In the previous verses, we saw how Jesus had authority in teaching and also to heal. In these verses, we see how Jesus leaves and returned to Capernaum to continue His ministry.
(A) The Harder Thing: Preaching the word instead of signs and wonders (Mark 2:1-4)
After Jesus was baptised, he began his ministry by calling his first disciples and healing many - three episodes in Mark 1. We see increasingly that many had gathered not necessarily to hear Jesus preach, but to be healed (Mark 1:32-34, 37-39). Jesus’ preaching ministry was quickly becoming overshadowed by his healing ministry - no doubt important, but it was not Jesus’ priority! We see this clearly in Mark 1:38 - And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next town, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”
The pattern in Mark 1:21-45 is interesting. Jesus preaches and delivers people from their sickness/casts out demons, then leaves. Perhaps most telling is in his instruction to the leper to “say nothing to anyone but go” - and as a result of his disobedience, “Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.”
It is pertinent to see then that in Capernaum, he was preaching the word to them (the crowd that had gathered) (Mark 2:2). Jesus’ focus on preaching the word traces back to the beginning of his ministry - “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Jesus was focused on preaching the gospel of good news, of repentance, of turning from sin and believing in Him as the Son of God - over the wonderful works of healing and casting out demons.
Some application here for us to think about. Firstly, It would have been much easier, and much more popular (clearly), for Jesus to prioritise his healing ministry. Arguably, the “yield” and “effectiveness” of such a ministry was much greater. What could be more visible than healing the lame and the lepers? Yet Jesus chose to do the harder thing. He focused on preaching the word to people. Clearly, His focus was on something more important than peoples’ physical wellbeing and his relevance and popularity. He was focused on the condition of their hearts, their spiritual wellbeing and their eternal salvation.
Jesus’ pattern and focus should shape how we think of ministry as well! There are flashy and fancy programs, and depending on your church and its beliefs maybe even healing services and what not. Yet our primary responsibility and call as Christians is not to heal the world and make it a better place, but to hold out the good news of Jesus Christ that all may know him. And the primary way that that is done is by preaching his word.
What are we doing if we are not preaching the word, as our master did?
The four men brought their beloved friend who was a paralytic to come to be healed (Mark 2:3-4). Seeing there was no space and no way to get in, they did not give up. Instead they persevered and found their way not around, but over and into the house.
Mark summarizes this in just one verse, but put yourself in their shoes for a bit. It is not the easiest thing to carry a bed and a grown man on it, but that load’s split four ways so maybe that’s not too bad. They brought him here and we are not sure where from, or how they got there. But when they got there and saw the crowd, the easier thing would have been to turn around. Yet they pressed on, not to be discouraged, they looked around, they looked above, they cracked their heads and decided the best and only way into the house would be through the roof. One commentator says there was at least a foot of compacted soil to serve as waterproof in a typical Syrian roof in that time — there was much digging and clawing and scraping.
The much easier thing to do here would have been to pack up and go home — what is one more day of being paralyzed right? However, these men had faith that Jesus could heal their friend, they believed that seeing and touching Jesus was the only way their friend would be healed, and they loved their friend so much to do the hard thing — to present him before Jesus, whatever it took.
And Jesus “saw their faith” (Mark 2:5).
Think of this from Jesus’ perspective. He knew they came to Him for the wrong reasons. He has tried ducking away, told people not to tell others about His healing and has even gone in to the wilderness. Now, He meets a man that came through the roof. Anger and frustration might have been appropriate. Have you encountered ministry setbacks or days when your plans have not gone your way? We often respond in anger and get frustrated. But Jesus is not like us! He did not respond harshly. Jesus’ response in gentleness and love is comforting. He acknowledges their faith, their effort, their love for this brother, and responds in kind. Thank God that Jesus is not like us!
Consider the faith of the men — little is known about them, not even their names. Yet they appear in Matthew and Luke’s gospel as well — and in every account their faith is acknowledged. They might not have known the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, but what they did know and what they did believe was that Jesus Christ is powerful, perhaps He is God and He can heal their friend. Consider how simple this is. It is faith that believes wholeheartedly that Jesus is Lord above all and can save and heal all is what Jesus acknowledges.
Faith in Jesus motivates and drives and sustains action. It shapes what we do. We saw clearly how laborious the process of getting up and through the roof was. Faith does not simply look like believing and sitting at home. It looks like putting it to work, not that the work saves, but that the work shows and highlights exactly what we believe. It is the fruit of our faith. See how determined these nameless men of faith were to come to Jesus -- may it be so for us as well.
Who did God place in your life that you might bring them to Jesus? How can you act by faith today?
We look at the first set of harder things - Preaching the word instead of signs and wonders. We see Jesus’ ministry focus, and what was important to Him. Now let’s look at His response to the paralytic, and the Pharisees and scribes’ response to that.
(B) The Harder Thing: Forgiveness of sins instead of physical healing (Mark 2:5-9)
Jesus observed and acknowledged their faith, and forgave the paralytic’s sins (Mark 2:5). We might miss this reading in hindsight, because we know that Jesus came to deal with sin and not with sickness. But the man and his friends came to Jesus to be healed and did not ask for his sins to be forgiven.
Jesus knew what the man’s real and greatest need was, even if they did not! A Bible commentator put it well - “What good was it if the man had two whole legs and walked right into hell with them. Whenever there is a problem, almost always, sin is the real problem. Jesus got right to the problem.”
To be clear, Jesus forgiving his sin did not mean that the paralytic was particularly sinful or that his paralysis was directly caused by sin. We do not see that addressed by Jesus here or in other accounts of healing. Instead, He addressed the man’s greatest need and the common root of all pain and suffering – man’s sinful condition.
Also, the paralytic would also be considered as unclean and unable to serve as a Levite. Jesus saw that the man is truly spiritually dead, as we read in Ephesians 2:1-3. He walked in sin, and followed the prince of the power of the air, walking the path of disobedience. It was not just in actions and deeds, but it was also a problem of the heart too — ignoring God and not giving him the glory He deserves. He, like us, was dead in his sin without God. He is equally helpless spiritually.
Jesus sees and knows that this is his deepest need.
How are we particularly prone to doing exactly what the paralytic’s friends did? How often do we reject God’s kindness in dealing with our sin issues when we suffer physically and even emotionally? How often are we hyper-focused on our circumstances and getting through them, when clearly God deals with our heart issues first?
Do we take the gospel for granted and forget the beauty of the gospel? Ephesians 2 challenges us because we often forget that we were dead and helpless in our sins, walking with the world in a path of death. We also forget that sin is an affront to a holy God. Only until we truly appreciate the depth of our sin will we appreciate the depth of Christ’s love for us! Only then will we see the beauty of the words “But God” (Eph 2:4) and “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5), ultimately achieved by Christ’s death on the cross. Today, our sins are also forgiven because of Christ.
How do we know what we take for granted. What is often revealing of our heart is the content of our prayers. How do you pray? What do you pray for? Are you anxious about what is going on in the world? But are our anxieties consuming us and have circumstances overshadowed our greater need and this greater truth? How often do we get this flipped upside down? As pragmatic Singaporean young adults, we are bent in on ourselves in focusing on circumstance — “We need to fix __, Lord will you help me with ___, Lord my car is on fire, can we focus on that first and get to the spiritual stuff later?” This account presents a challenging counter-narrative — what good is saving a burning car if the car is headed to hell?
Mark’s account turns to the scribes (Mark 2:6-7). Luke 5:17 tells us these were Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from various places to observe Jesus. They were the religious experts, men trained in the Scriptures and respected as guardians of doctrine. They appear to have come not simply as eager learners, but as evaluators — watching Jesus closely, weighing His words, and ready to assess whether He was sound.
So when Jesus declared to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” they began questioning in their hearts (Mark 2:6-7). Their objection was not entirely mistaken. In one sense, they were absolutely right: only God can forgive sins. Their theology at that point was sound.
But their error lay in what they did with that truth. Rather than asking, “Could this mean Jesus is more than a mere man?” they asked, “Why does this man speak like this? (Mark 2:6)” They had already settled Jesus’ identity in their minds. Instead of allowing His words and works to reveal who He is, they stood over Him in judgment. They were not listening with faith, but scrutinizing with unbelief. And so, though they had the right doctrine about forgiveness, they failed to recognize the One who had authority to forgive.
That is a warning for us too. We should watch our posture whenever we sit under the teaching of God’s word. It is not wrong to have questions. It is not wrong to wrestle, to examine, or to seek understanding. But there is a great difference between honest questions asked in humility and proud questions asked from a seat of judgment. The humble listener says,“Lord, help me understand your word.”The proud listener says,
“I will decide whether your word is acceptable to me.”One posture sits under God’s word; the other sits over it. Friends, let us bring our questions to Jesus, and be humble enough to hear and receive the answer He provides. How are you sitting today?
Jesus portrays his power there and then — “immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves” (Mark 2:8). How did He know? But He did.
“Why do you question these things in your heart? (Mark 2:8b)” Jesus drags the accusation out from their hearts and into the public space. He is not one to shy from confrontation. Jesus lays out the easier thing and harder thing — “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’?” His point here is layered. On the surface, and to everyone else surely, it is far easier for him to simply say “your sins are forgiven”. Who would know? Who would be able to verify that? God alone would know that, and they would not know in the moment — surely that’s easier. What would be much harder (to the crowd at least) is to actually heal the paralytic for that is a visible, verifiable, tangible miracle.
The scribes would know that it is harder to declare sins forgiven. They knew the law and the stipulations of the law. There were sacrifices and verification by the priests to declare someone forgiven and cleaned. Yet, Jesus declared with authority — and if what He said was true, this is a difficult task indeed.
We know from the rest of the account that Jesus’ logic is the opposite. But before we get there, consider all that has happened so far and what we can learn. Jesus has displayed His power already, both before this account and personally to the scribes. Perhaps they chalked this up to special powers, or magic. Mark writes in such a way that as readers, we can clearly see Jesus’ lordship and His power over all, and more so than that, the scribes’ hard-heartedness. These men were bent in on themselves, convinced of their religiosity and self-righteousness, and could not see the plain and simple truth of who Jesus was. Brilliant men of great pedigree failed to see what ordinary Jews could.
It is often the case in the Gospels that when we read about the scribes and Pharisees, much of what describes them is relevant to us. What is Jesus saying to us here? He does not care for your religiosity or pedigree. All of that is naught if we fail to see the simple claim that Jesus makes — that He is God.
Jesus did the harder thing by coming, fully God and fully man, innocent and bearing the sins of those who place their faith in Him and dying on their behalf. Will we appreciate the harder thing that Christ has done for us? How will we reinterpret the hardships of our lives in light of the work of Christ?
We identified with the paralytic’s friends earlier in how they focused on the wrong things. We can do the same here with the scribes. May we be a people who stand in awe of Jesus, focused on the right things, asking the right questions, and worshipping Jesus as Lord. Let us turn to Jesus for forgiveness for we are like the paralytic! In our sin, we were helpless and God sent people to bring us to Him. And when we get to Him, remember that there is nothing too big for Him to forgive and heal. We need to rely on Him daily.
(C) The Easier Thing: Healing that points to authority and leads to God’s glory (Mark 2:10-12)
Jesus gives a clear command in Mark 2:10-12a. He acted so that they may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. The purpose of what Jesus does next is so that they may know. Short but important - the goal of any ministry, even Jesus’ healing, is that people may know who Jesus is. It is not the act in itself, but the acts and wonders serve to glorify God, and indeed they do as we see in this account.
The reference to the “Son of Man” is also from Daniel 7:13-14. This is the first account of Jesus using this title in Mark, and he uses it many times over in the gospels. The title from Daniel points to Him as the glorious coming king of glory, and is Jesus’ claim to power as God, the Ancient of days.
Jesus also wants them to know that He has authority on earth to forgive sins. He is ruler over all things and is able to forgive sins. Effectively, this is His claim to be God, a direct confrontation of the Pharisees’ thoughts. Here he says “Yes, that is who I claim to be.”
How does he heal? He said to the paralytic —“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And this is how He will make them know. The reversal of what is easy and what is hard to do — He will do the “hard thing” of healing the paralytic to display His power and authority over all. He almost condescends to do this, just for their sake.
And the paralytic rose and immediately picked up his bed. The tension of the scene is broken by the fulfilment of His word -- immediately, not next week, not go home and let me know how you feel. Immediately, the paralytic was healed. Jesus’ power and dominion over all is on full display in the immediacy of this miracle, all to serve the purpose of His glory — that they may know that He is king.
The result of the miracle was, of course, amazement (Mark 2:12b). Of course they had never seen anything like this — this is Jesus, God’s own son! Interestingly, Matthew’s account in Matthew 9 tells us that not only were they filled with awe, they were filled with fear as well. The consensus was clear: Surely this is the Son of Man, the promised Messiah, God’s own son. The only appropriate response to such a display of glory was and is a confession of faith, worship of an almighty God, and appropriate fear and awe before a holy God.
For the first time in Mark, we see that the people receiving Jesus’ ministry connect the dots — this man is not just a great teacher, not just a great miracle worker — but He is God.
How do we respond before such a God? Are our hearts hardened, that we have lost the awe and wonder before our almighty God? We cannot walk away from today’s passage without being confronted by the truth that Jesus is Lord, and we are called to respond appropriately.
In the grander picture, Jesus did the much much harder thing of obeying and suffering and condescending to be man, the much much much harder thing of bearing the sin of man, not His, but ours, on the cross. He did the harder thing of dying and being cut off from His father, of bearing the wrath of God — so that we might be able to do the easier thing of simply believing in Jesus Christ as Lord, that we may be saved.
May we come to Jesus in faith (Mark 2:1–5), come to Jesus for forgiveness (Mark 2:5–9) and know Jesus’ authority to Forgive and give God the glory (Mark 2:10–12).