Mark 2:6-11: a reflection

6But there were some of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, 7“Why does this man speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 8Immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you reason these things in your hearts? 9Which is easier, to tell the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and walk’? 10But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— 11“I tell you, arise, take up your mat, and go to your house.”

A paralyzed man has just been lowered through a roof, and everyone expects Jesus to heal his legs. Instead Jesus says, your sins are forgiven. The scribes are scandalized, and their objection is actually good theology: who can forgive sins but God alone? They are right, which is precisely the point Jesus is making.

Notice how Jesus answers. Which is easier, he asks, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say rise and walk? Forgiveness is invisible; anyone could claim it. So he proves the unseen thing by the seen: that you may know the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins, he tells the man to get up and walk, and he does. The visible healing is the evidence for the invisible forgiveness.

But sit with what Jesus addressed first. Everyone saw the paralysis; Jesus saw the deeper need and spoke to it before he touched the legs. Our most obvious problem is not always our deepest one. You may come to God with the visible thing, the circumstance you want fixed, while he sees underneath it to a need for forgiveness, for peace with him, that matters more. Let him address the real thing. He has authority to forgive, and that is the healing underneath the healing.

Lord Jesus, you see beneath my obvious troubles to my deepest need, and you have authority to forgive. Speak your forgiveness over me, and heal the thing underneath the thing I bring you.