People who survive great dangers and diseases are often
creative people who do the unusual. Robert Muller, in his
memoirs, Most Of All, They Taught Me Happiness, tells of
how creative he became under pressure. In 1943 he was a
member of the French Resistance. Using the name of
Parizot, he infiltrated a government agency, and was able to
gather information on German troop movements. He was
tipped off that the Nazis were on to him, and coming to
arrest him. He fled to the attic of his office building.
Gestapo men were soon searching the premises.
Muller knew he had to come up with a plan to survive.
So he took off his glasses, and slick down his hair, and
grabbed a file folder, and walked down stairs. He walked
right into the office where his secretary was being
interrogated. He asked her what all the excitement was
about. She didn't bat an eye, but said the gentlemen were
looking for Parizot. "Parizot!" He exclaimed. "I just saw
him a few minutes ago on the fourth floor." The Nazis
rushed upstairs, and Muller was led to safety by his friends.
Cleverness and creativity are the keys to surviving what
seem like hopeless situations. We see it in the realm of
diseases also. Senator Frank Church of Idaho was told at age
33 that he had incurable cancer, and he was given 6 months
to live. He decided to take chances, and he submitted to a
new radiation treatment just being developed. He also
decided to take chances, and be creative with his life. He
went into politics and sponsored risky legislation on
civil-rights and the environment. He was the first Senator to
publicly oppose the Viet Nam war. He did eventually die of
his cancer, but not until 1984, which was 37 years after he
was given 6 months.
The point is, people who are clever and creative, and who
chose to do the unusual, are the people who experience the
exceptional in life. They survive when others parish. They
are restored to health when others die. The paralytic in Mark
2 is just such a man. He was bed ridden, and yet he got his
body where men with two good legs could not get. Jesus was
surrounded by people, and no one could even get through the
door into the house, let alone, near to Jesus.
Even Zacchaeus's idea of climbing a tree would not work
here, for Jesus was in the house. We don't know if it was his
idea, or that of his friends carrying him, but they were like
an ancient ambulance team who got their patient to the
doctor on time. When the normal route is closed, you need to
come up with a creative alternative to reach a goal. This
team recognized that sometimes you have to start at the top
and work down, and that is what they did.
They created a skylight before anybody thought of such a
thing, and let their patient down through the roof right into
the presence of Jesus. They had no doubt what would
happen, for Jesus, as far as the record reveals, never had a
sick person in His presence that He did not heal. We have no
hint that any sick person ever went away saying, "I am not
healed." Nor do we have any record of Jesus ever walking
away from a sick person, and not healing them. They knew if
they could just get him into the presence of Jesus, their labor
would not be in vain. Their faith in Jesus motivated them to
be clever and creative.
I've read this account many times, and I always read
verse 5 in a restricted sense. Jesus seeing their faith
responded and healed the paralytic. Their faith, always
meant to me, the faith of the friends who let him down.
Some make a big point of this being their faith, rather than
his faith. It is true, if it would have said his faith, the friends
would be excluded. But saying, their faith, does not exclude
his. The their, is plural, and could refer to all five of the team,
including the young paralytic himself. There is no reason
why he should be excluded, as if he was just a lump of clay,
with no say in what his friends were doing. For all we know,
he was the coach, and the whole thing was his idea from the
start, and the roof route was his creative choice.
All we know for sure is, there were many paralytics who
never walked again, but here was one who carried his bed
home that day. He was the exceptional paralytic. He was
aggressive in his search for a miracle. We have all had
experiences where it was hard to get into see the doctor,
because he or she was so busy. That was the problem with
this paralytic. When he got to the place where Jesus was, he
realized he should have made an appointment. The line of
those ahead of him was long, and his only hope of seeing the
doctor was aggressive cleverness.
This morning we want to look at this event from the point
of view of the doctor's response to this most aggressive
patient. Keep in mind, it is aggressive patients who are often
a pain to the doctor, who are the most likely to get well.
Let's begin with a negative aspect from the doctor's point of
view, and look at-
I. THE DISTURBANCE OF THE DOCTOR.
I've often thought that one of the hardest aspects of being
a doctor is the perpetual interruptions. They can be doing
one thing, and get a call to do another, at anytime of the day
or night. They can have a waiting room full of patients, and
get called away to deliver a baby, or some other emergency at
the hospital. Being interrupted can put a lot of stress on
people.
In our text, you will note that verse 2 tells us that Jesus
was preaching to the crowd. He was preaching the word,
and nobody likes to be interrupted in the middle of a
message. This is highlighted by the police report concerning
the New Testament Baptist church in Stockton, Cal. It seems
that Oscar MacAlister interrupted the morning message by
shouting at the pastor that he was getting out of hand. After
the service pastor Murphy Paskill had an idea on how to
prevent further such disturbances. He got a revolver, and
shot MacAlister for four times. The pastor was booked on
charges of attempted murder. We do not know if he was as
poor as preacher as MacAlister thought, but he was
obviously a very poor shot.
The point is, interruptions can be very disturbing. They
can add so much stress to life that they become a cause for
illness. Rabbi Joshua Liebman wrote the popular book,
Peace Of Mind, that started the avalanche of such books. He
was so swamped with calls and letters from people who
wanted his help to get peace of mind, that he lost his own
peace of mind. He tried to help all who interrupted his life
with a cry for help, and in just three years he was dead at age
43.
Perpetual disturbance can be deadly. That is why Jesus
very wisely got away from the burden of dealing with
people's problems perpetually. He was a physician who
healed Himself by getting rest for restoration. But we see
also, that He handled interruptions in His life as
opportunities. It was a radical disturbance to have the roof
torn away while you are preaching, but Jesus was not overly
disturbed by this disturbance. He was preaching the word of
God, but he recognized that even the best things in life can be
set aside to deal with the emergency of the moment. If you
are having your devotions, and are in prayer, and your child
comes crying with a cut finger, it is not an offense to God to
leave you devotion to care for the cut.
Jesus was a good emergency doctor. He took this radical
disturbance in stride, and gave it His full attention. What
Jesus demonstrates here is that we can decide to make an
interruption in our life a burden or a blessing. It was a very
rude thing to do, to come in through the roof. It is not only
not appropriate in polite circles, it is not appropriate in any
circle. Jesus could have been offended, and He could have
complained, and gotten the whole crowd to be critical of this
team of disturbers of the peace. Instead, He turned it into
one of His greatest messages. By healing this paralytic, Jesus
not only demonstrated His power to heal, but His authority
to forgive sin, and even more important, His willingness to
do.
The crowd learned more that day about Jesus then they
would have had this disturbance never taken place. This
paralytic became a powerful object lesson for the Greatest
Doctor who ever lived. If we are going to be like Jesus, we
need to ask of every interruption in our lives, "How can I use
this for a blessing?" Next look at-
II. THE DIAGNOSIS OF THE DOCTOR.
Diagnosis is a Greek word used only once in the New
Testament in Acts 25:21. It refers to a judgment based on
thorough knowledge. Jesus judged immediately that this
young man was a paralytic because of sin, for he did not say
this to most of His patients, which He said to Him: "Son,
your sins are forgiven."
Jesus called him son, and so he was a young man, and so
his illness was not age related nor accident related. He was
obviously a victim of a disease somehow related to his
life-style. You can break nine out of the ten commandments
that do not directly relate to illness, but one does, and that is
sexual immorality. Sexually transmitted diseases have been a
major health problem all through time. Aids is one of the
most talked about diseases of our day. But there is also
Herpes, which is epidemic, affecting 20 million Americans.
Gonorrhea is the most prevalent bacteria infection on
earth, with over one hundred million cases a year. Syphilis is
another major social disease, and this is likely the disease of
the young paralytic of our text. Syphilis leads to many other
illnesses, and by 1876 it was discovered that if it moved to the
spinal cord it could cause complete paralysis. It is the only
social disease I could find that could lead to paralysis. The
Greek words used to describe this mans disease are
paralutikos and paraluomai. Out of 14 uses of these two
words in the New Testament, ten of them refer to this young
man. He is the most paralyzed man in the New Testament,
and Jesus says it was because of sin in his life.
Sin and sickness are sometimes directly linked.
Immorality and illness are linked. Defiance of God's laws and
disease, often go hand in hand. Here is the immoral man
made conspicuous by his paralysis. Note, Jesus said, "Your
sins are forgiven." He used the plural of sins, for seldom is
an immoral person immoral just once. The man's life-style
was an open invitation to infection.
My problem here is, how can Jesus be so forgiving of such
an immoral person? It seems that Jesus is just too lenient
with some sinners. I think we all feel like the elder brother at
times, and wonder how the father could let the prodigal son
off the hook so easy, and welcome him home, when he knew
he wasted his substance with harlots. He was immoral, and
yet dad took him back like he was still a virgin. There are
some hard things to grasp about forgiveness, and one of them
is, how can you do it, and still escape being soft on sin.
Christlike forgiveness almost seems immoral to us at times,
and makes being forgiving very hard.
Jesus diagnosed this man immediately as suffering from a
sin caused disease, and yet, without a call for repentance, or a
lecture on holiness, or at least a brief condemnation, He
healed him, and did so by forgiving his sins. It was not his
mistakes, his poor judgments, his inadequacies, but his sins.
I have struggled with this for years, for Jesus seems to take sin
too lightly at times. Another famous example being the
woman taken in adultery. But then I began to look at Jesus
in the light of His major role as the Great Physician. A
doctor is a healer, and his or her task is not that of judging
the patient, but of helping them to be healed. The reason
Jesus was 100% successful in the area of healing, when He
was not in preaching or teaching, is because in healing there
was never a distinction between those who were sick because
of their sin, and those who were sick just because they were a
part of a fallen world.
Jesus never failed to heal people who deserved what they
were suffering, because they brought it on themselves,
because of their sin. This explains so many of the mysteries
of the world of healing. There is no discrimination in
healing. It falls into the same category as the sun rising and
the rain falling on the just and the unjust. Healing is not a
gift God gives only to His own children. Unsaved people can
be healed as well as the saved, for the same laws of health
work for them, as for the Christian. They can receive
miracles also, for miracles also have laws by which they
operate.
In the next paragraph the Pharisees are upset with Jesus
for eating with tax collectors and sinners. We are talking
about prostitutes here, and people who are immoral, and who
spread the sort of diseases that lead young men to become
paralytics. Jesus responds in verse 17, "It is not the healthy
who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners." Jesus never asked anything of His
patients except the nature of their illness, and if He
diagnosed it as sinned caused, He never hesitated to heal, for
the sick need to be healed, and that is a need He always met
regardless of the cause.
Not only does this mean non-Christians can be healed, it
means Jesus supports all the medical efforts to heal all
diseases, even those that are caused by sin. Many Christians
are involved in ministering to those with aids, a usually sin
caused disease. This is a legitimate ministry for those with
the compassion of Christ. I abhor the folly that leads to such
a disease, but at the same time, I must applaud those who
seek a cure for aids. It seems that to do so is to be soft on the
sin that leads to it, but it is the spirit of Jesus as the Great
Physician. If aids is the judgment of God, then how can a
Christian be concerned about healing those who come under
His wrath? This has been the same question all through
history on leprosy, syphilis, and many other diseases.
We need to see that you can know a disease is a direct
result of defiance of God's will, and still seek for the healing
of that disease. This is so clearly illustrated in Num. 12
where Miriam is cursed with leprosy for her critical stand
against Moses. She was facing a horrible fate, and Aaron, her
brother, pleaded with Moses not to hold this sin against
them, for he too was a part of the criticism. He pleads, "Do
not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother's
womb with flesh half eaten away." What a gruesome fate.
Moses did not say, "She made her bed let her lie in it. She
suffers the just reward of her sin and folly." Instead,
knowing it was God's judgment on her sin, He prays in Num.
12:13, "O God, please heal her!" And God answered that
prayer, and she was made clean, and only had to suffer 7
days of shame outside the camp.
Jesus had the same attitude toward those clearly under
the judgment of God. The paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda
was an invalid for 38 years. Jesus did not hesitate to heal
him, but after He said to him in John 5:14, "See, you are well
again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you."
Sin led to his disease, and again, it was likely a sexually
transmitted disease, yet Jesus healed him.
The evidence is clear: Disease discrimination is as
inconsistent with Christlikeness as is race discrimination. It
does not make any difference if one is suffering from personal
sin, or from just being a part of the sinful world, the sick
need the physician, and all are to be cared for and healed. A
Christian nurse or doctor, or any of us, need not feel we are
compromising our faith if we care for, and loving seek the
healing of, people who are suffering as a direct result of their
sin.
Pat Boone writes about his experience with a Jewish
pornographer in Las Vegas. He was facing gall bladder
surgery, in feared he would die. He read one of Pat's books
and called him up, and asked him to pray for him. Pat not
only prayed for this man, so out of the will of God, he got
him to pray for himself. When he went in for his surgery
they could not find the gall stones on the x-rays, and he was
sent home. He was a happy and healed man, and Pat got him
to reading the Bible, and learning about the Jesus who
healed him. At the time of his writing the man had not yet
received Christ as his Savior. Was he right to help a godless
man like that to find healing? Would not the world be better
off had he suffered a just judgment, and died?
The answer to both questions is yes. Yes the world would
be better off without him, and yes it was right to seek his
healing, even if he never does come to Christ, and eventually
dies as a lost man anyway. Why is this right? Because in
healing there is to be no discrimination. Christian, Jew,
Moslem, or Atheist: They are all to be dealt with in
compassion, and if possible, by medicine or miracle, be
delivered from their disease.
The Christian has the right, and even the obligation, to
make a distinction between people in many areas of life. You
do not have to cooperate with all people in their projects or
life-style. You do not have to let your children date
unbelievers. You have to discriminate in dozens of ways, and
refuse to let homosexuals be Sunday schools teachers, and
camp counselors. Life is loaded with valid discrimination,
because light and darkness cannot share the same space. But
when it comes to healing, there is a universality about it that
cannot be escaped.
It is doctor's orders. Whatever the diagnosis, and
however related to sin, the Christian healer does not
discriminate. The Christian healer heals all. Jesus is the
universal physician, and because it is so, the non-Christian
may also experience his healing power. Medical missionaries
minister to many non-Christians around the world. They
heal more non-Christians than anybody, and they always
have, because it was the way of, and the will of, our Great
Physician.
