in. The scene is heart-breaking. The sick, desperate, and disabled scramble, compete, and trample each other in pursuit of wholeness, turning healing into a selfish, survival-of-the-fittest ordeal. This is no holy sanctuary. It’s a mirror to a broken society where people are left to fend for themselves, and no one stops to help.
Jesus enters, and everything shifts. He notices a man who has been stuck for 38 years – paralysed not only in body but in spirit. The man doesn’t cry out. He doesn’t ask to be healed. He just explains his hopelessness. But Jesus doesn’t wait for the perfect plea or the right words. He doesn’t wait for the Sabbath to end. He doesn’t step into the superstition. He simply speaks: Get up, pick up your mat, and walk. And the man does. The chains of despair break. The prison of resignation crumbles. The miracle isn’t just in the walking – it’s in the rising, the return of will, the first act of self-agency after years of waiting.
Sometimes our deepest healing begins when someone sees us and believes we can be more than our circumstances.
Grace doesn’t wait for the “right time” – it meets us now, here, and calls us into new life.
Ngā mihi
Philip
25 May 2025
p.s. Worship leaders: You can buy a complete Order of Service and Sermon based on these readings here: https://philipgarsidebooks.com/products/worship-at-hand-easter-6-25-may-2025