When was the last time we found ourselves knocked to the ground? As if in slow motion, we can look back and see how we came crashing down, dizzy and disoriented. In life, we may sometimes experience moments of deep uncertainty, humiliation, anger, confusion, grief, and all those inner states where we lose the strength in our feet and the light in our eyes.
It is significant how often in his life Jesus encountered people who were physically stranded on the ground. We have been created to stand upright, to look up, yet at some point in our life we all find ourselves down on the ground. A magnetic downward pull somehow prevents us from rising back up. The ground becomes familiar territory, and no outstretched arm is enough to pull us up.
Despite how much as we hate the humiliation of a thumping fall, we may also protest, sulk and refuse to get back up. Some of us regress to that stage of life where, in order to move, we just crawled about. We crawl our way through suffering, disappointments and guilt, and while we manage to continue moving about in life, we know deep within that things are not as they should be.
Returning back to the gospels, Jesus encountered many such characters who simply waited on the ground – whether it is the blind man of Jericho on the side of the street, the paralytic waiting at the side of the pool of Bethesda or the countless others who had given up on life and forgot what it means to walk upright and stand tall.
The command that these people received was to “rise and walk”. This command might sound forceful and even out of place, out of tune with the desire to simply stay put. However, they are also words that instil nostalgia for how things could be, when life streamed effortlessly within us. They are words that are meant to reignite a desire for life, relationships and new things on the horizon.
We can all think of that person who one time or another, whether harshly or gently, invited us to rise and walk, to come out of our alleyways. These are the people who really love us, because they know our true place is not crawling to the ground but standing upright. They love us because, instead of nourishing our sulking and blaming, they instill in us that impetus to move forward, not look back to the paradise lost.
These are the people who really love us, because they know our true place is not crawling to the ground but standing upright
One of the most intriguing passages in the gospel revolves again around a paralytic, this time carried by his friends on a stretcher. The blocked door of the house from where Jesus was teaching was no obstacle to their determination to have their friend show up in front of Jesus. Their ‘faith’ saved the paralysed man, who seemed bound both physically and inwardly.
Sometimes we cannot just rise and walk with the brute force of our dwindled will. We need to be carried to that place of safety where the words become clearer: “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home”.