Solution: Mark 2:1-12
Let’s go back to 1982. I was pastor of The Christian Church of Lemon Grove. My parents returned from working for 12 years on the Island of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. They moved to Lemon Grove and became a part of the church I served.
It wasn’t long until dad had a heart attack. He had to have quadruple by-pass surgery. In 1982 such surgery was much trickier than it is today. Eight months later the bypasses collapsed in three arteries, and he had to have a second bypass surgery.
Dad spent 30 days in intensive care hovering between death and life. God was good granting him recovery and another 13 years of life with us.
Physical healing was a solution, but not the ultimate solution!
Near the end of Mark chapter 1 we have the historical account of Jesus healing a man with Leprosy as He was going around Galilee preaching and driving out demons.
The man healed of Leprosy spread the news about Jesus healing him and Jesus was overrun with people coming for healing. The crowds were so intense He had to go outside to lonely places to get away from being overrun by people.
In the first verse of Mark chapter 2 we learn Jesus came back to Capernaum and probably went to the home of Peter. Again, He was stampeded by the crowds coming for healing!
Jesus was preaching the word to them and ran out of room inside the house and eventually ran out of room outside the door!
Four men brought their friend to Jesus. He was paralyzed. The man was lying on a mat of some kind his friends carried trying to get him to Jesus for healing.
These four guys couldn’t get their friend to Jesus because of the crowds. This required they go to Plan B.
A typical house in the days of Jesus was one room and made of rocks with a flat roof made of beams with thatch over the beams and tiles over the thatch with compacted dirt and straw covering the roof. The roofs were used for gatherings and other functions and had steps up to them.
This man’s four friends carried him up the steps to the roof, dug through the roof and lowered the mat the paralyzed guy was lying on down in front of Jesus.
I hope Peter had his homeowner’s insurance up to date!
Mark 2:5 says this, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” (NIV)
It’s important to see a visible faith got a paralyzed guy to Jesus for His solution. Real faith will always become visible!
If Joe is crossing the street to meet Charlie and Charlie sees a bus bearing down on Joe and cries out to him, “Joe, run the bus is going to hit you,” and Joe waves and says, “thanks Charlie,” and continues his leisurely stroll toward Charlie and gets hit by the bus, did Joe believe Charlie’s message? No.
Joe didn’t have faith in Charlie’s message. If He had faith in Charlie’s message he would have moved.
Today, if we believe Jesus has our solutions we will get to Jesus with a visible faith, whatever that means.
Notice what Jesus says to the paralyzed guy, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:5B NIV)
It was obvious the guy on the mat was paralyzed. It had to be obvious they were bringing him to Jesus to be healed, right? So, why did Jesus say, “Son, your sins are forgiven?”
Some would say He was picking a fight with the teachers of the law who were sitting there watching. The teachers of the law were thinking about what they saw Jesus do.
What the teachers of the law were thinking is found in Mark 2:7, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (NIV)
Do you know what’s interesting? The teachers of the law didn’t say a word! Verse 8 tells us Jesus knew what these guys were thinking in His heart!
They didn’t understand they were in the presence of The God Man, Jesus the Messiah. He was 100 percent God and 100 percent man. He can get ahold of things they didn’t understand. He knew their thoughts!
Leviticus 24:16A says, “anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death.” (NIV) To blaspheme would be to take the character and attribute of God and assume it for yourself. To do that was blasphemy and demanded the person committing that sin be put to death.
Jesus said a man’s sins were forgiven! If He wasn’t God that was blasphemy, but Jesus was God and had the authority to forgive sins!
What does Jesus do? He responds verbally to their thoughts and said, “why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘get up take your mat and walk?’” (Mark 2:8B-9 NIV)
Jesus is preparing to demonstrate He does have authority to forgive sins and He will use the healing of the paralyzed guy to affirm that.
Listen to what Jesus says in verse 10 and 11, “(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.’” (NIV)
Guess what happened next. The paralyzed guy got up, took his mat, and walked out in front of everyone just like Jesus told him to do. Everyone was amazed, praised God and affirmed they had never seen anything like that before.
Jesus solved the guy’s temporary condition, being paralyzed, to affirm the solution to His ultimate issue, which is that of forgiveness of sins.
Jesus did the miracle they could see to verify the miracle of forgiveness they couldn’t see!
Did you know you could heal a person’s physical ailments and not do him a bit of eternal good?
Remember Adam and Eve before they sinned. They were naked and didn’t know it. They would never have to face illness or death. They lived in God’s Garden, with one rule, “don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
What did they do? The one thing they were not supposed to do. They were deceived by the devil and sinned. Their sin brought illness, problems, conflict and ultimately death to all of humanity!
The big problem is death! When you remove sin, you remove death. That requires forgiveness. Does that mean we won’t go through physical death? No! We will all die physically. But if your sins are forgiven you go to rest with the Lord immediately until the second coming when you will be raised from the dead with a new body to go with Jesus for Heaven.
With forgiveness of your sins, you will still encounter the affects of sin in this life, but you will have beat death! Forgiveness guarantees victory over death!
Jesus healed the paralytic to use a visible miracle to affirm the ultimate solution, which is that of forgiveness of our sins.
What do you suppose happened to the paralyzed guy who was healed? He probably lived his life, had a family, did his work and at some point, got sick and died.
But Jesus made sure he received his ultimate solution, which is the forgiveness of his sins.
Rodney Dangerfield told a joke. He said his doctor told him to take better care of himself so he could live longer. Then he said, “so, I’ll live a few extra years and someday I’ll get really sick and die.”
My dad lived an extra 13 years after his second by-pass surgery. He considered that a gift from
God so he could be with his family, and we all agreed.
My mother told me about dad’s conversion to Christ. Her dad led him to the Lord in Prescott, Ariz., before he and mom were married. She told me dad and my grandpa Bishop and the Elders from their church got on their knees with my dad and prayed together before he was baptized by grandpa!
Dad spent his life walking with Jesus. Jesus saw him through several illnesses over the years, certainly the two by-pass surgeries were among them.
Dad’s ultimate solution was not his physical healing, it was Jesus forgiving his sins!
I was pastoring in Porterville on February 11, 1997, when I got the call from my mom dad was close to death. They lived in Tucson, Ariz. My family and I tried to get to the hospital in time to see him alive. I missed that by 20 minutes on February 12, 1997.
The temporary solution of healing wasn’t necessary because dad had the Ultimate Solution in place by coming to Jesus for forgiveness of sins with a visible faith!
We all will reach that point where the only thing that counts is the ultimate solution of forgiveness of sins from Jesus!
Have you come to Jesus with visible faith and surrendered to Him for His ultimate solution? If not before, why not now?