Wednesday, April 14, 2021
When, some time
afterwards, Jesus had come back to Capernaum, the news went round that he was
in a house. Such crowds collected that there was no longer any room left, not
even round the door. So he was speaking the word to them. A party arrived
bringing to him a paralyzed man carried by four men. When they could not get
near him because of the crowd they unroofed part of the roof of the house in
which he was, and when they had dug out. part of the roof, they let down the
stretcher on which the paralyzed man was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he
said to the paralyzed man, "Child, your sins are forgiven." Mark
2:1-6
A Desperate Faith
Chapter 2 of Mark starts us
off with one of the more familiar stories we would have heard in Sunday School
growing up. It is the story of four men and their paralyzed friend. These men
loved and cared for their friend. They heard the stories of the healing powers
of Jesus and desperately wanted their friend to be healed. They had a great love for their friend, and a
great belief in Jesus’ power, so much so that they would go to great lengths so
their friend could be healed by that power.
Jesus had been touring the synagogues
and now He was back in Capernaum. Word
had spread about Jesus and His ministry and when people found out he was at a
house in Capernaum, soon a crowd had gathered.
There were so many people there to see and hear Jesus that there was no
more room, even to get in the door.
The four men heard about Jesus
being in town and wanted to take their paralyzed friend to be healed by Jesus.
They got him there but couldn’t get into the house because of the crowd. They
were so desperate that they realized the only way they were going to get their
friend in front of Jesus was to cut a hole in the roof of a perfect stranger’s
house. And they did it. When Jesus looks
up and sees the hole and sees the four men lowering the paralyzed man down, He
was impressed. He was impressed with the friends and how they had so much faith
for Him to heal their friend, and how they were so willing to take extreme
measures for this guy – because of faith.
How many of us would love to
hear Jesus say He is impressed with our faith?
We have friends and we say we pray for them, but do we have the faith of
these men when we care for those loved ones in our lives? Do we cut open the
roof for them, or just casually mention them in our prayers, if at all? We do not
realize the power of intercession and prayer, and we do not fully utilize the
power we have in Christ to intercede for others. We have the same power that
rose Jesus from the grave - resurrection power! We need to use that power to
ask bold things for others, and for our own lives. We work in church, teach,
lead, and fellowship, but if we are not truly caring for the people, we are not
doing what God has put us here to do.
These men cut a hole in the roof, lowered their friend down directly in front of Jesus, and Jesus looks up at them instead of focusing on the clear object of this act. It is clear to everyone there who the person in need is, and what his need is, but he doesn’t get the attention at first. Jesus sees the faith of his friends, and because He can see their faith, He forgives the sins of the paralyzed man. But that is not why they brought him - right? They brought him to Jesus so He could make him walk again, but Jesus takes care of business first. The man needed to be healed spiritually more than he needed to be healed physically. We can tend to let the physical take priority over the spiritual and sometimes, it might be necessary to meet some physical needs to then be able to make a spiritual impact in someone’s life. That happens all the time in ministry, because part of ministry is meeting physical needs. Jesus knew and wanted all these people to know that forgiveness is what we all need more than we need to be saved from our circumstances.
Often when we want our
circumstances to change they seem to keep changing in the wrong direction.
Instead, we need to focus on our hearts and the hearts of those in our
lives. We can’t change the circumstances
and Jesus can and will change them in His time. In the meantime, pray. Pray bold prayers for your loved ones,
friends, and for your own needs. Pray in
faith and live that faith out loud. The world needs to see it now more than ever.
