Have you noticed that Mark 2:1-12 begins and ends with amazement? The amazement at the beginning might be a little hidden, at least it was to me until I learned to tell the story. Read verse 2 and hear it, feel it in your bones: this amazing thing, this packed house, was so packed there was no more room and Jesus “was speaking the word to them.” He was preaching! Perhaps he was explaining or explicating some part of the scriptures — the stories of Abraham, Issacs, and Jacob maybe? Joseph? Maybe Moses and wandering in a desert trying to lead people? Maybe King David? Maybe the Psalms or proverbs? We don’t know what he said. Isn’t that amazing? And this crowd crowded into this house was breathing it in. I wonder if there was any other sound besides Jesus’ voice? Maybe far off, the sounds of normal life in the streets. Maybe a baby somewhere crying. Maybe the world was centered down to right there, to Jesus.
Amazing!
And then at the end, after the speaking of the word was interrupted and the paralyzed man was forgiven and healed, then the crowd (as if they are one voice), “was amazed and glorified God” (verse 12) because they had never seen anything like this before.
If your friend or relative or child or family member or, my goodness, even a stranger was healed in front of you from paralysis, you would be pretty amazed. And in fact if you know a person with daily healing from severe injury, healing bit by bit, that too is pretty amazing. It isn’t the speed of the healing that is amazing, to me, I want to suggest it is the healing itself. Look at doctors and nurses and medicine and give thanks because they are the hands of healing. And give praise to God that what you longed for, healing for that person who was shattered, is happening.
And that deep joy and praise and amazement may not be your story. Your loved one or the stranger you know may never recover, not all at once or bit by bit. This is perhaps the story behind the story, the shadow, the deep painful longing for healing that does not come. Perhaps this is why Jesus starts this healing with forgiveness? Forgive that life can be broken and shattered and trouble.
Perhaps this is what is truly troubling the scribes, in the midst of this intense crowd. Not the forgiveness itself exactly but that forgiveness for this brokenness comes from God and not from humans. Because humans are limited and not all the shattered will be, can be, healed or forgiven. They are perhaps protesting that brokenness isn’t healed for everyone or with mere words; and then, anyway, it will just start up again. Jesus understands their troubled hearts, perhaps the only troubled hearts there.
Even a joyful and amazing story such as this one can be filled with mystery and shadows. Let’s wonder about what word Jesus spoke, and let’s rejoice at the healing he did, and let’s not forget the brokenness that exists, that can’t be pretty.
FTGOG
FTGOG 