Mark 2: 1-12
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them.
Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Eyes of a Believer
In today’s Gospel Jesus is being mobbed in his home with the sick, the lame, curious bystanders and skeptics. In the culture of Jesus, illness or deformity of any form was viewed as a result of sin. Divine forgiveness was accepted as the means of healing. The paralytic man was fortunate to have four industrious friends that had seen enough to believe that Jesus had the power to forgive and heal. These friends were now willing to tear the roof off of Jesus’s home in order place their friend before him. But the scribes of the law who heard Jesus’s words of forgiveness and saw the instantaneous healing were dubious of his authority. The skeptics had eyes and ears that were harden and closed because Jesus did not conform to their narrow presuppositions of how God works miracles.
Do I have eyes and ears of a believer or a skeptic?
The noted Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner said, “I don't believe in miracles—I rely on them."
—Russ Long is a Montessori educator, teacher-trainer, and writer. He attends St. Peter Catholic Church, the Jesuit parish in the Diocese of Charlotte, NC.
Prayer
Jesus, open my eyes to see the divine miracles that continue to occur around me each day in my life and the lives of others. Help me be less skeptical and believe more fully.
—Russ Long
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