SURELY THAT’S BLASPHEMY

Hello to the person reading this. I hope you are well. This is the third and final blog in what has been a series of blogs on an amazing story right at the beginning of Mark chapter two. I’ve gone through the story bit by bit because there are a million amazing things happening in it. Store this story in your heart. It is a deeply compelling revelation of who Jesus is and of who Jesus reveals God to be. In the first blog we looked at this beautiful demonstration of faith. We meet a paralysed man and his four friends. This man’s friends rip open a roof (seriously they ripped it open) and they lower him into the room just to get him near Jesus. In the next blog we looked at how profound it is to have your sin forgiven. Jesus heals the man, but he starts with forgiving his sin. In the eyes of Jesus your sin being forgiven is part of your healing. Today we’re going to look at the offense some of the people in the room took when Jesus said “My child you are released from your failures.” 

This is the kind of language that offends some people. After Jesus says this Mark notes the response of those listening in v6-7; “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?’” The teachers of the law accuse THE LITERAL MESSIAH of BLASPHEMY!!! This might not be a big deal for us, but in the day of Jesus this was a pretty big deal. Now blasphemy is one of those religious words and like we do with most of these words we butcher the word’s actual meaning. Blasphemy is when a person, in a very dangerous and flagrant way, dishonours God. The person in question does this by saying and doing and claiming things that encroach on God’s territory. You are saying and doing and claiming things that only God can do and say and claim. These guys don’t see Jesus as The Messiah, he’s just some guy. The only person who has the right to forgive sin is God and as far as they’re concerned Jesus is not God. Now as the teachers of the law think this to themselves Jesus responds to their thoughts. Jesus could apparently read minds, which is super freaky, I’m pretty sure Jesus would’ve freaked a lot of us out. Anyway, Jesus responds in v8-11; “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 this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” This is Jesus at his most profound. Again this is a single interaction in the life of Jesus, all of the events would’ve taken place in a couple of seconds and I’ve made you sit through three articles (Sorry, okay not really). The teachers of the law are representatives of the history of cultural and institutional practices for the nation of Israel. Jesus can’t just say people are forgiven because that’s not what it means to be forgiven. Forgiveness takes work. And in their context if you failed and required release from that failure you would need to journey 193km south of Capernaum (where the story takes place) to the temple in Jerusalem because that’s where Yahweh said his presence dwells. From there you need to buy a goat, make sure you have some cash. After you buy your goat you wait in line at the entrance, make sure you think about what you did. Then you’ll meet the priest he’ll tell you his name is Eleazar or something along those lines. He will then ask you what you did, and then you put the animal on the altar put your hands on the animal and then confess what you did aloud in the presence of the priest and Yah. Then you slit the animal’s throat it bleeds and it dies on your behalf. And boom you’re forgiven. It’s easy to read this and think, ‘wow this is stupid and backward’ but God literally instructed them to do this. In the eyes of the Israelites these instructions are life because God wants them to live (this is obviously a different blog for a different day). All of a sudden this Jesus guy is walking around acting as though he is where the presence of God dwells. This is eventually what gets Jesus killed. He upends all of these roles and structures and that removes power from people who want to stay in power. There were no categories for the existence and actions of Jesus as a result Jesus was deeply offensive to those who were happy with the status quo. 

The question for us becomes; is Jesus deeply offensive to us? Are we okay with people being released from their failures? Even if that release upends the status quo and takes power away from me? Are we okay with people being forgiven? Even if we think they don’t deserve forgiveness? Jesus died so we could be released from our failures. Are you truly okay with that? Or is it blasphemy to you? 

Jesus finishes this interaction in his typically brilliant fashion. He says “Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?” Which is easier to say “you’re forgiven” or to literally recreate a human beings body? Don’t overthink it. Jesus uses this to make a significant point. Any chump can walk around and say stuff. But Jesus isn’t just any chump, so he remakes that paralysed man’s body and that paralysed man stands up and he walks and everyone is amazed. 

And that’s Mark 2. What does this tell us? Well what does it look like when the reality of God invades the reality of humanity? What does it look like when God visits his mercy upon the failures and his justice upon the arrogant? This story is what it looks like. Mark uses this story to make this theological claim that Jesus is where God and humanity meet perfectly together for healing and forgiveness and restoration. But this is also bigger than just theology. That paralysed man had to be lowered into the room by four other guys before he encountered Jesus, after he encountered Jesus he walked out of the room on his own. His entire view of God was reformed in a couple of seconds. 

This story is there to do the same for you. Who do you say Jesus is? What sort of assumptions do you have about what God does? According to Mark the answer to these questions will deeply form the kind of life you live. 

This is all I have to say on this story. I hope you can store this image of Jesus in your heart and May God have mercy on us as we allow Jesus to reveal himself to us.