A FEW DAYS later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since 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. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6Now 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?”
8Immediately 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? 9Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10But 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.” 12He 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!”
Original Meaning
THE NEXT SCENE finds Jesus at “home” in Capernaum (2:1). It is not clear whose home it is, but clearly it is now impossible for Jesus to retire from the crush of the crowds after the leper disobeyed Jesus’ command and noised abroad his healing. This scene recalls the exorcism of an unclean spirit in the synagogue (1:21–28), which also occurred in Capernaum (1:21; 2:2). In both passages, Jesus is interrupted while he is teaching (1:21; 2:2). A group questions what Jesus says or does among themselves (1:27; 2:6), and the issue of authority comes to the fore. The teachers of the law figure in both scenes. The crowd applauds Jesus as one who teaches with authority and not as their Jewish teachers (1:22), and he responds in 2:10 to the questioning of these teachers by announcing that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. Both passages conclude with the crowd’s responding with amazement (1:22, 27; 2:12). In the former they recognize the newness of his authoritative teaching: “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” The crowd’s amazement in 2:12 leads to their glorifying God because they have never seen anything like this. The parallels remind the reader that a new, Spirit-empowered reality has burst forth from heaven and that Jesus works with God’s authority.
Healing and Forgiveness
THE IMPENETRABLE THICKET of people surrounding the house Jesus is speaking in presents a roadblock for friends of a paralytic man, who want to bring him to Jesus so that he can also be healed. They are undaunted by the human barrier before them, and resourcefully they dig through the roof to lower the man into the middle of the crowd.
This gripping, technicolor detail, so characteristic of Mark’s accounts of the miracles, may startle those who worry about property damage. Some might imagine that the owner of the house is as horrified by this destructive invasion of his property by these men as the teachers of the law are later horrified by the invasion of the prerogatives of God by Jesus. Archaeological discoveries in Capernaum, however, reveal that the houses were made of rough basalt without mortar, and they could not support more than a thatch roof. The sloping roof consisted of wooden cross beams overlaid with a matting of reeds, branches, and dried mud. It had to be replenished and rolled every fall before the onset of the winter rains. It did not take a jackhammer for the men to break through the roof, and it could be easily repaired.1
The crowd is only one of the obstacles that needs to be overcome for the paralyzed man to be healed. As the story progresses, the reader learns of two other impediments: the suspicious skepticism of the teachers of the law and the potential hesitancy of the man to act on Jesus’ command.
Digging through a roof and dropping their friend before Jesus is a silent but dramatic plea for healing, and Jesus recognizes that only a tenacious faith would have led these men to go to so much trouble.2 The merciful granting of their request comes when Jesus announces to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven.” Mark does not report the reaction of the friends or the man to these words, only the silent misgivings of the teachers of the law, whose “sitting” contrasts with the active demonstration of faith of the men on the roof. They question in their hearts, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (2:6–7). They are asking themselves, “What possible redemptive authority can this man have?”
Jesus’ authority has been contrasted previously with that of these teachers by the crowds (1:22), but this is their first appearance in the story.3 As the experts in law and the custodians of the sacred tradition, they see their task as establishing clear-cut guidelines and boundaries. They decide what is acceptable and unacceptable to God in all spheres of life so that the people might live in accord with God’s will. They appear here as disdainful observers, but they are authorities whose observations are right: God alone forgives sins.4 To presume to forgive sins is an arrogant affront to the majesty of God, which appropriately can be labeled blasphemy.
A priest could pronounce the forgiveness of sins on the basis of repentance, restitution, and sacrifice (Lev. 4; 5; 16; 17:11); but Jesus seems to be claiming that he is be able to remit sins as if he were God. To the theologically trained mind there can be only two possible inferences. The presence of the kingdom of God, which Jesus has been speaking about (2:2; cf. 1:14–15), must usher in the forgiveness of sins. It is the fulfillment of Isaiah 33:22, 24: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; it is he who will save us.… No one living in Zion will say, ‘I am ill’; and the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven” (see also Jer. 31:34; Mic. 7:18). Or they can conclude that this is “a conceited act of blasphemy”—something worthy of death (Lev. 24:16).5 The commentary of the scribal authorities serves to notify the reader how incredibly outrageous or how incredibly wonderful Jesus’ words are.
Proof that Jesus speaks for God comes in his response to these teachers’ unexpressed censure. He knows in his spirit that they question thus in their hearts. Knowing their hearts does not mean that he only reads the concern on their faces. God is the one who knows hearts,6 and Jesus does as well (see 8:16; 12:15). He skirts the issue of blasphemy with a riddling question of his own, in effect saying, “Which is easier, to make a theological pronouncement about the forgiveness of sins or to provide empirical proof that the man’s sins have indeed been forgiven by virtue of his ability to get up and walk away?”
This response accords with the scriptural guideline for verifying a true prophet and pinpointing a false prophet who presumes to utter in God’s name what the Lord has not commanded him to speak. “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him” (Deut. 18:22). To show the teachers of the law that his pronouncement of forgiveness is not just idle theological prattle, Jesus commands the paralytic to get up and walk so they may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth (2:10–11). The word confirms that their alarm is not misplaced. Jesus does presume to forgive sins on the basis of grace—something that a priest in the temple could not do, that even the law could not do. How is it that Jesus can usurp the prerogatives of God and proclaim forgiveness of sins, willy-nilly? How is he able to speak for God in such startling and untraditional ways? Can sin be dismissed so effortlessly? No! The crucifixion will clarify this matter.
The third obstacle to the man’s healing is his own skepticism. Will someone who has to be carried in on a pallet by others believe Jesus’ word about the forgiveness of his sins to act on his directive to get up and carry it out? Or, will he accept the judgment of the teachers of the law and say to himself: “This man cannot forgive my sins?” Will he convince himself that this is a hopeless command: “I cannot get up and carry anything because I am paralyzed?” This final obstacle to healing is overcome when the man displays the same faith as his friends by obeying Jesus’ command and goes out before all, his mat tucked under his arm. Presumably the crowds now make way, and the roof is raised once more in an explosion of glory to God.7 Their praise confirms that what Jesus has done is no great impiety but reason to glorify God.
The Son of Man
JESUS’ CLIMACTIC ANNOUNCEMENT refers to himself as “the Son of Man.” No consensus exists about what this title, if it can be considered a title, was intended to conjure up in the minds of Jews in the first century (see Dan. 7:13; 1 Enoch 46–53).8 In Mark, no one else calls Jesus the Son of Man. When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” “the Son of Man” is not one of the choices (8:27–30). Jesus is also not charged with claiming to be the Son of Man in the trial. The obscurity of the term made it nearly free of any preconceived notions that Jesus’ generation may have entertained. Consequently, it is a title that Jesus can fill with his own meaning.
It is clear, however, that in Mark it most adequately expresses who Jesus is. Although the term Son of Man is undefined, we do learn what he does. He has authority to forgive sins (2:10). He is Lord of the Sabbath (2:28). He will be betrayed (14:21, 41), suffer ignominy and death, and be raised on the third day (8:31, 38; 9:9, 12; 10:33). He comes not to be served but to give his life as a ransom for many (10:45). He will be seated at the right hand of power, return on the clouds, and gather his elect (13:26–27; 14:62).
Bridging Contexts
WHAT MAY STARTLE the modern reader in this scene is Jesus’ initial response to the sudden interruption of his speaking the word. When the man is dropped down through the roof, his first words are: “Son,9 your sins are forgiven.” One commentator voices our modern perplexity by noting that the four men did not bring the paralyzed man to Jesus to have his sins forgiven but to have him healed.10 Most of us would be put off by any doctor who made this announcement to us when we came for some medical treatment. We are accustomed to view disease as something caused by a virus, bacterium, or other pathogen and best remedied by medicine, not the forgiveness of sins. We are convinced that health results from eating right—high fiber, low cholesterol—exercising right, taking the right medicine that three out of four doctors recommend, and having disease-resistant genes.
The scientific approach to medicine that looks for a single cause for disease overlooks environmental, social, and spiritual contexts. We assume that there are fixed boundaries between mind, body, and soul. Therefore, God or our relationship to God has little or nothing to do with our health or sickness. We prefer rational, that is, medical, explanations, as demonstrated by the varied attempts of commentators to diagnose the paralytic’s problem as anything from a hysterical nervous condition to an overactive guilty conscience that caused psychosomatic paralysis. Or some suggest that Jesus is merely trying to encourage him or win his confidence with a cheery word. Any other view strikes many today as irrational or as primitive superstition. We therefore are uncomfortable with the worldview of the Bible that presupposes a direct connection between sin and sickness.11
But the paralysis is treated as a result of sin in this account. To forgive the sin is to remove its consequences—the paralysis. Healing, therefore, comes as the result of the forgiveness of sins. We are no longer scandalized by Jesus’ announcement of forgiveness, which we take for granted; it is the hint that our sin brings physical consequences that causes us to stumble. Relating sickness to sin in any way is thus a modern pitfall we would like to avoid. We do not want to become like Job’s friends, blaming the victim by attributing every instance of sickness and suffering to a penal consequence of sin and equating health with holiness.
We must remember, however, that Mark is not interested in explaining why bad things happen to good people or bad people. Jesus’ miracles of healing yield three insights that should be emphasized. (1) The first, again, is the Christological point. If God alone forgives sins and God alone heals diseases, as most Jews believed, then Jesus is the incarnation of the words of Exodus 15:26: “I am the LORD, who heals you.” The miracles of healing confirm Jesus’ divine origin and power. They also prepare the reader to understand the crucifixion in its proper perspective. Jesus always uses his miraculous power for others, never for himself. One can then see that the crucifixion is not a failure of that power but an act of voluntary humiliation in divine love for others.
(2) Jesus has been sent to bring forgiveness to a sinful world. Juel comments: “There is something mysteriously evil about illness that links it to the power of sin. The coming of the kingdom spells the end of both.”12 If one views disease as God’s chastening rod, as they did in Jesus’ time, then God offers forgiveness through Jesus. Jesus vanquishes those things that in the Old Testament prevented one from coming into the presence of God—whether it be unclean spirits that have taken control of one’s life, an unclean disease (Lev. 13:45–46), paralysis (21:17–23), or sin—and thus opens up the way for God’s reign to enter into all spheres of life.
Modern society tends to take a mechanistic approach to the problem of illness. When a machine malfunctions, the mechanic diagnoses what is wrong and removes or fixes the faulty part. When our physical bodies break down, we expect the doctor to diagnose what is wrong and remove or correct the faulty part. After this has been done, the body is supposed to function normally again. Humans are not machines, however, and a number of factors contribute to health. Young writes: “The Gospel declares that healing involves relationships with God, with other people, with ourselves and with our environment.”13 One of the things that can destroy our health is the paralyzing weight of sin. It does not show up on any of the blood tests or X-rays, but it is as virulent as any physical disease. In this scene, Jesus is able to restore persons to health by lifting the load of sin that cripples and immobilizes.
The opening scenes in Mark reveal that Jesus has been sent to bring healing to a broken world. Mark singles out these miracles to signify what the advent of the dominion of God promises for this fallen world, as well as what the power of the one who acts in God’s name on behalf of humanity entails. It is not the case that Jesus saw the paralyzed man, for example, as particularly sinful, nor did he buy into the deuteronomic orthodoxy that one’s suffering comes in proportion to one’s sin. Anderson helpfully comments, “The insight is that there is indeed a close and age-old connexion between man’s fallen estate and everything that afflicts him, with the further implication that God’s will is for man’s wholeness, or completeness in every aspect of his being.”14 Sickness belongs to the old aeon, whose prince is being ousted from power.
The healing Jesus works changes the questions that are normally asked when suffering or misfortune strikes. Instead of asking, “Who did this to me?” or “Why did this happen?” one needs to ask, “Who is this who offers forgiveness, healing, and salvation?” and “What does his presence in our lives mean?” One can then see that these miracles “announce and inaugurate what the future will offer; they are the presence in history of what will be the promise of history, a world restored to wholeness and open to God’s presence.”15 The universe need no longer be regarded as a hostile place, under siege from invading malevolent forces. God’s love and grace reign supreme.
(3) Finally, we should point out that we may exploit the wizardry of medical science but must remember that scientific solutions do not solve all the problems of sickness, suffering, and death. No meaningful healing can take place without reconciliation with God. We should also remember that physical well-being is not the essence of the Christian faith. Paul’s thorn in the flesh makes this clear. One might expect that one so divinely connected might receive healing when he prayed to God for it to be removed. No miracle occurred, and Paul received instead the answer that he must accept the thorn because it taught him that God’s grace is sufficient and all that one needs for life. It also testified to how God’s power is brought to completion in human weakness (2 Cor. 12:7–9).
Another way that we can bridge the contexts and draw out contemporary significance from this section is to read ourselves into the characters in the story and to ask questions. Walter Wink has helpfully outlined this method of studying the Bible.16 We may thus ask ourselves: What is it about others that makes us feel that they are lepers? What is it that we fear about them? What is it about us that makes us feel like lepers, untouchable? What makes us helpers, who would struggle up a roof and dig our way through it to bring another to the source of healing? What in us makes us give up in the face of the crowds? What in us is like the teacher of the law, the cool intellectual, the skeptical observer, the judgmental specialist? The scribe in us certainly does not want Jesus reminding us that we have sins that need forgiving as well. What in us is like the paralyzed man, who needs to hear the word of forgiveness? What in us makes us feel helpless and enslaved by an alien power, like the man with the unclean spirit? The answers to these questions may lead us to see ourselves and others more clearly.
Contemporary Significance
IF JESUS IS the model for our ministry to others, we see one who announces the forgiveness of sin and the chance of reconciliation with God, which brings in its wake healing. The church needs to proclaim in its words and deeds this offer of forgiveness, which can cleanse all sin. There are many whose souls are strangled by a snarled undergrowth of oppressive guilt. The word of Jesus can tear away the tangles and release fresh forces of renewal and energy in people’s lives. During the Middles Ages, when sick people came to the church for help, French historian Jules Michelet says they got blamed for their ills. “On Sundays, after Mass, the sick came in scores crying for help—and words were all they got: ‘You have sinned and God is afflicting you. Thank Him, you will suffer so much the less torment in the life to come.”17 When the sick came to Jesus, he did not spurn them but announced God’s forgiveness and manifested God’s love. He drove away the handmaidens of illness: hopelessness, guilt, and despair.
Many today are skeptical of miraculous healing that does not use medical means. Thomas Jefferson pruned all the miraculous elements from the Gospels to make them more palatable to the “enlightened” mind in his book, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Leonard Sweet contends in his study on medicine and health in the evangelical tradition that medical science has disengaged itself from religion and its moral concerns in the healing enterprise in the modern era, and that the church has acquiesced by maintaining a “safe, respectful distance from medical and healing matters.” Our regard for the miracles of modern science often makes the church and the clergy seem superfluous. Many physicians, therefore, do not want the clergy interfering in the sickroom, especially worrying patients about the issues of sin, until the medical fight is over. Sweet writes, “When medicine has done all it can do, which is everything humanly possible, religion is supposed to take over.”18
The healings of Jesus reveal that God is for healing and therefore can work through medicine and surgery as much as faith and prayer, but faith and prayer may not be neglected. As mind and spirit can effect the onset of a disease, they can also effect healing. Healing involves far more than the physical dimension; it involves mental, social, and spiritual dimensions as well. Faith, prayer, and a deep sense of the forgiveness of sins are therefore not simply “religious placebos.” Sweet argues:
The healing forces of faith, hope, and love are not incidental to health and medicine. Like an antibiotic, faith, hope, and love enter the system quickly and do their work slowly. Curing, or the removal of disease, may take place with medical means alone. But healing, or the triumphal reentry into one’s total environment, only takes place in partnership with faith. Medical healing is the knowledge of God manifested through science. Spiritual healing is the knowledge of God manifested through faith. It is the same knowledge. It is the same God.19