The easiest miracle
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Text: Prepare
Sometimes we struggle to get to Jesus; others crowd around him and we feel too weak to muscle our way through. Picture yourself in the crowd trying to reach Jesus. Now see him turn and catch your eye, smiling as he calls your name and makes a path through the crowds. You are special to him.
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Bible passage: Mark 2:1-12
Mark 2
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, 11 "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
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Text: Main point
Results focused
We like to see results, don't we? In our efforts, for our studies, in the project we're working on at work, in our kids as we pour our time and love into them. Our whole culture is geared towards measurable results. News reports give us statistical evidence that something will damage our health or delay the aging process.
The Pharisees in these verses were scandalised because Jesus claimed to forgive sins, something only God has the right to do. In his response Jesus makes it clear that whether the results are invisible or visible the key to the miraculous is authority (v 10).
The trickier transformation
For Jesus healing the paralytic was the easy bit, it was simply an external physical problem. But his authority in the physical demonstrated his authority in a much more difficult purpose - the forgiveness of sin.
The internal state of our hearts is the trickier transformation and yet Mark shows us Jesus' skills not just as a 'results man' in the physical but also able to remove the self-inflicted wounds where sin twists and distorts us.
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Text: Respond
Spend time with God asking him to take authority over you again today, healing and transforming your body and heart.
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Text: Deeper study
Today's passage is the start of a separate section in Mark's Gospel (2:1 - 3:6), describing five incidents where Jesus comes into conflict with the religious leadership. Those who would have been expected to recognise and welcome him were rapidly moving into direct opposition. Their motives for this are unclear. It seems to be a combination of jealousy and feeling threatened by his popularity, deep concern about what they saw as his blasphemous claims, and prejudice about his background (v 7, 'this fellow').
Wherever Jesus went he evoked strong responses from people - either for or against him - and we see as Mark's account progresses how Jesus doing good in God's name increasingly met criticism, resentment, or outright opposition from those who should have known better.
Mind you, Jesus' words would have sounded outrageous to the Pharisees, or at the very least have been profoundly bewildering. This situation had for them deep theological roots. No one but God can forgive sins, yet this person from an insignificant background stood there proclaiming forgiveness of sins over a paralysed man. His authority to do this is then seemingly authenticated by the man being fully healed. In addition, Jesus' reference to himself with the Messianic title of 'Son of Man' (Daniel 7:13; Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:61-64) would have made matters much worse in their eyes.
There was no middle way or third option: either he was God, or he was a blasphemer. Part of their problem was their view of God. They had him neatly boxed in to a set of rigid expectations concerning how the Messiah would come and what he would do. Their view was incomplete and their minds largely closed, with God reduced to the size of their expectations. Anything that threatened those views and their status as guardians of them was to be resisted at all costs. Sound familiar at all?
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Text: Background: Was Jesus blaspheming?
Why did the teachers of the law say that?
The 'teachers of the law' (traditionally called 'scribes') were the Jewish theologians who gave rulings as to how the law of God (both the books of Moses, the Torah, and the oral teaching passed down by the rabbis) applied to any particular issue. They tended to be 'heresy hunters', very critical of anyone who didn't keep the rules.
So it's not surprising they had problems with Jesus!
Only two choices
From the perspective of these men, there were only two alternatives. Since only God could heal a paralysed man (or make the blind see or the deaf hear) then either Jesus must be God (unthinkable) or he must be a deceiver who did his miracles by the power of Satan (compare Mark 3:22).
We can't fault their logic but unfortunately they reached the wrong conclusion!
Just as Scripture prophesied
Actually their own Scriptures promised a time when 'your God will come . to save you', a time when the blind would see, the deaf hear, and 'the lame would leap like a deer' (Isaiah 35:3-6). But the teachers of the Law were not expecting anyone like Jesus to be the divine Messiah promised in the Scriptures.
Today too the Lord Jesus often works in ways we may not expect, and we need to beware of our prejudices trying to limit what he can do!
Andrew Clark
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Text: Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year:
Genesis 49,50
Acts 18
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