[Mark 2:1-12]
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now 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?”
8 Immediately 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? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He 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!”
If I had to guess, you have heard this story before. You were told how you needed to be a friend that would be willing to carry someone to Jesus, or something along those lines, which is great, but not the angle I am looking at this story today. I have been reading this passage over and over lately and wondering how it could be applicable to not just a room full of high school students, but for those of us who are in an “older” season of life.
Usually when I write these blog post I take a very personal angle. I somehow tie in what has been going on in my life with the hopes to encourage you, but that is not the route I am going today. I want to challenge you.
Here is the layout. Jesus comes into town and goes to a house, a lot of people believe that this house belonged to Peter. People start showing up. All Jesus did was sit down in a house and people showed up to hear what He had to say. Why? Because when the Lord’s presence is resting in a place, people show up. Because when the Lord’s presence is resting in a place people show up with expectation.
Then the paralyzed man comes on the scene and the first thing Jesus tells the man is “Son, your sins are forgiven.” I found it a little odd at first that the first thing Jesus did was this and not heal his paralysis. If I was this man and was in this situation I would thought that it is great that my sins are forgiven but I came with the hopes to be healed of my paralysis.
You see, the man’s paralysis was the fruit and the man’s sins was the root. How often do we come with Jesus thinking we know what the problem is? Jesus I do not have any friends, Jesus I get in arguments all the time, Jesus I am not content, etc etc. In a way these things serve as our own paralysis and effect our walk with the Lord. We think we know what the problem is and we go to Him and ask for a solution/healing. The paralyzed man went to Jesus thinking that if he could walk again then all would be okay. But Jesus was telling him, you think you know the issue but you do not.
You have to deal with the root before you deal with the fruit.
I think when we come to Jesus with eager expectation and He does not do what we expected, it is because He wants us to have a revelation about who He is. The man came expectant to be healed of his paralysis, and although Jesus did eventually do that, it was not what He did first. He wanted the man to have a revelation. He wanted him to see that He was in fact Lord. That thought challenges/convicts me so much: when I go to Jesus with expectations of what I want Him to do and He does not do it I usually just get mad and miss the fact that He is trying to show me something about Himself.
After Jesus did this, forgave the man his sins, the “teachers of the law” also known as the scribes started calling Jesus a blasphemer, because by forgiving the man’s sins He was calling himself God. When really they were the ones who were blaspheming, by calling him a blasphemer. Not just the scribes, but us too…..we love to attack the things in other people that are actually in us.
Eventually Jesus tells the man “get up and take your mat home.”
This is it.
The man had heard the word spoken. Not only the word, but THE word Himself. When Jesus could have picked him up off the mat and set him on his two feet, He didn’t, but instead He told him to do something. He told him to get up.
I think that is where a lot of us are today. We have heard the word. We do not need another sermon. We do not need another face to face conversation with someone encouraging us through whatever we are struggling with. We do not need another conference. We just need to get up.
Too many of us are laying on our mats waiting for Jesus to pick us up when He told us to get up a long time ago. We have heard the word and we need to respond.
This is what I love though, after all this Jesus tells the man to take his mat with him. If I was this man I would have thought to myself, “nahh Jesus I have had that thing for long enough, I am good without it.” But Jesus told the man to take the mat with him as a reminder of what Jesus had done and as a reminder of what he got up from.
Maybe your mat is depression. Maybe your mat is insecurity. Maybe your mat is loneliness. Maybe your mat is the wrong life style. So many of us want to get up and walk away from our “mat” and never carry it with us again. But Jesus is saying, take it with you. It will serve as representation of me and all that I am able to do.
The story ends with the man getting up and walking home, but I like to think about the events that unfolded after. I imagine that the man goes home, his kids are waiting for him at the door, shouting to their mom to come see. I imagine his wife standing in the doorway seeing her husband walking for the first time and being amazed, and I imagine the man saying to her, “you do not even see the real miracle.”
We have to stop being so concerned with the fruit and look at the root — Sin.
We have to stop being so set on having whatever it is removed from us as the thing that is the most important.
We have to see that what Jesus does in forgiving our sins is so much greater than any mat He could tell us to get up front.
We have to stop waiting for Jesus to do something that we could have done a long time ago if we would just respond to what He has already said.
Today, let us finally get up from our mats. Let us respond to the word/truth we have already heard. Let us deal with the root and not just the fruit. Let us never forget that Jesus forgiving our sins is the greatest healing that we could ever receive.
