February 19 2012
Is 43:18-19, 21-22, 24-25; 2 Cor 1:18-22; Mark 2:1-12
Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist and the temptation in the desert. Then John is arrested and Jesus comes to Galilee, proclaiming that “The kingdom of God is near; turn your lives around, and trust in the good news.” After he calls his disciples, he begins his work. The first part of the work is preaching in the synagogue and healing. Two weeks ago, we heard how he cast out a demon and healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, and everyone troubled by illness or demons rushed to him to be healed. Last week, we heard how he went to neighboring towns and healed a leper, and still more people came to be healed. So Jesus is about compassion and healing and helping the ostracized, like lepers, to rejoin the community.
So is the kingdom just about preaching with authority, casting out demons, and healing the sick? In this passage from the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus continues to show the disciples what he is about and expands his mission. As Isaiah says in today’s reading, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
The story of the paralytic begins like just another story of healing. Jesus is at home—presumably at Peter’s house—preaching to the people, when suddenly the ceiling falls in. The paralytic’s friends had so much trust that Jesus could heal him that when they couldn’t get in the door, they went up to the roof and dug through it in order to get into the house.
Now, roofs in Galilee served as patios on top of the house. There was usually a stairway or ladder going up to the roof, and a family could eat in the evening breeze or even sleep there on a warm night. The roof was made by laying crossbeams across the tops of the walls, covering them with thatch, and using that to support a thick layer of mud, which dried to form the patio. That is why the friends dug through the roof instead of chopping a hole in it. Still, it must have made a huge mess, and I can imagine that Peter had a few choice words to say about it. Almost certainly, the men would have to spend both time and money cleaning up the mess and repairing the roof.
Can you picture the various groups in the room as the ceiling falls in? There are the disciples, who have decided to follow Jesus and are learning about the kingdom. There are probably people who want to be healed and think Jesus can help them. There are the gawkers; not a lot goes on in Capernaum, so you have to find entertainment where you can. There are the scribes, faultfinders on the lookout for possible offenses against God, so they can punish the perpetrator. Then there are the friends, who are desperate to get Jesus’ help for the paralytic. Jesus is impressed by their fundamental trust, their willingness to take a chance on him. The Gospels tell us many times that Jesus’s ability to heal depends in part on the trust that people have in him. Lack of trust for him is like kryptonite for Superman. And then there is the helpless paralytic.
If we hadn’t heard this story so many times, we would expect Jesus to heal the paralytic at this point. Instead he says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But the man’s problem is not sins but paralysis. Why does Jesus forgive the man’s sins?
This story forms a bridge in Mark’s Gospel between the series of healing episodes that we have heard about the past few Sundays and a new development of what the kingdom of God is about. After this, despite the fact that he has already called a group of disciples, Jesus will call Levi to follow him. Levi is a tax collector, and in those days before law and order a tax collector was a disreputable collaborator who could—and usually did—take as much as he wanted over and above the money Caesar demanded. Jesus will announce that his program includes calling sinners and forgiving them. To convince us of his ability to forgive sins, Mark inserts this story of the healing of the paralytic. If you can see the paralytic take up his bed and walk, then you can believe that Jesus forgives sins, even if your eyes can’t see the newly cleansed soul of the one who has been forgiven.
Sickness and sin are closely associated in the Hebrew Scriptures, as are healing and forgiveness. Today’s psalm says, “Heal me, for I have sinned against you.” We all know from our own lives that sin and injury require healing and the kind of forgetting that forgiveness brings. So this story introduces the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: 18“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? … 25I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
Jesus’ message in Galilee was “Turn your lives around and trust in the good news.” The kingdom of God is not about defending God against sinners and blasphemers, as the scribes wanted to do. It’s about trusting in God’s compassion and his desire to forget our sins.