Untitled Sermon (20)
Having Confidence In God
It would not take much of a crowd to make it impossible to bring a stretcher case into a room in a normal Capernaum house. Those which have been excavated have small rooms, seldom reaching to as much as five metres across (since the width was limited by the length of tree trunks available for roofing). The houses, like most in ancient Palestine, were single-storey structures with flat roofs accessible by an outside staircase. The roof was used for working and sometimes for sleeping, and so it was not flimsy in construction; wooden beams or branches were thatched with rush and daubed with mud.2 Mark’s description of how the men ἀπεστέγασαν τὴν στέγην (‘unroofed the roof’) therefore suggests a major demolition job, and the addition of ἐξορύξαντες, literally ‘digging it out’, adds to the graphic effect. The modern reader naturally wonders whether Jesus continued teaching, and the crowd listening, while this noisy and dangerous activity went on over their heads (and what the owner of the house [Simon?] thought about it), but Mark does not satisfy our curiosity. His interest is rather, as a storyteller, to enable his readers to enjoy one of the more memorable incidents of Jesus’ Galilean ministry, and to provide the basis for the response of Jesus in v. 5, ἰδὼν τὴν πίστιν αὐτῶν. Their desperate desire to get their friend to the one person who could help him is more important than either the awkwardness of the narrative situation or the damage to property (cf. the lack of concern for the economic loss of the owners of the pigs in 5:11–20).
5 πίστις in Mark relates closely to miraculous power. It is the expectation that God (11:22–24), or more often Jesus, can and will exercise supernatural power to solve a practical problem, usually of illness or physical danger. It is in response to πίστις that Jesus will heal (5:34, 36; 9:23–24; 10:52), and its absence
It is in response to πίστις that Jesus will heal (5:34, 36; 9:23–24; 10:52), and its absence will be either the subject of a rebuke to those who are nevertheless miraculously rescued (4:40) or an actual limitation on his miraculous activity (6:5–6). Here we have no record of a verbal expression of faith, but the action of the man’s friends is sufficient to indicate their confidence in Jesus’ healing power (based already on ample evidence, 1:32–34), and their determination to draw on it for their friend’s benefit.
The cordial is very rich; Thy sins are forgiven thee. Note, 1. Sin is the procuring cause of all our pains and sicknesses. The word of Christ was to take his thoughts off from the disease, which was the effect, and to lead them to the sin, the cause, that he might be more concerned about that, to get that pardoned. 2. God doth then graciously take away the sting and malignity of sickness, when he forgives sin; recovery from sickness is then a mercy indeed, when way is made for it by the pardon of sin. See Isa. 38:17; Ps. 103:3. The way to remove the effect, is, to take away the cause. Pardon of sin strikes at the root of all diseases, and either cures them, or alters their property.
Now he proves his power to forgive sin, by demonstrating his power to cure the man sick of the palsy, v. 9–11. He would not have pretended to do the one, if he could not have done the other; that ye may know that the Son of man, the Messiah, has power on earth to forgive sin, that I have that power, Thou that art sick of the palsy, arise, take up thy bed. Now, 1. This was a suitable argument in itself. He could not have cured the disease, which was the effect, if he could not have taken away the sin, which was the cause. And besides, his curing diseases was a figure of his pardoning sin, for sin is the disease of the soul; when it is pardoned, it is healed. He that could by a word accomplish the sign, could doubtless perform the thing signified, 2. It was suited to them. These carnal scribes would be more affected with such a suitable effect of a pardon as the cure of the disease, and be sooner convinced by it, than by any other more spiritual consequences; therefore it was proper enough to appeal, whether it is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, and walk? The removing of the punishment as such, was the remitting of the sin; he that could go so far in the cure, no doubt could perfect it. See Isa. 33:24.
VI. The cure of the sick man, and the impression it made upon the people, v. 12. He not only arise out of his bed, perfectly well, but, to show that he had perfect strength restored to him, he took up his bed, because it lay in the way, and went forth before them all; and they were all amazed, as well they might, and glorified God, as indeed they ought; saying, “We never saw it on this fashion; never were such wonders as these done before in our time.” Note, Christ’s works were without precedent. When we see what he does in healing souls, we must own that we never saw the like.