The Great Physician Series

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,