Mark 2:1-12

As we go through Mark together, I don’t want each week to feel like a segmented piece of this grand narrative. I want us to see, together, the whole scope of this book, and how all of it builds a cohesive account of the ministry of Jesus. In light of that, I want to recap chapter 1 to build some tension going into this morning.

The book begins with John the Baptist, who had become quite controversial himself. In other accounts, we see him calling out the Pharisees and Sadducees as a “family of snakes.” Jesus shows up, and is baptized, and crazy stuff happens for everyone to see. The Spirit descends like a dove, the heavens open and God the Father speaks. 

Jesus enters the Synagogue on the Sabbath and begins teaching all who were there. The man with the unclean spirit shows up, and Jesus casts out the demon. Amazed, everyone sees his teaching as a new, better teaching than the Scribes who had been teaching up to that point. Now, whole cities are coming out to see Jesus. All of their attention is shifting from the religious leaders to Jesus. 

Jesus then does the unthinkable and reaches out to touch the untouchable. He breaks Jewish laws and customs by touching a leper. In that moment, the leper is healed and enters back into community with his family and friends. The religious leaders are losing their following to Jesus. The crowds are attributing higher praise to Jesus. We can kind of see it starting to build. And then we get to this morning. In our passage this morning, Jesus makes a claim that would ultimately lead to his death. 

Over the next 5 weeks, we are going to look at 5 controversies that arose between Jesus and the religious leaders. Our first “sub-series” in Mark, so exciting! 

Controversy #1: Jesus Claims the Ability to Forgive Sins

Read 2:1-12

Big Idea: Jesus sees our spiritual condition as priority #1.

We find ourselves back in Capernaum, most likely in the home of Simon and Andrew. Word spreads that Jesus is back in town, and as you can imagine, people start pouring in. He attracts such a crowd, that people are pouring out of the house and into the street, just hoping to catch a bit of what Jesus has to say.. As He is teaching, small amounts of dirt start falling around him. Then more, and more, and then sunlight starts pouring in.

1.. Our faith drives us to do whatever it takes to be with Jesus (1-4)

According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “the roof at that time would have been flat, and extremely compact. Beams were laid out over the walls, and on top of those was a layer of brushwood. The final covering was mud mixed with chopped straw, compacted and rolled into place. A tiny stone roller is found on every modern native roof, and is used to roll the mud into greater solidity every year on the advent of the first rains. Similar rollers have been found among the ancient remains throughout the country.” These roofs were so solid, that people would gather on the rooftops to spend time together. 

For these men to break through the roof would have required a lot of work, and a lot of noise. Everyone in the house and in the streets would have heard the commotion. But they didn’t care. They had determined to do whatever was necessary to get their friend in front of Jesus. They had heard and believed that Jesus had the power to heal, and we see that this had led to a deeper belief of who Jesus was. It says in verse 5 that Jesus saw their faith. 

So they dig through the roof, and let this man down on his bed in front of Jesus. I mean just imagine the scene. 

As a side note here; not only should our knowledge and belief of Jesus compel us to do whatever it takes to be with Him, but another natural application point for us is that we should do whatever it takes to get those who we love that have never encountered Jesus into His presence. 

Think about this for just a minute. Let it sink in and let it hit the core of your being. Jesus, the creator of the universe. God in flesh, who holds authority over darkness, who holds authority over sickness, who holds authority over His creation. That Jesus, that same Jesus died for you, rose again and now lives for you. That Jesus. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to be in His presence? If you feel that the right answer is yes, then the next question is, what is holding you back? What is the roof that you need to dig through to get to Him? Listen, we are all busy, that’s the nature of our lives today. And we have so many excuses as to why we can’t spend time with Him. Work, kids, kids school, kids extracurricular activities, personal hobbies, meals to make, houses to clean, houses to fix, shows to watch, games to watch, games to play. Is Jesus, who died so that we could live, is He worth it?! Is He worthy of your time, of your commitment, of removing the thatched roof that has created a barrier between you and Him? 

For these men, they believed so deeply in who Jesus was, that they were willing to do whatever it took to get close to Him.

2.. Jesus sees our deepest need as spiritual renewal (5-12)

Here is the controversy. Jesus claims divine power to forgive sins. Jesus has entered a new phase of ministry by claiming divine powers. And the scribes are thinking to themselves, “whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute! Who does this guy think he is? Blasphemy! No one has the power or authority over sin except God Himself.” Eventually, these inward cries would become public condemnation, but for now they were still trying to make sense of it all. Who is this man who is claiming to hold the power of God? 

Perhaps you’ve heard this famous excerpt from Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis:

"Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He is God...What this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips...A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the devil of hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Everyone who was there in that moment was faced with a decision. “Does this man really have the authority to forgive sins? Or is he crazy?!” Jesus is aware of this internal dilemma. He hears the wrestling in their hearts. He recognizes the difficulty towards belief because the forgiving of sins was an internal act. It was not visible. They couldn’t test it. They couldn’t prove it. 

So Jesus is like, “alright sure, maybe it’s easy for me to say that, and you would never know either way.. But you know what would be more difficult? What if I told this man to get up and walk? Would you believe me then?” And that’s exactly what He does. I don’t feel like we need to get into the physical nature of the healing this morning, but the paralytic would have had extreme atrophy that would have been reversed, amongst other things. But it happens. Jesus heals this man, and those who had been questioning the authority of Jesus now had their proof.

The man gets up and walks out on his own. Everyone was, yet again, “struck out of their senses” in amazement. We see a new phrase here. They were amazed AND glorified God. Their interest in Jesus had turned to belief that resulted in praise. So not only now are the people more interested in how Jesus teaches than how the religious leaders teach, but they are now praising God because of this man. The tension is building.

Can you imagine being the paralytic? Going through all that effort with great expectation that you would be physically healed, and instead Jesus forgives your sins through spiritual healing. Perhaps he wasn’t even aware of his greater need! Perhaps he was so focused on his paralysis that he missed his desperate need for spiritual renewal. We don’t want to read too much into the text what may not be there, but I do think we can apply it in that way in our lives today. 

Application

I read a commentator this week that said, “Sometimes a severe problem—a health problem, an emotional problem, a family problem, a financial catastrophe—can be the best thing in the world for us. Later, this man would have looked back on his paralysis and thanked God for it, because if he had never been paralyzed, he never would have begged his friends to carry him to Jesus.”

But rather than allowing the things that paralyze us to bring us into the presence of Jesus, we let them become the very thing that drives us away. 

You know what the good news is for us this morning? Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. Jesus knows our deepest needs more intimately than we ever will. 

I tell my girls this all the time. As their Dad, at their age especially, I know them much better than they know themselves. I know when they are over tired and need to rest, but they think they can keep going. I know when they need to wear warmer clothes, even when they say they aren’t cold. I know what’s best for them, even if they do not agree.

It’s important to note here that the very real things that cripple us are not always caused by our spiritual deficiencies. In other words, if you aren’t spending enough time with Jesus, you aren’t punished by overwhelming struggle. But we need to be careful not to think that if I just spent more time reading the Bible, this situation would go away.

Instead, when there is something in our life that has knocked us down, when there is that very real struggle, we must do whatever it takes to get into the presence of Jesus. It may require some fight. It may require sacrifice. We may have to give up whatever it is that is keeping us away. Will He fix it right away? Sometimes. Will there be other seasons that He allows us to walk because our faith is deepened and our character is sharpened? Absolutely. 

Those men knew the power of being in the presence of Jesus. Those men believed that if they could just get to Jesus, He would heal and restore. They were living in light of a hope that He was who He said He was! We live with a confidence that He was! We have an assurance that He is the God who heals, the God who restores, and the God who saves.