We have seen strange things today
(Disclosure: This message is based on a sermon I preached at New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO, on February 2, 2025; not an exact transcription.)
Introduction: This story is one that’s told by both Matthew and Mark, as well as Luke. The main points are the same even though some of the wording is different. That’s to be expected when different writers look at the same event from different angles or perspectives.
All of the writers agree, though, that there was a very sick man who had some very good friends who did what they could for him, even tearing open the roof so they could get their sick friend in sight of the Great Physician!
1 The Multitude, Listening
Text: Luke 5:17, KJV: 17 And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them
Jesus was in Capernaum, according to Mark 2:1, when this event took place. Earlier, He had asked Simon Peter to launch his boat a little way from the shore so He could teach the people who had come to hear Him. Afterwards, the Lord rewarded Peter by telling him to head for deep water in order to find a good catch. It was a good catch, all right, because there were so many fish in the nets that the nets began to break and the boats (Peter somehow got the attention of one or more other boats) had begun to sink! When they got back to land, Peter and others left everything to follow Jesus (Luke 5:1-11).
After this, Luke relates how Jesus healed a man “full of leprosy”—one wonders how bad of a case that man really had—and then He went into the wilderness to pray (5:12-16). Then He went into Capernaum, teaching and preaching (Mark 2:2), to a crowd so large that some couldn’t even get near the door to the house!
I’ve sometimes wondered what type of tone, pitch, accent, and so on the Lord used when He spoke. Whether He spoke in a tenor or higher-pitched male voice, or had a deeper baritone or lower-pitched voice, it was enough for the officers sent to arrest Him to say, “No man ever spoke like this Man (John 7:46, my paraphrase)!”
Without spending too much time on the Lord’s vocal qualities (and there must have been plenty!), the main point is that _how_ Jesus spoke backed up and verified _what_ He spoke. Nothing false or questionable in what Jesus said and had to say.
No doubt the crowd who were standing by the house where this took place wanted to hear every word Jesus spoke. The problem, though, was that our Lord was not only involved in the ministry of teaching and preaching, but also healing, and that very crowd who wanted to hear were now standing in the way of someone who needed to be healed.
2 The Man, Suffering
Text, Luke 5:18-19, KJV: 18 And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. 19 And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.
In the crowd, there were four men who desperately wanted their mutual friend to be healed of “the palsy” as Luke puts it. Dr. A. T. Robertson observed that what is translated “palsy” here in the King James Version is more like paralysis (this is found online in his ‘Word Pictures in the Greek New Testament at https://godrules.net/library/robert/robertluk5.htm). This paralytic had to be carried on a “couch” or “pallet (Robertson, as above)” and I’m sure he was grateful for these friends who took him where he needed to go.
The problem here is that these five men could not get anywhere near Jesus! Mark explained in Mark 2:2 that these men couldn’t even get to the door because there were so many people. This had to leave the four men, who were able to walk, with a difficult choice: turn around and leave, hoping to meet Jesus another day; or, wait until they could get inside the house; or, well, what other choice did they have? They knew none of these four could heal much of anything, let alone a man who was paralyzed. What now?
The answer was as simple, and it dealt with how the houses were constructed back then. Generally they were built of stone with either an upper room or chamber. To reach that upper room, it was as easy as walking up a staircase. Then, since the roofs were made of tiles, it was relatively easy to pull up a few of these (the roofs generally were flat!) and there was an opening, a hole in the roof, large enough for these men to lower their sick friend down to where Jesus was preaching and teaching. After all, once the first tile or two were taken up, it would have been easy to see where Jesus was and direct their sick friend in that direction.
Now, what the people inside thought as they saw this happening is anybody’s guess, but that’s another story! The most important thing is that these four friends did what they had to do in order to get their sick friend close to the Greatest Healer of all time.
What happened after this is interesting, indeed.
3 The Messiah, Healing
Text, Luke 5:20-25, KJV: 20 And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? 22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? 23 Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? 24 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. 25 And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.
I don’t know how much noise was generated when the four friends partly opened the roof so they could get their sick friend to Jesus. No doubt the people inside were wondering, “What on earth is going on over here?” as the roof opened and, slowly, down came the paralytic on a pallet! My guess is that some were stunned, others silenced, and still more wondering just what would happen next. Well, they were about to find out.
Luke tells us that the first thing Jesus did was observe the faith of the four friends, although there’s no record any of the four spoke to Jesus or He to them. He saw the faith and, being God in human flesh, knew exactly what was happening. He knew they wanted Him to heal their friend, who had been suffering for who knows how long.
Oddly enough—to our perspective, maybe—is that Jesus didn’t touch the sick friend! He only told him, “Your sins are forgiven!” There could be a number of angles as to why Jesus said this but that’s not the point of this message. What is important is that Jesus could, and did, forgive sins because He is God! Maybe the paralytic also had a problem with speaking and couldn’t say, “Lord, heal me” or anything like that. No matter: Jesus went straight to the heart of the matter and forgave the paralytic of his sins.
And, just like clockwork, the scribes and Pharisees started “to reason’ among themselves. “Reason” here meant they were discussing this among themselves but couldn’t come to a unified conclusion (per https://biblehub.com/greek/1260.htm). They couldn’t deny that the roof had been opened and they couldn’t deny what Jesus said, but they didn’t seem to understand just what He said and why. That problem exists today, by the way!
But Jesus could read their minds, as He “perceived their thoughts”. Oh, boy could He ever. The only thing we have in this passage though is how He looked at them (scribes and Pharisees) and asked, “What are you reasoning (discussing) in your hearts?” That got their attention! I can see them slowly becoming quiet as He looks on, maybe, each one by one.
Then He asked one of the most unusual questions ever: “Is it easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’ (paraphrased)?” And, I have to confess, I don’t have the answer, either! Those religious leaders didn’t say a word after this question.
Jesus didn’t stop there, though. Probably while the leaders were still pondering Jesus’ original question, Jesus then says, “Just so you know the Son of man has power to forgive sins”, pauses for a moment, then looked at the paralytic on the pallet, and continues, “I say to you, rise, take up your couch (pallet) and go to your house!”
What was going to happen next?
Would the paralytic remain on the pallet? Or, would he be able to walk, as the Lord had told him to do? There’s more hinging on this than we think: if the man couldn’t walk, that would really put Jesus in a bad light, kind of like, “He could promise a lot, but couldn’t make it happen” or any number of similar phrases.
And yet, Luke records that the man immediately got up off of his “couch” or pallet and headed for his own house. Don’t forget, the man was paralyzed and had to be basically hauled or carried anywhere he wanted to go. There’s nothing in the text here, neither in Matthew’s nor in Mark’s accounts, that Jesus ever touched this man, but he still was able to get up, and WALK to his home! Tremendous: his sins were forgiven, and he was restored to health!
No wonder the people were amazed when they saw this!
Conclusion:
Text, Luke 5:26, KJV: 26 And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to day.
The word “amazed” has a wide range of meanings. Here, according to Dr. A. T, Robertson, the people were “almost beside themselves (https://godrules.net/library/robert/robertluk5.htm)” and, really, who could blame them? When had anything like this ever taken place before?
Well, things (miracles) like this may have happened before, and they would happen later, but none of them gained a response like this one: “We have seen strange things today!” They had seen a man who wanted to meet Jesus, but couldn’t, due to the crowd; then, they saw a roof being opened and a man lowered from the roof; finally a lame man walk!
If that didn’t show the power of Jesus to heal, I ask, what else could? What a day that was!
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV)
