In John 5:8 we read, “Yeshua/Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your mat/bed, and walk.”

For weeks we have had a small bird fighting its own reflection in our kitchen window, see picture. My wife has tried numerous times to cover the window, or even to make it less reflective, but to no avail. It’s only this window, and the little guy just keeps on fighting his reflection. But once he catches sight of someone behind the reflection, he stops and flies away.

In studying and reflecting on John 5 today, pun intended, the mat/bed that had been the man’s resting place for 38 years stood out to me. Here he has stayed, beside the pool at Bethesda, waiting for his chance to be healed, made whole, and set free.

Yeshua/Jesus finds him there, and asks, “Do you want to be healed?” (Jn. 5:6). The question was an opportunity, and opportunity to stir the man, and not the water, to rightly aligned faith. It was believed that an angel stirred the waters at Bethesda (בית חסד), the House of Grace/Mercy; and if one moved into the waters while they were stirring, healing would result. Yet, this man had an excuse: no one would help him.

What may have been a legitimate hindrance for some period of time, eventually became a reason to stay put. His mat became his rest, his affliction his identity, and the waters, misplaced faith. See, the One Who heals came down, found Him, and said, “Get up!” When the man would not look up to heaven, heaven came down and in speaking to him, caused him not just to look up, but to get up.

But why not leave the mat? The man was healed, or made whole on Shabbat, the Sabbath (Jn. 5:9). Jesus commanded him to take up your mat/bed, his pervious identity and walk. Why? Others would see and recognize him by that mat.

It’s unlawful! When Messiah heals us it is inevitable that religiously minded people will see our history, in this case the mat/bed, and point to our sinful past. On the Shabbat this man was healed, by the Lord of the Shabbat. When they discovered Who had healed this man, Yeshua says something of great significance: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (Jn. 5:17). Why was Jesus healing on the Sabbath?

Because He is the actual rest and acceptance that we are all rigidly, legalistically laboring to find, yet ignoring in self-reliance. He is the One beyond the waters that we are waiting to encounter; and until we recognize Him, we will be helplessly lost in vain attempts at self-justification.

The Judeans who confronted the man pointed, not to his healing, but to his mat: his past. See, when they confronted Yeshua, they confronted Him about the manner in which he had been given rest. Yet, as Jesus said: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

At times, people caught up in self-justification will find us walking with our mats, in the rest graciously given, and point to the once unlawful identity we had been caught in, not to rejoice but to scorn, as Messiah taught: “For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matt. 23:13). They are still helplessly locked in misdirected faith.

Still, at times, like the little bird, we can catch a glimpse of ourselves in a reflective surface, and try to fight back the image that we see, helplessly wearing ourselves ragged in a vain attempt to overcome the shadow of ourselves, slipping into thoughts of self-justification.

Friends, He has called you to carry your mat in order to inspire others to enter the rest that only comes from the One Who came down from heaven to find us. There will always be people willing to point to your history and see its unlawfulness, ignoring the grace that has covered and now carries it. And when this causes us to fight our reflection, remember that there is another, behind what you see of yourself, Who has changed the image of you, into the image of Himself (Ro. 8:28-29).

Be well. Shalom.