Lucy from peanuts is right "life is full of surprises" and there are some people who like surprises and those that don’t …
right… and I have found that it’s usually quite evenly split. some people love spontaneity and others would rather be in control and organised... Or at least in the know.
For me and probably for a lot of you it actually depends on
the context. Presents and party’s yes surprise is alright…right…I like it when
my wife surprises me by turning up and taking me to lunch. If it’s my birthday and you want to surprise
me with a party though, It’s probably a bit better to let me know ahead of
time. I’ll still act surprised.
I
f it’s in the middle of a meeting or as I’m organising
something then no! Surprises are not
welcome. I like the idea of a no surprises agenda. And particularly when I’m preaching… like the
time I was speaking at an Easter camp and we had an outdoor worship time on the
banks of the Taeiri river and a car pulls up behind me on the river bank three
guys get out and proceed to strip off and go skinny dipping. They were surprised as they noticed after a
few turns on the rope swing across the river from us that they were surrounded
by a great cloud of witnesses… about ninety very attentive teenages, they
quickly headed back to there car and their clothes and headed away. Surprises
in the middle of Jesus speaking like we are looking at in Mark 2 didn’t seem to
fase him unlike they do me.
One thing I am constantly surprised with is the grace and
the goodness of God. I shouldn’t be but I am. Maybe its testimony to the
passage in lamentations that says ‘the steadfast love of the Lord never ends,
and his mercy endures forever, it is new every morning.” The amazing love and
grace that God shows in my own life and in the life of others and
even…surprise, surprise…as I prayer and minister to and with them takes me by
surprise all the time. I am like the
people in our bible reading tonight amazed, which is a synonym for surprised,
at what the Lord does.
It’s probably no surprise that at a prayer and healing
meeting we would choose as our reading a miracle story from the gospel. You’ve
probably read it yourself many times and heard people speak on it many times,
as I have. But as I read and reflected and prayed over this week, I was
surprised by it… the thing that surprised me was that it is full of surprises.
From the moment you hear the determined footsteps on the roof right through to
the joyous footsteps of the paralysed man Jesus heals, it’s a journey full of
surprises. Surprises that we might miss because we’ve become familiar with it,
but I was also surprised by how it spoke to some of the questions I was
wrestling with, even about having such things as prayer and healing services…
and I was surprised at how it speaks to people who need to meet with Jesus. It
does not say that we should be surprised by a hole in the roof, but we can be
surprised amazed at an open heaven, at Jesus meeting us as we come to him and
bringing healing and wholeness: help, health and salvation.
Jesus had come back to town; his home Mark tells us and the
word had got out and people had flocked to hear him speak. So much so that the
place was packed, standing room only. Don’t tell OSH because we are over the
fire and safety limits. Then there is a surprise… Jesus is interrupted, people
would have been surprised by the sound of feet on the flat roof above, they
would have looked up as sawdust and debris starts to fall on them from above
and a hole appears in the thatched roof. Then a man on a mat is lowered down
right to the feet of Jesus.
What Jesus says surprises everyone, “Son, your sins are
forgiven” They are not the simple words of healing that you might expect, Jesus
does just not meet the man’s perceived need.
We don’t know about
this man’s life or who was or what he had done, but Jesus offers him something
at a deeper level than physical healing. Perhaps Jesus looked right to the root
of the problem that the man was crippled by guilt and weighed down by his sin.
The man here may have lived with that all his life and Jesus is saying this to
the man so he will be able to hear God’s healing word. At another level like
with many of the healings Jesus does it’s about wholeness and Jesus is removing
that stigma that associated physical infirmary with sin from the man so he can
be welcomed back into full fellowship with the community.
At another level Jesus is looking even deeper into the root
of the problem; that we are all broken by sin and in need of forgiveness. We were created to have a loving relationship
with God, and sin broke that, the healing that Jesus offers this man starts
with healing that brokenness that is in all of us. It points us to the work of
the cross and the resurrection, that Jesus would give his life so that we may
be forgiven and restored to that life giving relationship with God. Sickness and illness are connected to sin, in
as much as they are a consequence of a fallen humanity, a marred creation; in
fact one of the things that shows how evil and destructive sin is is that these
things strike people who do not deserve it. Much of the Old Testament
scriptures wrestle with the issue of why do good people suffer. Jesus offers first
of all that most wondrous of healings salvation, reconciliation with God and
with one another. “your sins are forgiven.”
There is another surprise now in the narrative, so much so
that some scholars have suggested that Mark has combined two episodes in Jesus
life into one. Because the focus moves from the man and Jesus to what is
happening in the minds of the religious leaders who we are surprised to learn
are there in the house. We are told in
their minds they are surprised and not in a good way by what Jesus has said.
They know their scriptures they understand about God and in their understanding
what Jesus is saying is blaspheme… Only God can forgive sin.”
WE shouldn’t be surprised about this turn of events, because
in the gospels what people call miracles are in actual fact called signs and
wonders. They are recorded for us because of what they tell us about Jesus. Yes
they always affirm the compassion and the love and power of God, but here Mark
makes sure we understand what this healing says about Jesus. He records Jesus
words, “is it easier to say your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk, but to
show that the son of man, a messianic title from the book of Daniel and
Ezekiel, that Jesus uses of himself, has authority to forgive sins on earth,’
and here he turns to the man, “get up take up your mat and go home.” The healing shows us the proof and the
authority of Jesus words. Marks Gospel starts with a affirmation and witness to
Jesus as the unique messiah, the anointed one of God and then throughout the
rest of the book we are invited to see what that means. It’s kind of like a
mystery thriller, or a film noir we’ve been let into the solution at the start and
as we read through the narrative we are invited to see it more clearly.
The passage tells us that Jesus the son of man, has
authority to forgive sin on earth, Jesus does not contradict the religious
leaders, but rather by his actions he point to his identity. In the book of
Hebrews the author argues that Jesus is a better priest than in the Jewish
religious understanding and here we see Jesus acting in that role. Offering
forgiveness of sin, and just as Hebrews goes on to say he is a better priest
because he gives himself as a sacrifice for sin, the work of the cross is
echoed here. But we are also invited to look at the very identity of the one
speaking, here is the very word of God made flesh, as John will start his
gospel by telling us.
The healing acts as a sign post to the person and the work
of Jesus as God’s messiah, as God with us.
We are told that the man instantly feels his legs
strengthened and does what Jesus had told him to do he gets up rolls his mat up
and walks. And the narrative finished with surprise, the people are amazed by
the fact the man is healed and they give glory and praise to God.
I want to finish tonight by drawing some surprising
connection from this passage for us tonight.
The first thing is that while this has been promoted as a
prayer and healing service that first and foremost it is a gospel service. In
everything we do we want to point people to Jesus. We hope as we worship as we
hear the word of God read and preached as we pray that just like with the man
on the mat we may find ourselves at the feet of Jesus to hear his words of
forgiveness wholeness help strength encouragement and healing we need to hear.
That even through life’s tears and storm we might encounter Jesus.
Secondly, I was
surprised by where I found myself standing as I read this passage because as a
preacher and as part of the prayer ministry team, I discovered a metaphor for
what we do that warmed my heart… That of friend, It seems that we left those
guys up on the roof as we looked at this passage but they are the ones who
allowed the person in need to come to Jesus.
They exercised their faith to help him. And later when we invite people
to come for prayer we are doing it not as some sort of super spiritual guru who’ve
got all the answers or anything special, rather as a friend who can simply
bring you to Jesus. Very often we think of people like evangelists or preachers
and teachers healers as something special unobtainable but can I say we are all
called to be friends, all able to be friends and befriend.
Thirdly, I was surprised at the barriers that needed to be
overcome to bring healing and wholeness in this narrative. It would be great if
at church each week people had to get their early to get in, right. And we had
to push out the windows and door so people could hear Jesus speaking in our
midst. But I was surprised that the people around Jesus became a barrier for
healing and wholeness. They stood in the way. I shouldn’t have been surprised
really because we often let that happen to us. We’ve been talking about inviting
people to come forward for prayer in our team meetings and acknowledge that
accepting that invitation is a hard thing to do. It actually involves being
willing to say well actually I have a need, or I want to know more of Jesus in
my life. That crowd pressure can hold us back.
Lastly, I hope we are not surprised by where this narrative
places Jesus. I don’t know about you but
I can often think of Jesus as way off there, distant and beyond, in eternity and locked up in heaven somehow.
That God is a distant disinterested deity. That not even a impromptu skylight
is going to do much to connect us. We long for an open heaven. But the surprise
in this passage is where Jesus can be found. Did you hear it, Jesus came home
and was in the midst of the people. We
have an open heaven, because in Jesus
God came down, and dwelt amongst us, by his Spirit Jesus dwells in the midst of
his people through Christ God dwells in the midst of us.
And in the midst of us Jesus offers us forgiveness and
reconciliation with God and each other, Jesus offers us forgiveness of sin,
freedom and liberty, God is able to meet us in our point of need and speak
words of wholeness and healing. Directly to us or just maybe we too will need a
friend, the person next to you and the team is here to befriend.
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