Mark 1-3

October 21

Mark 1-3

Four friends carried a paralyzed man so they could get Jesus to heal the man. His obvious ailment was his inability to walk. When they got to the house where Jesus was teaching and healing people, they could not get to Jesus because of the crowd. They climbed up on the roof of the house and dug a hole in the ceiling and lowered the man before Jesus.

Jesus did not respond as they had expected. When Jesus saw their faith, the faith of the friends, He looked and the paralyzed man and said; “son, your sins are forgiven.” There are a couple problems with this story. First the friends did not bring their friend to have his sins forgiven, or at least we assume that is not the case. Second, the paralytic did not ask for his sins to be forgiven and Jesus forgave him anyway.

This story reminds us that there is power in interceding for others. We may not be able to dig a hole in a roof and lower our friend before Jesus, but we can lift them up to Him in prayer. When we pray for people, we can know that God knows the root cause of their problem. He knows what they really need. This paralytic could not walk, but what he really needed, as we all need, was the forgiveness of sin.

The religious leaders were baffled that Jesus would declare the man’s sins forgiven. They knew only God could forgive sin. Jesus reminded the leaders that the invisible is often more difficult than the visible, but just to show that he could forgive sin, which they could not see, He healed the man in their presence. They watched as the man walked out the door.

Sometimes our prayers may not get answered as we expect. But we can be confident that as we lift our prayers, God hears. As we bring our friends to Jesus, He touches them. Jesus has all the power and authority in heaven and on earth, when we ask Him to touch and heal the people we love, we can be assured He is working in ways we may never know or understand.