Today’s passage is Mark 2:1-12. Jesus returns to Capernaum. A huge crowd of people gather at the house, fill up doorway and block the entrance. Four men carrying their paralytic friend break through the roof and lower their friend to Jesus, who forgives his sins and tells him to pick up his mat and go home, which he does to the amazement of everyone including some disapproving teachers of the law.
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How do you go home?
How do your sins cripple you?
When I read today’s passage, what caught my attention was that “home” bookended the passage.
Jesus comes home to Capernaum and he tells the healed paralytic to go home.
Jesus’ real home is in heaven and his earthly journey is taking him there for indescribable benefit.
#65279; But while on earth, he never wanders far from home as does Paul and as he commands us to do at the end of Matthew’s gospel, making everywhere our home in effect.
Jesus is at home, comfortable, everywhere--in the synagogue, in a house, in a field, in a boat, on a mountain. I am not.
Today’s passage shows me that the reason for my discomfort is my sin.
Like the paralytic, I am crippled by it. I need to be carried by my friends and I need God’s forgiveness to be able to go home.
I don’t have a strong sense of an earthly home because I moved around so much when I was growing up.
I was born in Ottawa, moved to Vancouver when I was one, then went to France where I began school.
I returned to the east coast of Canada and five years later moved back to Ottawa.
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I lived on military bases because my father was in the military. As an adult and a teacher, I lived in Canada, the US, India and now Korea.
The only place that feels like home is a school.
Maybe that’s why I always stay so late.
In Jesus’ home in Capernaum or Peter’s house or wherever it is, faith breaks through the roof to receive forgiveness.
The cripple is let down so he can be raised up.
At my school I am forever being let down because of my crippling sins.
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Sometimes it’s arrogance, sometimes it’s a total failure of empathy, sometimes it’s a horrible anger, sometimes it’s a nearly overwhelming fear that I’m in the wrong job because I don’t have any sense of competence.
One of my sins is the pride that thinks I have to do everything myself, that I should be doing everything myself.
That has crippled me all my life.
Today’s passage shows me that I have friends who can carry me to help.
Application: look at what’s stressing me the most and ask for help
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Lord, let me not feel alone but fill me with your Spirit of trust and faith so that I will call out to you over and over again, seeking always your strength in my weakness and your guiding hand in my wilderness.
