RISE, TAKE UP YOUR MAT AND WALK

April 05, 2011

D A I L Y G O S P E L

Pettiness is a very annoying trait. It is terribly frustrating when you are trying to accomplish a task, particularly a large and complicated one, and you are constantly being thwarted by petty problems posed by individuals who are simply being pains in the neck. Jesus experiences this sort of thing often. Give me one good reason why healing a person on the Sabbath is a bad thing! You cannot do so because there is no good reason. If a person is sick, you do not tell him to wait if you can heal them then and there.

VERSE BEFORE THE GOSPEL

A clean heart create for me, O God; give me back the joy of your salvation.

John 5:1-16

1 There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep Gate a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. 3 In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled. [4] 4 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” 9 Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. Now that day was a sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who was cured, “It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11 He answered them, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’ ” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who told you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” 13 The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there. 14 After this Jesus found him in the temple area and said to him, “Look, you are well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went and told the Jews that Jesus was the one who had made him well. 16 Therefore, the Jews began to persecute Jesus because he did this on a sabbath.