How Confident?

As I plug through the Gospel of Mark, I've been meditating this week on the story that opens Mark chapter 2.  You might be familiar--Jesus is trying to take a vacation after an especially exhausting season of ministry, but everyone finds out where He is and the crowd descends.  He, of course, being God and all, is far more gracious than I would be.  While I would be assembling the shotgun (OK, for those who know me, you know I would actually be sneaking out the back door and running like crazy), Jesus is graciously teaching them.  Mark doesn't tell us what He's teaching, but he does record this crazy moment where four friends are carrying their paralyzed friend on a stretcher and are trying to get him to see Jesus so that he can be healed.  Of course, the crowd is dense and they can't get the stretcher anywhere near Him.

Momentary sidebar: if you know this story, you know what's about to happen.  They're literally going to rip a hole in the roof of this house so that they can lower their friend down in front of Jesus.  That being the case, why is every sermon on spiritual friendship on either David and Jonathan or Paul and Barnabas?  I'm not opposed to those guys, and I know we don't have much to go on with this fivesome, but seriously... tearing a hole in somebody's roof?  If I can ever be that kind of friend or have that kind of friend...

But I digress.

So they dig a hole in the roof.  You can picture Jesus sitting there teaching (Hebrew teachers almost always sat to teach, while their listeners stood, which would do wonders for people staying awake during sermons...), when suddenly, tiny pieces of hardened clay start to fall on His head.  Now, we always picture Jesus as this calm and cool dude, but 100% God and 100% man says to me that He looked up, saw the roof about to give way, and His eyes got all big and crazy as He stood up and ran backwards, pressing against the wall to get out of the way of falling shingles.  Maybe He narrowly missed a big piece of the ceiling hitting Him in the head--maybe they took out the front row.  Maybe there was screaming.  Maybe laughing.  We don't know, because Mark leaves out such details.  What we do know is that they lowered the paralyzed dude from the roof right in front of Jesus.

He had to be looking at Jesus with such hope!  Mark doesn't say if this man was paralyzed from birth or if he was the victim of some tragic camel accident--either way, things haven't been going too well for him.  Jesus is his hope!  Or maybe.  Mark records that it was actually the faith of the friends that Jesus took notice of, so it could be that this man had already given up hope.  Do you know anyone like that?  Things are so tough that even when a break seems to be coming their way, they assume it's going to fall through.  As far as they are concerned, all hope is gone.  Maybe he assumed the stretcher would slip and he would plummet to his death.  Maybe he figured Jesus was a fraud.  Whatever the case, he had given up hope.  Let me be frank--if you're a follower of Jesus and you don't have a friend like that, it's time to broaden your circle of friends!  There are thousands of people around us that have just that outlook on life.  This particular man was lucky enough to have four friends who seemed to have enough faith for him as well.  Maybe God's put you or I in the position to be that friend for someone else...

We can almost picture the stretcher settling on the floor in front of Jesus, and Jesus slowly relaxing His tense body and moving away from His position of pressed up against the back wall of the house.  He must have had a marveled look on His face as He surveyed the entire scene.  Then, of course, seeing their faith... He healed the man.  Right?  Nope.  That's not how the story reads.  He forgives his sins.  At that, Mark leaves everyone's reaction out except for the scribes.  I would have loved to know how the man reacted to that pronouncement, or how the four friends reacted, finding out that their time they are about to spend in jail for massive vandalism has only secured forgiveness for their still paralyzed friend.  However, we do know what the scribes said, or at least what they thought:

"Blasphemy!"

And, of course, as Jesus has the annoying habit of doing, He reads their minds.  This is why Matt Chandler, pastor of the Village Church in Texas, always says that if he was hanging out around Jesus he would just mentally recite Psalms over and over again: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want... Nope, not thinking anything bad, Jesus!  Just constant worship and prayer.  You know how it goes."  Count me in on that one.

Jesus confronts them on their unspoken thoughts, and asks the amazing question: "Which is easier?  To forgive sins, or to make this paralyzed dude walk?"  Commentators have tried to figure out the riddle, but this is one of those places that the plain reading of the text is the way to go: They're both impossible.  At least for you and I.    For Jesus, they're both simple--and incredibly costly.  Isaiah 53, which Jesus had likely memorized from a young age, tells us that it would be "by His stripes" we would be healed, and that "our sin would be upon Him."  Free to all, but very, very expensive to One.

Of course (spoiler alert!), He ultimately heals the man.  His expressed purpose is to show that He also has the power to forgive sins, but I'm sure there was some compassion there as well.  The man walks out.  The scribes are both amazed and somewhat incensed at His inference that He's, you know, God.  And unless there was a very understanding homeowner, four friends were carted off to jail.  Satisfied, I'm sure.  Those were some good friends.

But here's the thing that I've been meditating on: If we understand that Jesus can actually do this stuff, why doesn't it transform the way that we live?  If Jesus is able to speak both true forgiveness of sin and healing for all of our brokenness, why don't our lives look like it?  Sure, there are times when situations look bleak--but if we're assured of the love of Jesus toward us and His ability to do anything that He chooses to do, shouldn't we always have hope?  Or put another way: If we live as people without hope in a world full of people without hope, do we really have a message to give?  1 Peter 3:15 tells us that we should always be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have.  That Scripture gets quoted quite a bit.  Here's the part that doesn't get much attention: Peter is assuming the question!  We're to be ready to give an answer because our lives are going to beg the question!  How many times have you been asked about the hope that you have?  Ouch.

Dear readers, if you're not a believer in Jesus, let me apologize for the fact that we as Christians (and I as a Christian!) much more often generate strange looks than beg questioning about the hope that we have.  Please recognize that it's a reflection of our sinfulness and anemic faith, not the ability of our Savior.  For my Christian friends--would you join me in asking Jesus to give you real faith?  A recognition that He is the God of the impossible?  And then, step by step, according to His strength, actually live in light of that faith?

Here's to hoping that the questions will be coming.  And to knowing if they actually do, it's quite likely that we'll have the answer.