Jesus Heals a Paralytic
1A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
6Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
8Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, 11"I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
BACKGROUND READING:
Daniel 7
Jeremiah 33
Luke 5:17-26
Dig Deeper
Mark paints an amazing picture here for us in a very short amount of space. Within this story of faith and healing, we have an extraordinary picture of friendship. Most people who were paralyzed in the first century faced a very difficult life. There was no government organization to help them get a job or give them support. Crippled people were just not thought very highly of at all in that society and were usually relegated to begging to make a living.
There was something different about this man, though. Jesus, was no doubt as impressed by their mere friendship as he was their faith. He would surely have been moved by their display of friendship and loyalty to their paralyzed friend.
This may have removed some of the sting that was possibly Jesus’ own house that had the roof torn up to drop their friend through. Many people speculate that Jesus lived with Peter when he moved to Capernaum, but it is just as likely, if not more so, that he had secured his own small house there. A large crowd had heard that Jesus had returned home and was pressing around his house at all sides. In order to see him, these men dismantled the roof (which may have been Jesus’ own roof) and dropped their friend through.
Jesus was impressed when he saw the faith of these men. This paralytic must have been a special individual to induce that kind of loyalty. To take in the full impact of the situation in real time, however, we must enter the story here from the standpoint of the paralyzed man. He and his friends have gone through a great deal of trouble for the chance to be healed by Jesus. Just then, Jesus sees him and walks over to him. This is it, their hard work has paid off. Except that Jesus says something very unexpected; he tells this man that his sins are forgiven. What would your reaction be, especially if you were a Jew that probably saw no particular need for such a thing on a personal level. For the first-century Jew, forgiveness of sins primarily referred to a time when all of Israel was brought back from the exile from God that had been caused by their national sin (see: Lam. 4:22; Jer. 31:31-34; Jer. 33:4-11; Ezek. 36:24-26, 33; Ezek. 37:21-23; Isa. 40:1-2; etc.) He must have been more than a bit bewildered, and probably was disappointed.
Mark doesn’t tell us the response of the paralyzed man, however, we are left to speculate. He does tell us the response of the teachers of the law. Their response was pretty predictable for teachers of the law at the time. They were deeply offended and consider Jesus’ statement blasphemous. Forgiving sins were activities of the Temple and of God. How could a man be claiming to do what only God could do at the Temple? This was not only a shot at their religious beliefs, their political and social beliefs were all tied up together in their beliefs about the Temple. Jesus’ claiming to forgive sins would be like if you began to issue driver’s licenses and marriage certificates with your name on them. These are functions of the state. In the same way, sins could only be forgiven by the priests as an official Temple activity in the worldview of the Jews.
The key sentence in this passage is verse 10: The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. To understand what Jesus meant by this phrase, we have to look at Daniel 7, which provides us with the deeper meaning. In that passage, ‘one like a son of man’ is the representative of God’s true people. He is opposed by evil, but God vindicates him, rescues him, and gives him authority. This authority, according to Daniel, gives him the right to dispense God’s judgment. He is also seen, in this passage in Mark, dispensing God’s forgiveness.
Jesus offering to forgive sins, then, is far more than some crackpot claiming to be God. Jesus was ripping a hole far bigger than the one in the roof, right through the very worldview of first-century Israel. He was again, in another way, symbolically telling the people around him that God’s kingdom was going to be a far different deal than they had expected, and that he was the one with the power and authority to announce and institute it. And, perhaps the most shocking things of all was that this kingdom was there now.
One other thing in this passage is worth noting. Mark does here what he does several other times in his gospel. He gives this account in such a way that it becomes a signpost to the larger story he is relating. This story becomes a smaller version of the book as a whole. He shows us Jesus teaching and healing, being charged with blasphemy, and finally being vindicated. The healing of this man points forward to the new life that Jesus will grasp at the resurrection and then share with whosoever will.
Devotional Thought
One detail that we should not overlook in this passage is that when Jesus forgave the man and told him to get up and walk, he did just that. Often times we want to feel God’s loving forgiveness, but then we would prefer to stay on our mats and be taken care of. Have you gotten up off of the mat or are you still laying there in some respects. Pray and meditate today about getting up off your mat and discovering where God wants you to go.
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