Take Up Your Bed and Walk: Healing from the Addiction of White Supremacy

By Gloria Zuurveen/PACE NEWS/The Southern Truth 

“When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered Him, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.'”
— John 5:6–8 (NKJV)

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It’s time for us, as a people, to look in the mirror, not out the window.
It’s time for us to stop making excuses, and start making moves.
Because the same question Jesus asked that man at the pool of Bethesda over 2,000 years ago—He’s asking us today:

“Do you want to be made whole?”

See, that man had been laying by the water for 38 years. That’s nearly a lifetime of watching others step in front of him, of blaming his condition on those around him, of waiting on someone else to carry him into healing.

Sound familiar?

Too many of us are still lying by the pool—waiting.
Waiting on government reparations.
Waiting on white folks to apologize.
Waiting on the next election to save us.
Waiting for someone—anyone—to carry us into justice, equality, or respect.

But what Jesus showed us in that moment is this:
Healing don’t come from waiting—it comes from willing.

He didn’t ask the man for his resume.
He didn’t ask who stepped in front of him.
He asked one question:
“Do you want to be made whole?”

And when the man gave his excuses—“Sir, I have no one…”—Jesus cut through the pity and gave him power:
“Take up your bed and walk.”

That same word applies to Black people today.
We’ve been laying by the pool of white supremacy for too long—begging for recognition, hoping for fairness, asking to be invited in.

But the time for waiting is over.
The water has been stirred.
The Spirit is moving.
Now the question is:
Will we rise?

Because addiction to white supremacy is not just about what they did to us—
It’s about what we keep allowing them to do through our dependency, our consumption, our validation-seeking, and our silence.

We don’t need to be carried anymore.
We need to stand.

Stand on truth.
Stand on unity.
Stand on divine instruction.
Because Christ gave the command, not a suggestion:
“Take up your bed and walk.”

Take up the pain, the trauma, the history.
Don’t ignore it—carry it. Own it.
But don’t stay laying in it.

Walk into healing.
Walk into wholeness.
Walk into a future where we no longer ask to be seen, but see ourselves clearly as God made us—fearfully, wonderfully, and powerfully.

The man at the pool had a choice.
He could continue to blame. Or he could believe.
And once he believed, he moved.

It’s our turn.

Let us stop looking at the rest.
Let us stop waiting for the stir.
The Word has already spoken.
And we are the ones we’ve been waiting on.

Let us rise, take up our bed, and walk—
Right out of addiction to White Supremacy.
Right out of generational bondage.
Right into The Southern Truth.