Message: In Mark 2 we read that Jesus was at home in Capernaum when word got out and crowds began showing up. There were so many people that a group of men who had brought their paralyzed friend removed the roof of his house to lower their friend in. Jesus responded in a surprising way. He told the man “son, your sins are forgiven”. When he said that some of the scribes were THINKING to themselves that Jesus was a blasphemer because only God can forgive sin. Jesus responded to their thoughts and said “why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven’ or to say ‘get up, pick up your mat and walk’? But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” he told the paralytic to pick up his mat and go home and he did! Verse 12 tells us that “everyone” was astounded and gave glory to God. There is so much going on here. The friends of a paralyzed man brought him for a physical healing but Jesus told him he forgave his sin. This didn’t heal him right away but Jesus was after a bigger miracle. His words stirred up the minds of the scribes sitting there who were calling into question his authority. Sometimes I feel like we’re a little hard on these guys but technically, they were right. If Jesus was not who he was he would have been unrightfully standing in the place of God’s authority. But since Jesus is and was God, he was showing them that not only did he have the power to do the miraculous healing, but more importantly he had that power because of his authority. At this point he had been seen as a prophet. The prophets they knew could do all kinds of miraculous things under the mantle of prophet and the power of God. Jesus was showing the distinct difference that he was not healing under someone else’s authority. The authority was all his and he was showing them that he could do what a prophet could not do. He could forgive sin because he was God in the flesh and he used the miracles to confirm this. Throughout Jesus’s ministry Jesus did a lot of miraculous things but he never walked around proclaiming that he was God. Instead, he revealed his true identity doing things that they all knew only God could do.
