MIRACLES OF JESUS

Lesson 4 Background Material

THE PARALYTIC

Mark 2:1-12

By the time of this miracle, Jesus had attracted quite a following.  Because of the notoriety, he came to the attention of the Sanhedrin.  (The Supreme Court of the Jews.)  To verify his activities they sent out a group to observe and report back on this new religious leader.  The group would be composed of scribes and Pharisees.

The scribes were not priests.  They were men who had studied the Law and could quote it and quote the opinions of other people on those same laws.  Then draw a conclusion from the original law and the opinions of other scribes as to how the law applied to any current situation.

The Pharisees were an entirely different group.  (The name Pharisee means separated ones.)  They had their beginnings during the time of the Syrian conquest of Israel about 200 BC.  The Syrians tried to crush the faith of the Jews.  They made possession of the sacred scrolls punishable by death.  It is really not surprising that this group developed as a backlash to such treatment.  They took the laws of purification that were followed by the priests and expanded them.  There was a certain way to wash before meals.  The food was to be prepared in a certain way.  Everything must be ceremonially clean and they could only associate with certain people.  The Pharisees believed that everything must be done according to their rules.  Even though these rules were the ones that originally applied only to priest serving in the temple.  They tried to apply them to every day life.  For example, If an ‘ unclean’ person touched an object then the object became

unclean and the next person to touch that object would be made unclean by the contact. They had only been in existence a few hundred years and represented only a small part of the population.  Some of them were priests, that is descendants of the tribe of Levi, but the majority was not.

Jesus used the healing of this poor man as a challenge to these men.

According to Jewish teaching only God could forgive sin.  For an ordinary man to say he could forgive sins was blasphemy!  Leviticus 24:16 said the penalty for blasphemy was death by stoning.  The Jews also believed that sickness was the result of sin.  They held that a man could not be healed unless he atoned for his sins and was forgiven them.  If the man was healed than his sins had been forgiven.  But, if the man was still paralyzed than

Jesus was guilty of blasphemy and should be put to death.  The man got up, picked up his bed and walked away.  How angry the observers sent by the Sanhedrin must have been!  (This of course was Jesus’ first step toward the cross.)

Now lets look at another aspect of this miracle.  This man could not come to Jesus by himself; he had four friends who made a special effort the get him to Jesus.  Friendship should form a major plank in our Christian walk.  We sing about “What a friend We Have in Jesus,” and “Jesus a Friend of the Children.”  Jesus himself called the disciples his friends in John 15:14.  Friendship should form this kind of special bond.  When we see a friend suffering we should always bring that suffering to Jesus first.  Jesus will show us the kind of help that we should offer.   In this spirit the four friends saw the need and saw Jesus as the answer to that need.

Jesus was back in Capernaum, probably staying in the home of Peter again.  (Remember that the Gospel of Mark is based on the recollections of Peter.  Tradition says that Mark traveled with Peter and acted as his interpreter.)  The main doors of the houses there opened right onto the street.  In the morning it was the custom that the door would be opened and it was an invitation for anyone to enter.  If people wanted privacy, they simply closed their doors.  In this case, the people had crowded into the house until it was full and the crowd extended out into the street.  There was no way that the friends could have gotten through to Jesus by that route.  Most assuredly Peter would have a vivid memory of the roof of his house being broken apart because he would have had to have it fixed.

The houses usually had a side stairway or a ladder to reach the roof and the roofs themselves were made of beams laid from wall to wall about 3 foot apart.  Rushes were laid across between the beams and dirt and mud was packed on top. This had to be redone every year because the rainy season washed a lot of it away.

Friendship has its rewards!  In this case the man was restored to health and could go on with his life.  Lets look at this man now.  What was his problem?  Because of the belief by the Jews that sickness was punishment for sin, certainly this man believed that he had somehow offended God.  No one is without sin.  “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.”

Romans 3:23  Perhaps he had done some grave offence that burdened him or possibly he simply dredged up every minor deed that could have offended God to explain why he was paralyzed.  When Jesus told him that his sins were forgiven this must have lifted the burden from his soul as well

as healing his physical problems.  For him to get up from his straw mat, pick up that mat and walk away was an act for faith and acceptance of God’s forgiveness through the person of Jesus.

How do we show our faith? When we bring our burdens to God in prayer do we leave them at The Master’s feet or do we pick up those same burdens and keep carrying them?  When God forgives us, we must also forgive ourselves.  We, too, must “pick up our beds and walk.”