Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
—John 5:8
When Jesus healed an invalid at the pool, he did not just tell the man to rise and walk. He told him to rise, carry his mat, and walk.
Why did he include the mat?
This had to be more than just embellishment. Jesus knew there would be consequences. The day was the Sabbath, when carrying a load was considered a violation of the law. The man was soon cited for this very offense (John 5:10). The value of carrying that mat was apparently great enough to be worth the price.
Jesus even gave the same command elsewhere. One time, the crowds were so thick around him that a paralytic was lowered to him from the roof. When this man was healed, the Lord did not tell him just to walk, but to carry his mat all the way home (Mark 2:11).
I think Jesus must have known something about these men. He knows the same thing about me. All of us, these men and I, have a problem with forgetting how much we have been blessed. For these men, Jesus provided a reminder.
They would not have chosen it. Both of the former invalids must have known these mats too well. They must have lain upon them so helplessly, and for so long, that the mats would have seemed like prison cells, or cages. They might well have reeked. Once the men were free to walk, they would have leapt from those old mats if they could. They would have run from them. But Jesus made use of the mats. As long as the men carried them, lugging the slight weight along, they would see just what they were doing. That is: They were walking. Rather than being subject to the mats, now the mats were subject to them.
Thus the mat is an additional gift. It is the blessing of holding our blessings in mind. The “mat,” in whatever form it takes in the life of one who has been healed, serves as ballast against our selfishness and pride. The first human beings quickly forgot—disregarding the blessings of the garden. And we are prone to forgetting just as quickly.
Your own mat might be a debt that still lingers out of a difficult time—a time that, otherwise, is blessedly finished now.
Or the mat might be some familiar dark emotion that you still encounter from time to time—the emotion that once had you almost completely surrounded, back when you were in the prison from which the Lord has set you free.
If you feel that you are incompletely healed because you still carry some hurt, temptation, or remnant out the time when you were afflicted—then consider what purpose the weight might serve. Consider who you might be if you did not have this reminder, this connection to where you have been.
If you were completely blessed, is it possible you would completely forget?
Give thanks for the mat. Carry it humbly.
Give thanks for the God who wants to keep you this close, who wants to keep your heart aware—aware, that is, of how far you have come ... and how great is the load that you don’t have to carry anymore.
