Pick up your mat and walk

When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" The man answered, "Lord, I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first." Jesus told him, "Pick up your mat and walk!" John 5:6-8

Pick up your mat and walk*

Jesus has been trying to tread carefully. One one side he does not want the attention that would drive an agenda forward too quickly. On the other, the prophet in him wishes to cut through swathes of red tape ('you can't heal on the Sabbath') and break up patterns ('someone always gets there first'). To the leaders he is now labelled as one who causes trouble, whose statements of authority lead them to contemplate murder. Interestingly, the healed man did not know Jesus, He had come to him out of the blue.

As I listen to this simple and direct instruction* of Jesus what is the response within me , what desire or challenge is stirred within me? Is there a prayer or action that emerges?

The notes meet, harmonious

When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and asked that he come down and heal his son, who was on the brink of death. Jesus put him off: "Unless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe." But the court official wouldn't be put off. "Come down! It's life or death for my son." Jesus simply replied, "Go home. Your son lives." John 4:47-49

No, my life is not this precipitous hour Through which you see me passing at a run. I stand before my background like a tree. Of all my many mouths I am but one, And that which soonest chooses to be dumb. I am the rest between two notes Which, struck together, sound discordantly. Because death’s note would claim a higher key. But in the dark pause, trembling, the notes meet, harmonious. And the song continues. From The Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke

Unless you people are dazzled by a miracle, you refuse to believe.

What is happening here? How can Jesus be so rude in the face of such a request? Is he, in fact, drawing the man out? Would I have persisted in what I knew and was sure of or would I have shrunk back? Gus MacLeod

Hearing the groom’s voice

At a wedding the groom is the one who gets married. The best man is glad just to be there and to hear the groom's voice. John 3:29

A groom and his best man

The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins on delighting in God... All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.

As soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the baby in my womb leapt for joy. Luke 1:43

Glad just to... hear the groom's voice

John and Jesus. From an unborn child John knew great joy at just being close to Jesus. Delight in his presence, feel the amazement and delight at the Lord of Creation who delights to be close to us.

I will build it again

"Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it again!" The leaders replied, "It took forty-six years to build this temple. What makes you think you can rebuild it in three days?"... And when he was raised from death, his disciples remembered what he had told them. Then they believed the Scriptures and the words of Jesus. John 2:19-22

Piero della Francesca, Resurrection

The incarnate Word is with us, is still speaking, is present always, yet leaves no sign but everything that is. Wendell Berry, Given, Sabbaths 1999 IX

I will build it again...What makes you think?...Then they believed

As I listen to this statement and these responses within me what desire or challenge is stirred within me? Is there a prayer or action that emerges?