Every time we read a biblical account, we have the possibility of seeing new things and detecting new meanings. Let’s see what today’s reading has in store…
The account of the paralyzed man in Luke 5 doesn’t mention that Jesus left town for several days. When I read it a day or two ago, trying to imagine how the selection of disciples must have occurred, I thought these events were within a day of each other. But here in Mark 2 it says “Jesus returned to Capernaum” and if you glance down at Matthew 9, it says that he was somewhere on the other side of the lake! This reminds me of a lesson I learned earlier in my Christian walk….we don’t have a complete picture of everything Jesus said and did. We have some highlights, but you can’t string them together to make a complete picture. For all we know Jesus spent a couple of days fishing and hanging out with his friends. Or, he may have worked powerful miracles that, were they known, would add many new books to the Bible. (I suspect the latter).
Every time this account is recounted, the main point isn’t that the man got up and walked, it’s that Jesus claimed He could forgive sins. And because no one believed Him, He did something else that was “impossible” by allowing the crippled man to walk. But making crippled people walk wasn’t meant to be the focus, being forgiven of sins was. I wonder if Jesus was sad when the people went away amazed, talking about how they had seen a crippled man walking….but no one approached Him and asked to be forgiven of their sins? How easy it is for us to become distracted! Even when it’s something good, it can distract us from something great.
When Levi is called, Mark offers a detail I hadn’t noticed before. He says that there were many people considered “scum” that were followers of Jesus. Generally speaking, if the crowd looks like it’s mainly made up of gangsters, rappers and screaming long haired rockers you won’t find the people who prefer classical music among them. If that sounds like a completely random thought, let me explain: Let’s say that you become curious about this guy called “Jesus” and you hear he’s coming to town, so you plan to go out and see him. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you are a fairly well to do, middle class citizen who has a good job, a loving wife and several kids. You don’t spend your nights at the bar or laying around doing nothing. You are a good citizen and an upstanding member of the community. You get close to where Jesus is, and what do you see? A fair percentage of the crowd is made up of people who are nothing like you. They are the castaways of society, the ones who take and give nothing back, the ones who complain they aren’t receiving enough….while they steal even more from you. These are the bums, the greedy, the weak and sick, and then there’s the crowd of politicians that are watching closely to see if there’s anything in it for them. If that’s not bad enough, Jesus isn’t putting any distance between them and himself. In fact, he even invites one of the sneakiest snakes in the bunch to be one of his disciples. The shady crowd certainly seems to have Jesus “buffaloed”….he acts as if they are nice people….clearly He doesn’t know them at all.
What do you do? Personally, (to my shame) I would go home. Now, I know better than to do that today….what I’m saying is that before I came to truly know Jesus, I was judgmental and opinionated. Yes, I was prejudiced and hard hearted….because that’s what sin does to a person. I find it amazing that the Synagogue leader (Matthew 9) waded through the cesspool of human life swirling around Jesus and humbled himself to plead for help. This was a true believer.
The world had given up on the two blind men, and on the woman with an issue of bleeding, and on the mute man who was possessed by a demon, and they had passed judgment on the tax collector, and written off the synagogue rulers daughter as dead. And this is what the world does….it writes people off, judges them unfairly and makes wide speculative assumptions based on appearance.
And the world was wrong. The world was wrong, and Jesus was right. Jesus sees right through the crud and mire that we have been wading around in all our lives. He isn’t put off by our smell, our dysfunctional habits or our vulgar language. Jesus sees beyond all of that, and recognizes his beloved creation underneath the layers of crap that sin has put upon us. And He loves us.
And that’s why if I saw Jesus coming to town today, I would drop everything and run to Him. And I don’t care what the rest of the crowd looks like, because today I have a clearer picture of what I look like, and it isn’t any better than them.
Faithfully,
PR