We continue our series through the Gospel of Mark this morning. Today we are looking at one of the better known episodes: the healing of the paralytic. When I was a kid, this made one of the great flannel board presentations in Sunday School, where Mrs. Warren first put up the house where Jesus was teaching, then marched the four men carrying the pallet with the paralytic up the steps, pantomimed the digging, and then opened the door of the house to show where Jesus would have been to see them lower the paralytic into the room.
Now, here’s the thing about Scripture passages like this: they are so rich with material that there are any number of ways to go with a sermon.
For example, we could talk about the importance of faith; that is, how the men carrying the paralytic must have really believed that Jesus could heal their friend because they went to extraordinary lengths in order to get Jesus to look at him. That sermon would focus on how we need to anticipate that our faith will encounter challenges (as the friends were not discouraged or defeated by the crowd blocking their way); faith requiring perseverance (as they climbed the outside steps and dug into the roof to have the chance to lower down their friend); and that God often answers our prayers with a yes, but in was that are unexpected and unforeseen (as Jesus declares the man’s sins forgiven and then as an afterthought and as part of a rebuke to the scribes, tells the man to get up take his mat and go home.) In other words, the narrative lends itself towards preaching a sermon on faith. But that’s not the sermon I have for you this morning.
Another possibility would be to talk about Jesus in the midst of this account: how he was preaching the word, how the ceiling must have seemed like it was caving in on him, and how he looks up to see the extraordinary faith of the friends who would be willing to dig into their neighbor’s roof in order to lower a paralytic man in front of him. I can see Jesus checking his speaking notes and saying, “Well, this is not exactly what I had planned to talk about; but, OK.” This sermon would be to talk about how Jesus’ heart was moved when they acted in faith. It is to talk about God’s joy and humor in watching us as his children, and how Jesus then takes this moment to reveal something bigger than anyone had anticipated. This is the “how big and wonderful is your God” sermon. And that’s not the sermon I have for you this morning, either.
The sermon I have for you this morning is something that struck me as I started meditating on this passage: it is the encounter with the scribes. You see, although this is a healing miracle, that is not Mark’s focus in telling it. This was a change for Jesus. To this point he had been revealing the Kingdom of God that he had been proclaiming by things that pleased everyone: healings and casting out demons. Everyone was happy about that. Everyone was impressed. They asked, who is this that teaches with authority? Who is this that commands the unclean spirit to come out – and it obeys? Who is this who heals the sick by just a touch? It was all amazing. It was awesome and everyone was happy.
Not so this time. Jesus took this opportunity to venture into new territory. He said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
As Mark recounted it, this was a show-stopper. “Wait, what?! What did he just say? Did he say what we think we heard him say? Oh, no, he didn’t!” Yes; yes he did.
I. Jesus’ Agenda Is Bigger And Beyond Our Expectation.
What we have in the account of Jesus’ healing of the paralytic is the first real confrontation between Jesus and the church authorities of his day. It is the first of several such confrontations. Without any kind of warning, Mark just drops in this little detail like it was a given; crowded inside the house were “scribes.”
The scribes were like the theological union or guild. These were the guys who had paid dues in education and training to be considered the professionals of their day. Jesus, who had returned to Capernaum – the scene of his initial preaching and action – was on display and these guys were going to have a good hard look at him.
Though Mark does not have much positive to say about them, it is not difficult to see who these guys were. They were devoted to the Law – the authority of Scripture – and the oral traditions they had received from their elders. They were looking out for themselves, yes, but they also could have understood that it was their job to spot frauds and con men. People would be asking them, “Well? What do you think? Is this guy the real deal, or what?” A few years ago, Steve Martin made a movie called “Leap of Faith” about a traveling con man who ran tent revivals and specialized in “healings.” The scribes were the guys who kept their town-folks from being hoodwinked by charlatans.
In other words, they were guys like me.
So, there they were listening to Jesus proclaim the message – remember from Mark 1? – “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news of the gospel.” They would have been listening to the teaching as skeptics, and would have been doing their best Siskel and Ebert analysis. Thumbs up/thumbs down. You know this is true because we all do it. Some of you are doing it right now – after the service, you will compare notes with your friends and critique the sermon. Don’t worry, I don’t blame you. I do it, too, and I’m preaching!
Anyway, in the midst of Jesus’ discourse, the paralytic man was lowered through the roof. That’s where things got interesting.
Jesus looked up, saw the friends; then, he looked at the man and says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
This was like a lightning bolt coming out of the blue.
Here’s why that’s a show stopper: only God forgives sins.
You can forgive the wrong someone has done to you. But you sin against God. Remember David – after the Bathsheba affair and after he had her husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed on the field of battle – David said this in Psalm 51,
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
David wronged Uriah the Hittite as badly as possible, but he sinned – rebelled against God’s righteousness – he sinned against God. Only God forgives sin.
In Exodus 34, after the Golden Calf incident, Moses asked to be reassured of God presence going forward with the people. He asked for assurance of God’s forgiveness of Israel, and as a sign, he asked to see God’s glory. God obliged. With Moses hidden in the cleft of a rock,
The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed,
“The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.”
In Isaiah 43:25, the LORD says, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” In the next chapter, in 44:22, the LORD says, I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.” When you hear the assurance of pardon in our worship service, it is a declaration I make to you based on the promises God has made in Scripture; I am not forgiving your sins personally.
So pay attention to what happened here. The scribes had the law correct – only God forgives sin. They had the application wrong. They knew God is one; therefore, God could not be standing in front of them in flesh and blood. They concluded Jesus was blaspheming. In the minds of the scribes, because Jesus could not be God, Jesus should not claim to be able to do what only God could do. Claiming to do something that only God could do meant that you were claiming to usurp God’s power – it was blasphemy, which automatically meant you were a fraud.
Blasphemy was a big deal. It was a crime and it was punishable by death. It was the charge that ultimately would be used to convict Jesus before the Jewish authorities. They would twist that to claim that Jesus was claiming to be a god more powerful than Caesar – an act of treason – with a request to have Pilate sentence him to death on the cross. Here, however, Mark was only illustrating how Jesus pushed forward the Kingdom of God into the realm of the religious power of the day. At this point, the scribes had not had time to think through the issue; by the time we get to the last of these early confrontation accounts, in 3:6, “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” We’ll get there, we’re not there yet. Instead, at this point, we have the opening round in this confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities.
Jesus turned to the scribes and he asked them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?”
That question cuts me to the core because I can totally understand the scribes’ position. They knew the law and were thinking to apply it like a rule book. However, Jesus’ teaching and action fulfilled the law as God intended it. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” That’s what the LORD said in Isaiah 55.
Humility is necessary when we apply Scripture to God’s creation. We need to take God’s word seriously, but we should not think that we understand it all or have it all figured out. God is completely capable of surprising us. God is completely capable of fulfilling his promises in ways we did not expect and could not imagine. We must always prayerfully seek to discern the movement of God in ways we did not expect.
That is exactly what happened here. Jesus went on to say, “So that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – and he said to the paralytic – “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” Jesus took away any ambiguity about his meaning and demonstrated his authority to declare the forgiveness of sins.
If the scribes had gotten the point, the rest of the Gospel of Mark might have been very different. Instead, they fulfilled another prophecy: Isaiah 6, “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.” The scribes’ hearts grew hard. They were embarrassed to have been shown up in this encounter. Living in the certainty of their own understanding – without humility – caused them to miss the point entirely.
Jesus deliberately used this event to make a strong revelation of his authority. The march of the kingdom of God took another step forward.
II. We Are Called To Believe In Jesus Personally.
But that is not all. There is another reason why Mark related this account. Remember that early believers were a mixture of Jew and Gentile; early believers struggled to understand their relationship in the synagogue; and, early believers were subject to persecution from the Roman authorities. Mark wanted his readers to see: Jesus was the fulfillment of the law, he was personally the promised One of God, and he does have the authority to command us to come, follow him. Institutional church and governments do not hold any higher claim of loyalty than the personal relationship with Jesus.
The tendency in the early church was for believers to be confronted by Jews who were trying to get them to conform to old ways. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is one example. The letter to the Hebrews is another. As Jesus did in this episode, so Mark was telling the church: “Loyalty is to Jesus; not to an institution that would deny his authority.”
This speaks to us today. We do not worship the church; we are a church that worships the risen Lord Jesus Christ. The church exists to worship Jesus Christ. Jesus is the head of the church, but the institutional structure of the church cannot be mistaken for being Jesus. Our loyalty is to Jesus. He has called us to be joined together in worshiping him. Our joining together is for the purpose of proclaiming Jesus Christ, to share the good news with the lost, and to encourage one another.
Let me illustrate it this way: Presbyterians are part of the Reformed tradition. Our heritage comes from a time when believers were thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church. The tipping point for the Reformation was the practice of indulgences – wherein people could pay priests to pray for their deceased loved ones to “get them out of jail free” early. There was even an advertising jingle, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory it doth spring.” Not quite “plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is,” but it’s not bad for the 1500’s. The campaign was a fundraiser for the construction of the Vatican. The institutional church promoted this as a good thing; it was completely inconsistent with Scripture.
The slogan of the Reformation – traced back to Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 theses on the Wittenberg Door challenging the practice of indulgences – included five sola’s” – “ alones”: faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone, Christ alone, and for the glory of God alone. These “alones” were established to address corruption and error in the institutional church. The church itself had fallen into error; it had taken on the authority to speak for God inconsistently with the word of God.
The last century saw several vivid, horrible examples of the institutional church acting counter to the word of God. Think of the nationalizing of the Lutheran Church by Nazi Germany. Think of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa supporting Aparthied. Think of the Protestant churches with clergy who supported and encouraged the genocide of the Tutsi’s in Rwanda during the mid-1990’s. Blindly following church leaders without clinging to Jesus as he is revealed in Scripture is to misplace loyalty and trust.
Even in our own recent institutional memory, we have had less murderous examples, but erroneous nonetheless. In the last generation, multiple and ongoing attempts have been made to “Reimagine God.” There have been attempts to suggest that Christianity is too exclusive; that we need to open our minds other options for salvation.
In the garden of Gesthemene, Jesus “threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, this hour would pass from him.” (Mark 14:35). It was not possible. This is the only way. Jesus, in our passage this morning, asked the scribes, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk.’” Jesus knew the cost of saying, “Your sins are forgiven,” and he said it anyway. The miracle backs up his authority to declare and make manifest that forgiveness. Who is this that forgives sins?
III. Conclusion
So, the message here this morning is we are invited to follow the one whose gospel will bring you into conflict with earthly authorities – even authorities in the church. We need to cling to Jesus. We need to cling to that Jesus who loved us so fully that he went to the cross for us, died for us and was raised again that we might have life – life like the paralytic this week.
Jesus said, “So that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth.” Jesus has authority. There is none other. He is victorious – in this and all situations. After the resurrection, Peter says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12). Paul says in Romans, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
You see, when Jesus says, “So that you may know,” that’s a word of comfort. That’s a word of good news. That is a word of authority, spoken for our benefit. That is our hope, our assurance, our salvation. He is able. We know.
When Jesus says, “So that you may know,” that’s a word of command. It is a word of lordship. It is a word of commissioning. It is our job to share Jesus: Christ crucified, Christ raised from the dead, Christ ascended into heaven. It is the good news, it is the only good news we have.
Yes, but it is good news that we know,
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me; yes, Jesus loves me; yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: From the Westminster Confession
The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, fully satisfied the justice of his Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father hath given unto him.