Mark 2:1-12

PDF Manuscript: Face to Face - Finding Forgineness

What is your greatest need? Your main problem? The one obstacle in your life that, if it were solved, would cause everything else to fall into place?

One day, Jesus met a man who suffered from paralysis. The man couldn’t walk. He couldn’t stand. His limbs were bent, and his body twisted. He sat and watched as the world walked by. Perhaps he was an invalid since birth. While other children were running and jumping as they so often do, he was struggling to get someone to even notice him. Maybe he had never known what it was like to put one foot in front of the other.

Or maybe he had known. Maybe he had once been healthy. Was there a time when he was known for his ability, not his disability? Maybe he was able to run faster than all the other kids in the neighborhood. Maybe his athleticism was the envy of every young boy around him. Then came the fall. A tumble from a high place—a tree or cliff. Some sort of tragic accident. The pain in his skull was unbearable, but the numbness in his legs and arms was far worse—his limbs still there but unable to move.

Whether he was born paralyzed or became paralyzed, the end result was the same. He was completely dependent on others. Someone had to wash him, feed him, and carry him in and out of bed. He couldn’t work, prepare a meal, or go on a simple walk. The only time he could run was when he was dreaming at night—and even then, he would always awaken to a body that couldn’t roll over.

What would you say his greatest need was? Well, we can imagine that everyone said, “What he needs is a new body.” When people looked at him, they didn’t see him—they saw a body in need of a miracle. That’s certainly what his friends saw. But is that what Jesus saw?

 Word was out that Jesus was in town. Most likely he was staying in the house of Simon Peter. As the word got out, the people came. They came from everywhere, and they came with all their problems. The young, the old, the hurting, the outcasts—they had all come to see if this man, Jesus Christ, was everything they had heard.

It’s a dramatic scene that we find in Mark 2:1–12. The house was full. People jammed the doorways. Kids sat in the windows. Adults stopped the day’s work, crowding the outside of this house just to hear what Jesus was going to say.