Lent 1
9 March 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Gregory Pope
HEALING
Mark 2:1-12
Following Jesus Through the Gospel of Mark #2
When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door, and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves, and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralytic – “I say to you, stand up, take your mat, and go to your home.” And he stood up and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
On Ash Wednesday we began a journey of Following Jesus Through the Gospel of Mark, a journey that will take us to Easter Sunday. Today we’ve come to one of those healing stories in the Bible that is both captivating and hard for some of us to hear and understand.
Miracles seem so natural in the Bible, but they seem to be the exception today. Some people still expect miracles. Others believe miracles stopped happening 2000 years ago. Many think the cause and effect of natural law rules the universe. I imagine these stories were hard for some of Mark’s first readers too. I’m sure there were many of them who were never healed of their blindness or chronic pain or inability to walk. Healing stories can be hard for preachers to preach because everyone in the sanctuary knows someone who was not healed.
It seems to me that the healing stories in scripture are about more than just physical healing. This story in Mark 2 only makes sense if it’s about a hope that extends even to people who will never walk again. This story is about healing, but its also about something more. The miracle stories in scripture are signs of God’s kingdom breaking into our world in Christ, revealing God’s desire for persons to be made whole.
This story takes place with Jesus at Peter’s house in Capernaum. The crowds have mobbed the place. By the time Jesus begins teaching, it is Standing Room Only in the house. Approaching is a paralytic being carried on his pallet by four of his friends. When they arrive at Peter’s house, they can’t get in the front door. So they go up the outside stairway and start dismantling the roof. Soon they have a hole big enough to lower him through to Jesus.
The imagination of these determined friends is inspiring to me. Their faith takes off the roof! Imagine Jesus trying to preach, hearing scratching noises up on top of the house, then
pounding and tearing, and the sticks and the straw and the mud raining down on everybody, the crowd covering their heads with their arms and squeezing back away from the hole in the roof.
Imagine Peter. This is his house! He must be dismayed by what he says. His mind goes over the fine print in his home owner’s insurance policy. Does this qualify as an act of God?
Soon everybody sees what’s going on. A young man is being lowered on a pallet through a hole in the roof down to the floor. Mark says Jesus sees the faith of these friends, and I imagine Jesus smiles. Sometimes our faith is not something we think or say aloud. Rather it is something that we do. It’s something that others see. Faith not as in the reciting of doctrine, but faith as in going to the trouble of tearing up a roof to bring someone to Jesus.
These four friends are models of evangelical action. They are deeply concerned about their friend and want to see him helped. They don’t just “pray about it.” They put feet to their prayers,
and do not permit difficult circumstances to discourage them. They did what they had to do to bring their friend to Jesus.
When the young man is lowered down onto the floor in front of him, Jesus looks at him and
says, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”
What an interesting thing to say to a paralyzed man! The paralyzed man never says a word, never confesses his sin, never repents, never asks Jesus for forgiveness. He simply lies there. And Jesus declares his sins forgiven. Such is the way of God’s scandalous grace, never fitting into our neat theological systems.
If we had been there that day we might have said, “Jesus, that’s nice and all, but his sins aren’t the problem.” However, for the people who were there, his words would not have seemed odd at all. These strict cause-and-effect people believed every headache resulted from an evil thought. A Jewish proverb of the day said: “No one gets up from a sickbed until his or her sins are forgiven.”
The man on the mat and likely most of those present believe his paralysis is his own fault. Could it be that Jesus is forgiving the man for his paralyzing misperception of reality? Could he be saying: “Take heart, my child. You’ve misunderstood the ways of God. You did nothing to deserve this. God did not put you on your sick bed. God is the Giver of life not disease. Take heart, your sins are forgiven.”
Then the action suddenly shifts to others in the crowd identified as scholars and scribes, people who know a whole lot about the religious law, people who’ve come to see what all this Jesus-fuss is about. Anybody healing people, casting out demons, whose teaching draws this kind of crowd must be doing something wrong.
Jesus is too popular to be ignored by the religious leaders. And here, he says the wrong thing in front of the wrong people. The scholars hear Jesus proclaim forgiveness and they begin to question in their hearts, Why does this man say these things? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins! The scribes start here with the charge of blasphemy. And in the end, it will be this very charge, uttered by the high priest, that will seal Jesus’ death sentence.
The scholars do, however, have a point: Only God can forgive sin. So Jesus perceiving what is going on in their hearts, turns to the scribes and says to them: “Which is easier, to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say:‘Rise and walk’?” Good question.
The modern assumption would be: Forgiving sins is easier than healing paralysis. But I wonder. For many people, guilt and anger are killing ‘em faster than cancer or heart disease. And shame – shame is more crippling than polio. I think for Mark, forgiveness, the healing of the sin-sick soul, is harder than healing any physical ailment. A broken leg heals quicker than a broken heart, right? Our sins can cripple us more than arthritis. Could it be that forgiveness is the greatest miracle Jesus ever performs? It’s a miracle that happens every day. It can happen to you this very day.
But for the scholars and scribes, I think the opposite was true. For them, it’s easier to say: “Your sins are forgiven,” than to say: “Rise and walk.” Because to say: “Your sins are forgiven,” well, who knows whether they are? But if you say: “Rise and walk” you’ve got to demonstrate it right there.
So Jesus says to the scribes, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” he turns to the paralyzed man and says: “Rise, take up your bed and go home.” And the man stands up in front of them all, gathers his pallet, takes his forgiven life and renewed body and goes home. I picture him slinging that pallet over his shoulder, maybe dancing a jig before he got out the front door.
And do you know what happened next? Amazement happened next. It filled them all, Mark says. Presumably even the scholars too. And they all glorified God saying, “We’ve never seen anything like this before. Can you believe it? Wait till I tell the kids! Wow!” Amazement came upon them all.
What about you? What kind of effect does this story have on you? Where does this story intersect your own life? When have you been healed? Do you remember? When in your life have you been paralyzed? How have you been paralyzed? Where are you paralyzed even now?
Are you paralyzed by fear? Fear that you’re not measuring up – that you will never measure up? Are you frozen in anger? Anger over what someone has done to you or continues to do to you or to someone you love? Are you incapacitated by guilt or remorse from something in your past? You’d like to do some things over, forget other things completely. And it all has you so sick. Paralyzed even.
Who carries you to the doctor? Who are the friends that brought you to Jesus? We all need true friends like that, don’t we? But we can become so ashamed of our helplessness, our neediness. Sometimes we’re so sick and weak we can hardly move. And we don’t want to ask anybody for help. But there they are – the friends. They fight through our shame and resistance and they pick us up and take us for help. Perhaps the only way some of us will ever be healed is to let down our pride long enough to be helped.
Perhaps it is skepticism that has you paralyzed. Skeptical that help is anywhere to be found. Skeptical that there is grace enough to forgive what you’ve done. We often paint the skeptical scribes and pharisees in villainous tones. But don’t we all go through times in our lives where we are skeptical? Skepticism is not all bad. There is honesty and authenticity in some forms of skepticism.
Where have you been skeptical? Is it when you hear someone testifying as to some great healing in their life and you just want to get out of the room as fast as you can because someone you loved died and you prayed for them day and night? Your skepticism and your anger are no casual, brainy affair. It goes to the quick of your heart of hearts: Too many unanswered prayers. Too much silence from heaven. Too much disappointment. Too much hurt. And to hear that God is working gloriously for others brings pain and questions and questions and questions.
Perhaps today you can find in this story a Jesus who sees your pain and hears your questioning, a Jesus who knows what’s going on in your heart, a Jesus who understands. Because he remembers days when life was all pain and no pleasure, when every laugh was forced. Perhaps this morning you can encounter the Risen Christ who’s alive today loving us and working in our lives to bring healing and wholeness and forgiveness.
As we draw near to this table of grace and healing: What is your right-now sitting-in-the-pew need today? Where are you paralyzed? Where do you need healing?
I want to ask you to close your eyes for a moment. Envision yourself on that pallet struggling with some need you have. Someone is hauling you up the stairs, tearing up the roof, letting you down through the hole right in front of Jesus? You get down to the floor and Jesus looks at you at the point of your deepest need with his eyes of healing grace. Hear him as he says to you, “My child, my beloved child, your sins are forgiven.” And as he says those words, somehow you know they’re true your guilt and shame fall away like scales from your eyes, like weights from your shoulders, like tears from your heart. And then he says: “I understand your pain, your anger, your doubt, your fear. And I will walk with you toward healing. Now rise, take up your pallet and go home.”
Healing God, as we eat and drink from your table today, give us the strength to rise and walk away from the paralysis of our fear, our anger, our guilt, and to see every day as the gift of a life made new by your grace. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.