“1 When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home. 2 So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and He was speaking the message to them. 3 Then they came to Him bringing a paralytic, carried by four men. 4 Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was. And when they had broken through, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.
5 Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 But some of the scribes were sitting there, thinking to themselves: 7 “Why does He speak like this? Hes blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Right away Jesus understood in His spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves and said to them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up, pick up your mat, and walk? 10 But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” He told the paralytic, 11 “I tell you: get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”
12 Immediately he got up, picked up the mat, and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astounded and gave glory to God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!””
Mark 2:1-12
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There’s a little temptation to embellish our stories when we are meeting people for the first time, or when we’re in scenarios when we know we’ll probably never see the other person again. They won’t be able to verify them, and if it makes things more entertaining, then who can it hurt, right? But a lie is a lie, and the truth is the truth. No reason we can think of makes a lie okay to tell, and even ‘creative embellishment’ needs to be made known. Truth either is or is not being spoken, and that is all people have to work with when they speak with us. Sometimes it is verifyable, other times, not so much. But the fact of the matter is that people should be able to take us at our word, trusting what we say.

Sometimes, the truth seems to be too much to swallow, but even then, we need to be trustworthy in what is said. And when we are speaking about the things of God, He is the One who vindicates us when we speak truth. He needs no embellishment, no extra help. His truth is what it is, and no one can contest it. But in our sin & pride, we still seek out those moments of ‘clarity’ almost asking the same questions that the enemy did in the garden of Eden, “Did you really just say…?”. Now, it’s okay to seek the truth and verify that a message comes from God, but in this moment in Mark 2, Jesus is present there with them, and He pronounces forgiveness of the paralytic’s sins. There is no questioning what He meant or what He said, and because this can only be spoken by the One with authority, the scribes don’t know what to do with this statement. They cannot comprehend that God is there with them, that Emmanuel is real, and that this Jesus fellow should keep His comments in the accepted range of what is ‘safe’ and verifiable by examining it against the commentary of other rabbis & teachers of the Law.

But Jesus didn’t come to be ‘safe,’ He came with authority, as the authority, so that lives would be forever changed and so God would be glorified. And in this moment, amidst the debris of Peter’s roof and a man’s pain, Jesus speaks the truth, He speaks with authority, and God is glorified because of it. He wasn’t there to tell cutesy stories and bad ‘preacher jokes’ but instead, He was there to speak what we needed to hear, to speak freedom, redemption and holiness into the darkness, to be our point of light and the commanding voice that calls us home from our wanderings. Jesus’ words have power because He is the Word of God. We either take Him at His Word, or we call Him a liar. There is no middle ground to stand on. And so to prove His point that He has already done the more difficult thing in forgiving sins, Jesus, in His authority, gives the man back the use of His body as well.

His message is what drew people in. His authority is what verified what He was saying as it was being spoken. He doesn’t need outside sources or independent review boards to make sure He is saying what needs to be said. He is truth. He is the Word. And He even invites us to GoLove others by sharing what He has already said, promised and brought into being. Because Jesus wasn’t just about delivering a message, an encouragement. He was about His Father’s business, and that message put an end to sin, sorrow, pain, shame and guilt and brings purpose into the lives of the lost and hurting. This man that Jesus healed is still called ‘the paralytic’ so we know who he is, but in reality, he should be called ‘one of the redeemed.’