2020 has been a chilling and challenging year, leaving many feeling paralyzed. As if we’re trapped in a time machine, incapable of moving forward or backward. How do we respond when God doesn’t do what we request or expect? When healing doesn’t happen; money doesn’t materialize; relationships aren’t reconciled. The suffering doesn’t end. What is God saying? How can we believe he loves us when we’re still in the midst of this mess? How can we find healing and hope? 

People in Jesus’ world could have asked the same question. As mentioned in my previous post, Rome’s oppression left many Jews feeling their exile continued. Even though they’d returned from Babylon 400 years earlier, they felt paralyzed between slavery and freedom. Where was God? When would he keep his promise to rescue and restore them?

Looking for Answers

The gospel writers point to Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise to his people. Matthew and Mark follow Jesus’ cleansing of a leper with his healing of a paralytic, emphasizing his authority to forgive. Why? Since Jesus lived in a collectivist, high-context culture, verbalizing his messianic claims was unnecessary. Because his actions communicated his meaning. What Jesus only hinted at in the leper’s healing, he enunciated with the paralytic’s. In other words, he is Immanuel with the authority to forgive, as only God can do.

With every miracle, Jesus’ popularity grew. Crowds, including religious leaders, from all over Galilee and Judea came to hear him preach. One day, as Jesus was teaching, some men came seeking healing for a paralyzed man. Maybe a friend or family member. Scripture tells us neither the cause nor duration of his condition. 

Can you imagine what it would mean to be a paraplegic in the first century? You’d have no wheelchair, no remote control, no special services, no freedom. You would rely on others to take care of even your most personal needs. With no income and no honor, the presumption of sin and hopelessness would be your constant companions. In addition, the lingering smell of shame would adhere to your family and future. 

When the men heard Jesus was in town, hope for healing rose in their hearts. However, their late arrival meant the multitude blocked their path. Undaunted, the men dug through the roof so they could lower their brother to Jesus’ feet.

An Unexpected Response 

According to the Talmud:

There is no death without sin, and there is no suffering without iniquity. A sick man does not recover from his sickness until all his sins are forgiven him.

Alvin Maragh, “The Healing Ministry of Jesus as Recorded in the Synoptic Gospels”

Although sin doesn’t cause all sickness, it paralyzes, affecting every dimension of our lives, beginning with our relationship with God. So, when Jesus looked at the paralytic, he first saw a fractured relationship rather than a broken body. 

Then impressed with the men’s faith, Jesus proclaimed: 

Son, your sins are forgiven.

Mark 2:5

Jesus’ response defied and deflated the men’s expectations. Because despite his words, the paralyzed remained immobilized. Did his heart sink? Did his carriers furrow their brows? From the middle of a miracle, it can appear nothing’s happening, or at least, not what we hoped.

Shocked at the implications of Jesus’ statement, the scribes and Pharisees wondered:

Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?

Mark 2:6-7

Their silent objections revealed they weren’t ready for a confrontation, but Jesus pushed to redefine their understanding of the Messiah. 

Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

Mark 2:9-10

With no words of healing, Jesus directed the man to get up and go home. One minute, he couldn’t move; the next minute, he could. Jesus reversed his honor status so he could live as a fully functioning, image-bearing contributor to his community.

The man’s ability to walk authenticated Jesus’ authority to forgive while revealing his identity and glorifying his Father.

Are We Paralyzed?

The man on the floor wasn’t the only one paralyzed. Those who demanded God operate only within their traditions and expectations were as well. As are we until we attend the funeral of our demands for how life should be, how God should answer our prayers.

Are we also paralyzed? Paralysis can be: 

• Physical (restraining our freedom of movement)
• Spiritual (repeating the same sins, regarding life as “all about me”)
• Relational (rehashing the same arguments over and over)
• Mental (replaying painful memories, recycling old solutions to new problems)
• Emotional (refusing to let go of past hurts)

What would Jesus say to us if we lay motionless and hopeless at his feet? Our paralysis, poverty, and pain, and even the pandemic contain divine possibilities. Maybe, like the man on the mat, we’re in the middle of a miracle. Perhaps we’re waiting for proof while Jesus is watching for faith. Will he find it in us? 

Don’t miss the miracle and message of Immanuel: God is with us amid this mess. He is our hope, not a specific outcome. Forgiveness frees us to march into the future as the image-bearers and kingdom-builders God created us to be. Right here. Right now. Will we pick up our pallets and follow him?