Jesus told a man to pick up his mat and walk. The man did. He picked up the mat and walked, right into the attention of the religious leaders.

Jesus disappeared into the crowd. When asked, the man didn’t even know the name of the man who had told him to do the unimaginable.

A few pages later, we find Jesus putting mud on a man’s eyes and sending him to wash it off. The man, who couldn’t see, knew it was Jesus but didn’t have any idea what he looked like.

In both cases, the men are subjected to Pharisaical interrogation. The authorities are worried, by the way, with technical obedience of the law. The healings happen on the sabbath, the day of rest, the day laden with behavior rules.

“The man who healed me told me to carry this mat.” What right did the healer to tell him to carry his mat, to disobey the law on the Sabbath? He was the healer, the one who brought freedom after 38 years. To the now walking man, it was self-evident.

The men can’t explain the spiritual how of the healing. They know they are well and they say that, but then they cannot give a satisfactory account of the healing to the authorities, to the skeptics.

Why does Jesus heal these men and then leave them dangling without details?

Faith wasn’t necessary for the healing, not much anyway. They didn’t do anything to earn it, to deserve it, to make it happen.

But now that they are healed, will they be willing to tell what little they know about what happened? Or will they look for other explanations, for other reasons, for other understanding?

These men told what they knew. And for that, they were given more. They saw Jesus.