Get Up and Walk

Mark 2:1-13

I first heard the story of the paralytic when I was very young, and ever since then, it has seemed like a no-brainer: The paralytic is lowered through the roof; Jesus forgives his sins; the Pharisees mentally challenge His authority; Jesus heals the man physically to prove His divine power. However, in the context of the Kingdom of Heaven, this apparently straightforward healing takes on new overtones. As mentioned below, the Gospel of Matthew contains mostly Jesus' descriptions of God's Kingdom. Those descriptions are otherworldly enough, but how do we know they are true? How do we know that God actually operates under a system where our sins are forgiven at the drop of a hat? We know because the Gospel of Mark records instances in which Jesus ushers the Kingdom into the physical realm. He says to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven"; but He also says, "Get up and walk." The healings recorded in this Gospel and the others are not only examples of Jesus' compassion for the sick, they moreover become incarnations of the Kingdom. Jesus is not just a human teacher: as in the beginning when He created the universe through the power of His word, so now in the Gospels, His words both describe an eternal realm that exists parallel to our own and also thrust that realm into the fabric of our everyday lives. If Jesus did not heal, we would be as Moses, able to glimpse but not enter the Promised Land.