Jesus and the Pharisees” -- Part 2 – Who Can Forgive Sins? – Mark 2:1-12

Year ago, back in the ‘70s, there was a riddle that went like this. A man and his son were in a tragic automobile accident. The dad died immediately, but the little boy was taken to the hospital, where he would need immediate surgery to save his life. As they wheeled the little boy into the operating room, the waiting surgeon looked down at the boy and said, “I can’t operate on this child. He’s my son.”

The riddle was a puzzle for many people, until they realized that the surgeon in the operating room was the boy’s mother. You probably figured it out or have heard it before. Back in the ’70’s, though, it was a puzzler because most people assumed that the role of a surgeon was reserved for men, while women in the medical profession were supposed to be nurses.

As we live in the 21st century, we are seeing barriers and preconceived ideas of people doing what they aren’t supposed to be doing falling by the wayside. Doors are opening more and more and barriers are making way for capable people to achieve their dreams and aspirations.

One of the problems the Pharisees had with Jesus is that He was willing to ignore the norms. He did things that were out of the ordinary. The main issue between Jesus and the Pharisees is their understanding of who Jesus was and His role in the Pharisees’ world. Today’s passage speaks clearly about this major division.

Background

In Mark’s gospel account, he is writing to a predominantly Gentile audience. Mark doesn’t get into the geography of the Middle East because those who were reading his account had little practical knowledge of the area. Instead, Mark focuses on Jesus’ teachings and miracles. In part of Mark’s telling, the opposition from the Pharisees played a part in the overall narrative.

Mark jumps into Jesus’ public ministry, touching briefly on John the Baptist, then going into Jesus’ baptism, temptation and the works Jesus did. Before we get to Mark 2, Jesus has exorcised a demon, healed many, including Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever and driving out even more demons. Immediately before our passage, Jesus heals a man of leprosy.

All of this healing and teaching was bound to attract the attention of the Pharisees in Jerusalem. They sent a delegation to observe Him and report back to them what they discovered about Jesus. It is this passage that speaks to the first mention of the Pharisees.

As we discussed last week, the Pharisees were the religious backbone of Israel. While there were other groups teaching theology in Israel, namely the Sadducees, it was recognized that the Pharisees were the keepers of the law and traditions. Jesus understood this reputation when He told us in the Sermon on the Mount that our righteousness needed to exceed that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

The Pharisees’ theology had grown out of the Babylonian exile, and their devotion was to understanding and living out the precepts and the rules of God’s revelation through the law and the prophets. By the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, they had had centuries to distill their understanding of what the Bible taught. They were firm in their beliefs and their convictions. They knew wrong from right, sin from righteousness, and they were not afraid to point out the errors of others’ ways.

As the delegation traveled to Capernaum, they entered the home where Jesus was staying so they could hear Him teach. They were not alone, because the Bible tells us that the crowd was so big that it was spilling out into the yard. As the delegation observed, they must have been impressed with the crowd. It’s not unreasonable to assume they had spoken to some in the crowd, and they must have known about what Jesus was doing and what He was saying.

Now it was their turn to witness first-hand the ministry of Jesus. They saw and heard things that must have startled them. Knowing what they knew, believing what they believed, Jesus made quite an impression on them. It was here that the seeds of opposition first were planted.

Central Truth: Sometimes, even correct theology can blind us to God working in our world.

Jesus and forgiveness

1. Jesus forgives (1-5)

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that He had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and He preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

In 1968, during the presidential campaign, Richard Nixon flew in to El Paso. He planned on giving a speech from the top of the stairs at the airplane. My parents decided they wanted to go hear the Republican candidate, and they took me with them. There was a large crowd of people thronging around the airport and they all gathered as Nixon’s plane taxied up to the spot where he would speak.

I guess people have always been attracted to celebrities, wanting to see famous people and hear what they have to say. By the time Jesus had returned to His home base, He had a reputation and was well-known by the people in the area. They knew He could cast out demons, heal the sick and had words that spoke to the spiritual yearnings of the people. Whether Jesus was at His own home or at Peter’s, the Bible doesn’t say. All we know is that a large crowd filled the house and spilled out into the yard, waiting to hear Jesus teach and possibly do more healing.

We know that people were there for healings because of the friends who brought a man in need of healing to Jesus. The Bible tells us there were more than four friends with the paralyzed man, because it says four of the friends carried the man in his mat.

Houses in Jesus’ time were made similar to adobe homes. The houses were relatively small, having one to four rooms. The roofs were made by saplings laid over the walls, with branches and palms laid over the saplings and mud plastered over the branches and saplings. The mud would dry in the hot sun, and the roof would be used as another room of the house. Almost all the houses had stairs on the outside of the building to give easy access to the roof.

The crowd was too large and dense for the friends to bring their friend in need to Jesus. Someone had a great idea, though. They agreed to carry their friend up to the roof. They made a hole in the roof (it would be easy to repair later) and lowered their friend to Jesus.

I can imagine the ruckus this must have created in the crowd around Jesus as first the noise of people hitting the roof echoed around the room, making it hard to hear Jesus. Then pieces of roof debris began to fall on the throng inside the room, and soon daylight was streaming through a brand new skylight. There must have been a few vexed people in that house.

As the man was lowered into the throng of people, it must have become really crowded as people were pushing and making room in an already overcrowded room. Finally, everything came to a stop as the man’s mat came to rest on the floor before Jesus.

Jesus looked at the man, then may have looked up at the friends peering into the house from the hole they had recently created. These men knew they had to get their friend to Jesus, and they would use any means necessary to do so. They had a deep love for their friend and wanted him restored to good health.

Jesus saw the faith involved in bringing the man to Him, and the fact that he had to be lowered through a new hole in the roof was immaterial. The Bible tells us that Jesus recognized their great faith and acted accordingly to meet their prayer request.

Jesus turned to the man and said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

It was a common belief in those days that sin and sickness were related. When Jesus’ disciples saw a man blind since birth, they asked Jesus who had sinned, the man or his parents, to cause the blindness. Jesus refuted this mistaken belief in regard to the blind man. Here, though, Jesus addressed the sin first.

Maybe it was that Jesus understood the man had a sense of sin and shame in his life. Maybe Jesus recognized that something deeper was happening. For whatever reason, Jesus chose to forgive the man’s sins.

And here’s where the trouble started.

2. The Pharisees’ response (6-7)

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

We were talking about someone doing something or saying something that clearly shouldn’t be their job. When it happens, it sends shock waves through those who are amazed at someone having the audacity to do or say whatever it was that was so upsetting.

In our world today, Jesus’ words are not shocking. We know that Jesus—God with us—can and does forgive sins. It was the central part of His ministry and the horrific events at Calvary.

For the Pharisees, though, Jesus’ words were an act of blasphemy. As they correctly stated, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” In the entire Bible, the message is clear that God alone can forgive sins. You and I can confess our sins to one another as James encourages us to do (cf. James 5:16), and we forgive someone for the wrong they have done us. But we cannot forgive sin. Only God can forgive the sin that destroys our relationship with Him. Only God can forgive sins that hinder our walk with Him. Only God can forgive the underlying sin that permeates all of mankind.

For someone to suggest that they had the power to forgive sin was to present themselves as God Himself. Such a presumption was blasphemous, and the penalty for blasphemy was death. For Jesus to tell the man his sins were forgiven was to go against everything the Pharisees and teachers of the law understood about God and our relationship to Him. For Jesus to make this claim was a mockery of all that the Pharisees stood for.

This delegation had come from Jerusalem to learn something more about Jesus. Was He the Messiah? Was He a pretender? Was He a great teacher? With the statement, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” Jesus had placed Himself in the outs with the teachers and the Pharisees.

They had two choices. They could ask Jesus what authority He had to forgive sins, or they could reject Him as Messiah. Had they taken the time to question Him more with open hearts and minds, they may have seen that God was with them in Jesus.

Instead, they took the events at face value, and they could only see the blasphemy. They knew what they believed, and Jesus didn’t fit the mold of their system.

3. Amazing grace (8-12)

Immediately Jesus knew in His spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and He said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . .” He said to the paralytic, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

It’s interesting how quickly things can happen, how quickly change can occur. When we tell about the event, the telling takes much longer to do than the actual event. Walking into a wall hardly takes any time at all, but telling people about it takes five or ten minutes to explain what was happening before, during and after. In fact, the actual walking into a wall hardly takes any time at all to state, but the buildup and aftermath is what takes so long.

In this passage, it was probably only a matter of seconds from v. 5 to v. 8. Recounting the events of the moment, the man was lowered before Jesus. The crowd probably became silent as he descended. The silence continued as Jesus said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” There may have been a moment of murmurs, but the Bible tells us that immediately Jesus was aware of what the teachers were thinking.

Jesus’ question is a valid one. These men had been witness to the amazing grace of God demonstrated as a result of men’s faith, and all the teachers could see was an act of blasphemy. Jesus was right to ask, “Why are you thinking these things?” Sure, Jesus understood that their religious training and beliefs would lead to such a question, but Jesus was trying to reach past their traditions and set-in-concrete way of thinking and get them to sees with new eyes that they were in the presence of Messiah.

As a younger person, I used to answer Jesus’ question of v. 9 with the idea that there are only five syllables in “your sins are forgiven,” while there are eight syllables in, “Get up, take your mat and walk.” In my thinking, it’s easier to say five syllables than eight. But that wasn’t Jesus’ point.

The reality that Jesus was giving the teachers was that God acts both to forgive and to heal. God is the One who performs miracles and cleanses hearts.

Jesus’ question of v. 9 also raises the issue of which is easier to prove—forgiveness of sins or healing. After all, who can look into a person’s heart and determine their state of forgiveness, while anyone in the room can see the man get up and walk out with his mat under his arm. Assuming the man wasn’t a plant, the miraculous healing was a concrete thing that could easily confirm that Jesus could perform miracles. Even the teachers could see that.

Jesus here equates the forgiveness and the healing as proof that He is what and Who He says He is. Jesus rarely acknowledged His messiahship to very many people. He told the woman at the well and the man born blind since birth. He allowed the disciples to come to their own conclusion. And when asked to perform a sign for the Pharisees, Jesus repeatedly.

Here is the exception. Verse 10 is a statement of clarity—“But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . .” This is Jesus’ first public use of the phrase, “Son of Man.” It means one of two things. Jesus was identifying with His humanity or was referencing a belief that the Messiah would be known as the Son of Man as referenced in Daniel 7:13-14. Jesus used the title to describe Himself many times. It is not out of the realm of possibilities that Jesus had a double intent in the title. He is God made flesh and He is a human. Both references apply to Him.

Jesus gave the teachers a sign of His authority. He turned back to the man on the mat and told Him to get up, pick up his mat and go home. And that is exactly what happened. The entire crowd in and around the house watched as the man who had been lowered down by his friends now stood up, bent over to pick up his mat, and then walked away from the house.

The result was electrifying. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. Everyone admitted it was nothing like they had ever seen before. Did “everyone” include the teachers of the law? Did it have an effect on them?

Conclusion

I was looking in the refrigerator one day for the Parmesan cheese. I knew it came in jar with a blue lid, so I was looking for the blue lid. I knew we had some, but I looked all over the refrigerator only to come up empty. I had to eat my meal without Parmesan.

Kim came home later that day, and I told her my sad tale of no Parmesan. She went to the refrigerator, and in only a few seconds she called out, “Here it is.” She showed me the jar. It didn’t have a blue lid, but a black one.

Why could Kim find the Parmesan and I couldn’t? I was looking for a lid; Kim was looking for Parmesan cheese.

For the Pharisees, they were looking for a Messiah that a fit their expectations and their understanding. Standing before them was the very presence of God, and they couldn’t see Him. When we get caught up in our traditions and our understanding, we tend to shut out other possibilities. The Pharisees were right in that only God could forgive sins. Sadly, they couldn’t see Him do exactly that.