What is more important? Mark 2:1-12
On May 23rd 2001 Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, launched his party’s manifesto prior to the general election that won him his second term in office,
“Our top priority was, is, and always will be education, education, education.”
Jesus had much to say about what man’s greatest need is.
1 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 paralysed 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 paralysed 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 paralysed 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!” Mark 2:1-12
In this momentous account Jesus is telling us what man’s greatest need is.
The Prime need – Forgiveness
It is probable that both the paralysed man and his friends thought that healing was his greatest need, but Jesus realised that there was greater problem – his sin. Sin is fundamentally the way we treat God and our failure to do what he wants. Such sin inevitably results in particular sins such as hatred, stealing, lying, pride, lust and promiscuity as well our failing to do what is right. There is therefore no-one who is not a sinner. When Jesus talks about sin he means both the root cause and its effects.
There is no suggestion given in the text that this man was a greater sinner than any others, even though Jesus recognised that illness and death are the work of Satan. There will be no illness or death in heaven. These problems will affect all of us and our families in one way or another, whether we are Godly Christians or not.
This paralysed man was just a normal person who had great medical and social needs which was what people could see. Only after people are converted does the truth become apparent – our greatest problem is our sin, we are naturally on the wrong road. The world cannot see this, so we need to keep reminding everybody that most are on “the broad road that leads to destruction”, on the road to hell, and have missed ‘the small gate and the narrow way’ that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).
His friends passed the paralysed man down through the hole in the roof so that he lay at the feet of Jesus. Can you imagine how aghast the ‘teachers of the Law’ would have felt when Jesus said to the man,
“Son, your sins are forgiven.” Mark 2:5
They instantly saw what Jesus was claiming !
“Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Mark 2:7
This is exactly who Jesus is claiming to be, the very incarnate Son of God that the Jewish Scriptures had repeatedly said would be coming to his world. It is a major mistake to miss this. To forget God is the greatest mistake anyone can ever make. What does God think when we turn our backs on our creator and Saviour? People don’t know this so it is our job to remind them of it.
What is a tragedy it is to see pastors of churches forsaking the teaching of God’s word about Christ and the forgiveness he offers, Too many focus instead on what the world wants churches to emphasise, such as social care, poverty, political issues and the like. These suggest that it is what we do that can make us acceptable to God but this is a heathen idea. Common sense tells us that going round after people clearing up the messes without addressing the root cause in not a brilliant solution. Similarly it is not wise to treat an early skin cancer with a plaster covering!
Some years ago, when taking a mission in Ramsgate, we went for a stroll one afternoon along the seafront. Also out for a stroll were a group of about thirty nuns, members of Mother Theresa’s ‘Sisters of Mercy.’ We started to talk and I asked them how they would describe the Christian gospel. One nun replied by quoting from the parable of the Sheep and Goats that Jesus told. The sheep and goats were separated, the sheep for heaven and the goats for hell. One nun thought the gospel is the good things Christians do for others and said,
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:34-36
This nun mistakenly thought that these activities of Christians were the gospel and that people who do them will go to heaven. That is not Christ’s message. These good actions are the result of the gospel changing peoples’ lives. People become Christians by being accepted into God’s family. It is as members of God’s family that we are given an eternal inheritance as a free gift when we submit to the rule of Jesus Christ – it is not earned at all.
“Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” Matthew 25:34
Jesus goes on to explain,
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.” Matthew 25:40
Throughout the Bible the phrase ‘Christ’s brothers’ always refers to fellow Christians, male and female. A real evidence that we have been adopted by Christ is seen in how we live. The evidence that Christ is in us is that we will love Christ, love his word, love holiness and love his people.
I then politely asked the nun how the life and death of Jesus fitted into her gospel. At this point a senior nun intervened and rightly explained to us all,
“The gospel is surely the news about Jesus and who he is, that he is God who came to this world to die for our sin so we can become acceptable to God. The good news is that those who turn to him as their Lord and Saviour are forgiven all their sin. How we live is a reflection of this faith.”
I have just received an email from the evangelist Roger Carswell saying that Jesus himself summarised what the essential gospel is. According to Luke, the last thing Jesus said to his disciples, after his resurrection, was:
“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.’” Luke 24:45-47
Sin really is our greatest problem. Anselm, an Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century said to his contemporaries:
“You have not yet considered the seriousness of sin.”
The only remedy for the disastrous consequences of sin is Jesus himself. He alone can forgive our sin and empower us through his Holy Spirit to overcome sin. He said to people of his day something that is just as relevant to our society today,
“Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” John 5:40
When Jesus spoke to the paralytic he is saying to us that man’s greatest need is to have our sin forgiven so that we can start to live a new life.
I was puzzled why Jesus said to the crowd,
“Which is easier: to say to the paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins.” Mark 2:8-10
Then it dawned on me. Was it easy for Jesus to be able to forgive our sins? No, he had to die a horrific death on that cross. The miracle of this paralysed man rising up was just a foretaste of the greatest miracle of all, the death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus. It is because of this that we can be forgiven our sin against God.
The man’s subsequent healing was to make it clear to everyone just who Jesus is. If he is not the one true God he could not have immediately and completely healed such a man. If he is not God he cannot truthfully forgive our sin against God.
Why did Jesus say he had come to his world? On one occasion Jesus passed through the old city of Jericho and crowds collected to see him. A small tax collector named Zacchaeus had found it too difficult to push through the mass of people so he climbed up a sycamore-fig tree in order to get a good view. You can imagine the shock he got as Jesus passed by. Jesus looked up into the tree and spoke directly to Zacchaeus,
“Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
When they met Jesus explained his purpose,
“For the Son of man came to see and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10
People are lost when they are on the wrong path, going their own way, but Jesus longs to change that. Sin is going our own way, not God’s.
So our prime need is for forgiveness, but . . . . secondly,
2. The priority of Word ministry
The setting of this story was that Jesus had just returned to Capernaum, a small fishing town at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. People quickly heard that he had come and a large crowd gathered. Whatever their motives, perhaps it was to see a few miracles, but what they received was a sermon.
“He preached the word to them.” Mark 2:2
In the chapter, as Sam taught us last week, we read that preaching the gospel was Jesus’ priority, even more important than miracle-working. After a day when he was inundated with people wanting to be healed, he went off to pray about what he should do. He decided to leave the crowds who were gathering, to go elsewhere to fulfil his primary purpose.
“‘Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come.’ So he travelled throughout Galilee preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.” Mark 1:38
Preaching, or prophesying, is passing on God’s message about the kingdom of God and the forgiveness that Jesus alone can give us. This can be done in one to one conversations, using literature or by inviting people to come and hear someone explain the way of salvation. If we are Christians, we have also been chosen to do this. In Paul’s final letter to Timothy he said this,
“In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word . . . For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit there own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers who will say what their itching ears want to hear.” 2 Timothy 4:1-3
This charge is just as relevant to each of us today when so few are finding ways to share the gospel with others. Any who question this priority may like to read ‘The Duty of a Disciple’ which contains an overview of what the Bible emphasises.
Whenever Jesus preached the gospel there was opposition. We see it in this story of the healed paralytic.
“Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ‘Why does this fellow talk like that?’” Mark 2:6
The phrase ‘this fellow’ is very derogatory, they despised Jesus. Whenever ‘the Word of God’, the message of the salvation that Jesus has won for us, is faithfully preached this opposition raises its ugly head, either from the traditional religious people or from secular authorities. Satan has his workers everywhere, even within churches!
Jesus was willing to stand against the traditions of the religious in order that God’s message should be heard. Mark’s gospel contains many conflict stories between Jesus and evil. They start with Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13). The book of Acts is similarly full of conflict stories and constant battles between the Jewish and secular authorities and the church of God. Paul reminded us,
“Our struggle (hard work) is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12
If any readers have not experienced this struggle, they should ask themselves, ‘Am I really in the battle for Christ and his rule?’
3. The importance of faith
Jesus is looking for all people to have faith in himself.
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralysed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’” Mark 2:5
Occasionally Jesus performed miracles after seeing people’s faith. Thus, when the woman who had had heavy bleeding for twelve years, touched the hem of his garment when Jesus was being hassled by a heavy crowd, he said to her,
“Daughter, your faith has healed you.” Mark 5:34
In most instances of Jesus healing people there is no mention of faith in the recipients. The healing comes simply because of God’s love for the suffering, because of his grace.
The faith Jesus is looking for in all of us is a real personal faith in him as God’s chosen king, his Messiah, who can save people from their sin for eternity. Finding this faith may be triggered through a wide number of means, an illness, bereavement, suffering, job problems, relationship problems or just an inner uncertainty, but whatever the trigger the way someone becomes a Christian is always by being taught the gospel. People need to learn who Jesus is, what he has done to save us and the reasons that we know this to be true.
Faith in Jesus opens the door to the kingdom of heaven. Without faith in Jesus no-one will be saved. Jesus said,
“I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
When Peter and John were on trial for their life before the Sanhedrin, Peter boldly said,
“Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
Real faith will always radically change our lives so that we become obedient servants of the Lord Jesus. James, the brother of Jesus said,
“Faith without works is dead.” James 2:26
We were recently on holiday in Croatia and got talking with a very pleasant middle-aged couple and had given them a copy of the article ‘Mistakes, Minor, Major and Catastrophic’ which explains part of Jesus’ teaching. She met us later and said,
“That article was very interesting, I must discuss this with my mother-in-law, who is a Christian.”
My wife then asked her,
“Are you a Christian yourself or aren’t you sure about these things?”
“Well, I was baptised as a baby.”
Rosy smiled,
“Are you involved in a church now?”
To this came the encouraging reply,
“I haven’t been for years but I’m going to start’
“That’s great. Please keep in touch.”
Our prayer is that this seed planting will go on to result in them becoming strong Christians who bear fruit for Christ.
Just as Jesus saw the faith in those who brought the paralysed man to him, he can also see the heart of each one of us. He knows whether we have a real, life-changing, personal faith in him.
This same Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, who healed the paralytic man will be returning to earth one day in triumph, ‘Coming with the clouds of heaven.’ That time will not be to share the gospel of salvation but to pronounce God’s judgment on all of us, the living and the dead. At that judgment we will either be acquitted because we have been obedient to Christ or we will be condemned because we have rejected him and all the evidence for his claims.
Jesus always had God’s authority. He said to the man,
“I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Mark 2:10
The man recognised this authority of Jesus and he obeyed.
“He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all.” Mark 2:12
What an amazing miracle. The muscles had atrophied and contracted, the nerves no longer functioned, yet suddenly he is able to walk normally. Incredible except many witnessed it.
Can you imagine the scene? The healed man must have had a broad grin on his face whereas the crowds standing there would have had their mouths open, astonished. Has our meeting with Jesus had the effect of thrilling us?, resulting in an enthusiastic smile on our faces and in our hearts? Can we say,
“Jesus has healed me, he has changed me.”
The man wasn’t ashamed at all. He had met and had been saved by the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. Do you think he could keep this story to himself. Mark summarises the crowd’s reaction,
“This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’” Mark 2:12
Mark deliberately leaves the question about who they were praising open. ‘They praised God’, did this mean they praised Jesus?
Listen to this description of the effect the gospel had on William Tyndale, the sixteenth Bible translator who was burned at the stake for doing this, it was,
“. . . good, merry, glad and joyful news that makes a man’s heart glad and makes him sing, dance and leap for joy.”
4. The persistence of faithful friends
The text says,
“When Jesus saw their faith . . .” Mark 2:5
The obvious question is, ‘Whose faith is he talking about?’ Surely it must be the persistent faith of the paralysed man’s friends. They wanted their friend to meet Jesus, knowing that he alone could help him. However there were real obstacles:
1. The crowd prevented them from getting to Jesus, so they had to use their initiative. They went round the back, up the outside staircase onto the flat roof.
2. The roof was a problem. Thy dismantled part of this by lifting up the palm branches and dried mud, leaving a gaping hole. Nothing mattered so much as getting their friend to meet Jesus.
3. The criticisms of the religious people who were sitting there in the front row as they saw the man being lowered down through the hole would have been difficult. This is not how things should be done! It could have got these friends into serious trouble.
Yet when Jesus saw their faith he acted. Firstly he treated the man’s greatest problem, his sin and then he healed his body, both out of compassion and to show everyone who he is.
Do we have such a persistent faith that will move mountains to enable our friends and members of our families to come to Christ? Do we,
a. Keep praying for them?
b. Keep speaking with them and encouraging them?
c. Find different ways to help them find Christ, perhaps by inviting them for meals to keep the friendship close, perhaps by giving them books or articles, possibly by inviting them to come to church, or your home group or to a Christianity Explored group?
Surely one great application of this story for us is that we should emulate the faith of the paralysed man’s friends and keep on persisting until people meet Jesus and are saved by him.
Summary
This wonderful passage reminds us:
1. The prime need we all have is to be forgiven by God.
2. The priority of Jesus and of his church is to teach about the kingdom of God and how the cross of Jesus allows us to be admitted into it.
3. The necessity of having a personal faith if we are to be eternally blessed by God.
4. The persistence of the faithful in bringing others to Christ.
It is only by hearing and accepting this good news about Jesus, that people can be put right with God, and so given passports into his eternal kingdom. There can be no greater blessing.
BVP
October 2022
berniepalmer1@sky.com
