How Many of You Know What Its Like to Be Sick?

1 Do you need a healer? Mark 2:1-17

I. My need for healing

How many of you know what its like to be sick? How many of you have spent significant time in doctor’s offices? Or hospitals?

I must say up until recently I have had no idea what you are going through. I consider my years from 1-35 to be pretty much pain free, sickness free, doctor free. The only time I ever saw a doctor was for them to confirm that I was perfectly well to go overseas of various other things as I was growing up. Doctors are for weak people, sick people and my sicknesses lasted a day or two and I was better.

Then comes year 36. Coincidentally I am sure, my first full year in the ministry. I am sure there is no connection. Year 36 will go down in my history as the year of the hospital. From the close of 2007 to the middle of 2008. I have spent more time with doctors then I have all the other years combined. I have had more tests than I thought possible and I know what all the cool acronyms stand for now and what they actually do. MRI,…etc. I have visited general practitioners, bone guys, oncologists, and others. All of this in secret over the last year. The elders knew but I didn’t tell you because no one knew whether this was something to be concerned with. Basically there is “something” on my spine that nobody has been able to figure out. I knew it was something to be concerned with when the first specialist looked at the beginning tests and said “huh? I have no idea what this is.” And then ordered a ton more tests. Now I watch House religiously so I know how bad this can be. And to be honest they still don’t know what it is. They just keep ruling out all the really bad stuff—or at least they are pretty sure it can be ruled out.

Up until year 36 I had respect for doctors. I assumed they knew what they were talking about, but who cared. I didn’t need them. They were there for other people. When I got patellar tendonitis and bursitis I ignored it knowing I was healthy and didn’t need a doctor. I blamed it all on Kelly Wallace for “forcing” me to play soccer ever week. Knees just hurt when you are older and play hard sports. But after 6 months, they aren’t any better and I wear braces everywhere I go and the doctors suspected some kind of connection between my spine and knees.

Now I don’t know what these things are, all I know is that I hurt…a lot. I am not sure these doctors are ever going to heal me, but I do know that I need the doctors now. For all I know I have had some terrible disease for most of my life that is just now beginning to effect me. There is now no question that I am sick and that I need a doctor.

The passage we are talking about today is all about sick people that need a doctor. In fact, the culminating verse in Mark 2:17 says exactly that. It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. What Mark is going to show you today is that Jesus is the doctor. Last week I showed you that Jesus was a cleaner—he cleaned out Simons mother in laws house early on in chapter 1, then cleaned up a bunch of crowds then cleaned up a man with leprosy then back home he deals with a paralytic.

I want to start in chapter 2 again, even though we ended with this passage last week, I want to show you why it is a beautiful transition into the opposition stories. JEsus is about to have five debates with the Pharisees all about the question of authority. Really the question keeps coming back—“Who does he think he is? 2 As we read through these verses I want you to note the absolutely strange things this Jesus, this teacher of the law, is doing. The strange things he is doing that he might heal those who are really sick.

Read with me from the gospel of Mark, the second book of the NT found on page 708 in your pew Bible. Mark 2:1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." 6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8 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? 9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic, 11 "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" 13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

I want to pray for those of us who are Christians that we might remember the healing touch of Christ and for those who do not yet know this healer, that first you will notice your absolute sickness, our absolute sickness and that you will come to the one who will heal

II. When Jesus is in the House

The first thing I notice as I read through this narrative is that Jesus has come back to the house. Because of my need for you to see me as hip and cool, I feel compelled to say right from the beginning —“Jesus is in the house.”

Both stories today take place in a house, one is probably Simon’s house and the other Levi’s. This makes me ask the important question, “What happens when Jesus is in the house?”

A. Crowds come 3 First, look at the crowd that comes to the house. A significant mass of people. A throng, a swarm, a horde, a mob, a multitude. You get the idea.

Now crowds are not normally a good thing in the book of Mark. They are outsiders and Jesus seldom reveals the full truth to outsiders. They are mentioned 38 times before chapter 10 and they are always outsiders, either ambivalent or hostile to Jesus. Jesus consistently hides things from the crowds while revealing things to the insiders who are often found, interestingly enough—in the house. What we have here is Mark giving the reader a cool alliterative play contrasting the crowd (ochlos) with the home (oikos). Here the ochlos has encroached on the oikos.

The doctor is in and the people are practically beating down the door. The sick are there and they need a doctor.

Now when I say the sick need a doctor, I am not talking physically. Notice, at least at this time the people aren’t being healed. At least that is not what Mark emphasizes. It says he is preaching the word to them.

B. Word will be heard

In fact that is the second thing that will happen when Jesus is in the house. First, Crowds will come, second they will hear the word.

We have seen that Jesus’s speech is authoritative. Men drop their nets, demons flee, lepers are cleansed, fevers disappear. He is teaching in the synagogue and the people are amazed. He is alone in the wilderness and Peter comes hunting him and he says I need to preach in other towns because for this purpose I have come forth. He is there to preach and that is what he is doing

C. Desperate will come

But anyway, if people are really in need and they know who has the cure, they will find a way. That’s the third thing that happens, desperate people will come.

That’s this man and his friends. They are desperate and they have to come up with another idea to get to Jesus. They could try the stormtrooper tactics and start pushing people out of the way. What can they do? They know this guy has the cure, but they can’t get to him. I can see them outside the door barely hearing the masters voice from within and every once in a while perhaps a cheer went up as he demonstrated his authority to preach by healing someone. I don’t know, its just speculation. But these 4 friends had to get in. I cant imagine what made them think of the roof. Maybe their eyes were wandering as they were thinking and they caught sight of the outside stairs. They knew the roof was flat and just maybe. . . ? Apparently they weren’t the only ones to ever think of this. There is a story in the Talmud (b Mo’ed Q 25a) about the death of Rabbi Huna whose funeral Bier was too big to get through the house. They consider going to the roof but one of the men had learned from his teacher that that would be dishonoring—they must enter by the door. So they enlarge the door.

But not the friends. The proper respect for the homeowners was not relevant to the men on the roof. And to be honest, it wasn’t relevant to Jesus or Mark the author either. 4 What we notice is active faith. The first time Mark uses the word faith in his book has nothing to do with emotions; it is plain and simple action. We KNOW he can heal, we will do anything to get the healing. So they dig through, drop the man down on ropes and wait for the healing.

D. Healing happens

But the fourth thing that happens when Jesus is in the house is that sins are forgiven. Ah, but you say, wait. All of you who are taking notes may be noticing right now that the fourth point is that healing happens. That’s right, Both are true.

Mark is trying to make sure that his readers notice the connection between sickness and forgiveness. The connection is well known even in the OT.  Psalm 41:4 says heal me, for I have sinned against thee.  In Jeremiah 3:22 and Hosea 14:4 God is asked to heal the people of their backsliding.

So Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” And the controversy begins.

This is the beginning of five stories where people oppose Jesus and he enters into debate with them about their misconceptions. Remember the book of Mark is all about answering misconceptions. They believed one thing, he came to show them something new. He has to do this carefully because if he puts new wine in old wineskins the skins will burst. If he puts a new unshrunk patch on old Jeans, the jeans will break the threads. In fact that is the very next passage in verse 21-22.

Back to the controversy. The scribes are confused. He sounds like he is forgiving sin. But maybe it is just a pronouncement. [Pastors and priests assure people of their pardon, but its not their words, its the word of God that they quote which means the authority comes from God.] But this Jesus speaks with some serious authority. But its not totally clear they think. He didn’t actually claim to be God. Is he blaspheming? It sure sounds like it.

But Jesus is careful not to be overly clear here. After all, he has a plan and it looks very different than Israel’s plan for him. They have all these expectations of what a Messiah should be and he needs to set them straight. They thought that the Messiah was to exterminate the godless in Israel and crush demonic power and protect his people from the reign of sin. But forgiving sin? How does that work. Isn’t he here to reform Israel? Well yes, but not in the political reform sense that you are thinking. He is not there for political reform, he is there to restore people to the father. If he says straight out that he is God it may result in his death before the right time.

So while he isn’t willing to be blatant about it just yet, at least not with the ochlos (crowds), he is about showing his authority. In fact, verse 10 is the crux of the passage. Its where Mark, at least I think it is Mark who says that he did all this so that the people will know that the Son of man has authority to forgive sins. I know most of your red-letter versions have Jesus saying this sentence, but it doesn’t fit for me. Jesus is not yet ready to explain to them the significance of the Son of Man. The process is slow and deliberate and aimed at the disciples. The house, the insiders, not the crowds and the outsiders. Mark is letting the reader know what needs to be known, but the people then don’t get it. Not fully. 5 But they will at least get this. Jesus is there for sinners. This man was a sinner and my guess is that he recognized that. I don’t know if it was a specific sin that brought on his paralysis or just a part of living in a cursed world, but either way sin must be removed.

E. People are amazed

Fifth, when Jesus comes to the house, people are amazed Again and again throughout the book, people are amazed.

But the story continues. Jesus goes outside and once again a crowd appears (ochlos) and once again he is teaching them. So he’s walking and talking and over there is Levi collecting taxes on fish (maybe). My guess is Peter and Andrew and James and John know him well and probably cast some dirty looks at him. On the other hand, maybe Levi had been to the evangelistic meetings and was starting to understand who this Jesus was. Either way, Jesus calls just as he had the fisherman and he comes running. But we already talked about that. Whats important in this story is that Levi isn’t a fisherman. He is a tax collector. You all know how bad tax collectors were back then, collecting what was due and adding some more on to line their pockets. Whats more, they worked for the government which was foreign. They probably didn’t ceremonially wash before meals. These were the ultimate traitors—they didn’t look anything like the righteous leaders who were strict about every Torah command and were constantly looking for ways to remove themselves from foreign rule.

In short, these men were sinners par excellence. And rabbis did not associate with them.

III. Do the healthy need a doctor?

Controversy #2. One was he just might be a blasphemer by forgiving sinners. Two is that he calls as one of his disciples and actually eats dinner with these sinners.

Then Jesus’ famous line: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

This is the point of the whole thing—the doctor is in, but not for everybody.

Mark is trying to remind his readers of what has just happened. They know the story of Jesus. They know he has been killed by people who were part of the majority. By the crowd. By people who were in desperate need but couldn’t break through their preconceptions and admit that they were in need.

This is the message he has for us too

IV. Stop being part of the crowd, join the house.

So wait a second, how does this work? Should we be trying to get a crowd or not? Are you suggesting we split our church into smaller groups? Is your vision that we shrink?

A. My vision for us 6 In case there is any confusion let me clear this up right now. People ask me what my vision is for how big we get. My vision is gigantic. I want to see this church grow like crazy. I think you have spent a few years under Ken and myself and the leadership council and the elders developing a core group and understanding who we are as a people of God. I think it is time we let the community know who we are and we pull them in. I foresee the youth group growing this next year to half the size of the church and then the church growing because parents are coming. I foresee within a couple of years having to figure out some way to fit them so that people aren’t going up on the roof and cutting out a piece of the shingles and plywood and then remove the fiberglass or whatever we have up there and cut through the classy wood ceiling just to be able to hear about this king that we serve.

I have big plans for getting past peoples preconceptions and their misconceptions. I want to convince them that Jesus is actually in the house. And if you believe that. If you really believe that then your message must be bold and urgent and compelling and compassionate. Your practice must be joyful and inviting and looking for ways to show how beautiful Jesus is. It means that when you suffer through those MRIs and biopsies and surgeries and allergies, you count them as momentary and light affliction and count them as nothing compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus your Lord. And you TELL people that. Don’t just count it as such, live it as such, proclaim it as such. Sometimes I hate myself for not telling everyone right from the beginning when my medical problem was first noticed. I thought about it. Often. I thought this is my chance to let people know this isn’t something I just talk about, this is wrapped up in every fiber of my being. What a chance to show my friends and this town that I will show Jesus beautiful in the worst of times. But I didn’t want to worry anyone.

But we can do it together. We can let the whole town see in our suffering a new world view. A whole new paradigm that splits the wineskins and rips the patches and shows them a suffering savior who comes for them.

Remind them that the kingdom is not one that came in ultimate glory. It began in suffering. Remember the crowds dispersing at Ceaserea Philippi? Why? Because Jesus calls them to suffer.

Mark is about the true gospel which comes in a suffering servant who does indeed fight a battle with evil and even makes his victory definite but whose soldiers are the ones who will show the world the victory that he has. Until we can show them that, perhaps until we really really believe it, they wont come. I am getting ready for a communication retreat in about a month where I will emphasize to the leaders there over and over again, we must communicate the gospel from hearts of belief. Are you believable?

B. Are you believable?

If you are believable and God chooses to glorify himself in revival in Poolesville then I welcome BIG church. I have been involved in big acts of God. I remember a Bible study in my house with 3 college students who were committed to prayer and joy in Christ. And I remember within a couple of years having people crammed in all 3 rooms, out on the porch and a few in the bathroom just to be a part of what God was doing. I remember my pastor coming to our singles study one week and being blown away. And those people filtered into the church and their families came and that little 100 person church has sold its building and is building in Germantown and is looking more and more like a mega- church every day. I don’t know how much of that growth can be attributed to us college students, but I 7 know their was commitment and joy and satisfaction in God and those are things God desires and that faith is what he works through.

But crowds are not what I long for. At least not crowds for the sake of crowds. I only want crowds if God sees fit to bless the town with a wonderful gift—forgiveness. I don’t want tons of people. I want to see Poolesville recognize its extreme illness.

C. Is Poolesville sick?

We are so cushioned here. We have all the benefits of the big city. Some of you commute to 6 figure jobs and our college students can hit the big clubs like 1223, Fly, Josephines, 18th Street, Lounge, Play, Lima, Tattoo, KStreet Lounge, Park, Lotus, Current, Steve's Bar, Club 5, Eyebar in the city and yet we have that small town feel that tells us we have arrived. But please don’t believe it. Don’t buy into the hype. Poolesville is desperately ill and needs a doctor. And not Hector Assuncion next door. Or Dr Sax or Dr. Dugharilla. I am talking about a spiritual doctor.

Poolesville is ill and the worst thing is they don’t know it. They think they are healthy. They are generally religious. Nearly 1/6th of the people in Poolesville are religious enough to go to church with some regularity. My guess is though that many more of them are religious—that is they do the right things basically and they look out for the fellow man. Generally you are happy to let your children walk to houses throughout your neighborhood to trick or treat because you know almost everyone and they all are decent upstanding people. We are blessed to live in a place like this.

But with that blessing also comes some struggle. After all, healthy people do not need a doctor. I never really saw a doctor for 35+ years. Only once I realized I was sick did I call the doctor and then another doctor and then another. What’s funny is, that with all the “House” episodes archived in my head, I fully expected these men to be able to heal me. Dr. House” is almost always successful and usually its with penicillin or something basic. But my doctors have been fully unhelpful.

That’s the great part of this passage. Coming to this doctor guarantees healing. Coming full of faith and presenting your need to the great doctor means that you will never leave still sick.

While this doctor may have partially kept quiet about what he was fully there to do, Mark reveals this openly. “He did this so that they would know he had authority to forgive sins.” This man who you knew well and saw regularly and crowded around the door to speak had authority that you can barely understand. And what’s most amazing is that he proved this ultimately by dying. The one thing that proved without a doubt that Messias were just pretending was that they died. If they are dead they cant defeat Rome. And life went back to the way it was after they died. But life did not go back to normal after Jesus died. That’s why there are 4 gospels written to make sue you know, its not over. All that stuff that Jesus said to you as veiled as it was, you can see now what it really meant. He revealed that he is the ultimate doctor.

D. Jesus has the cure

And he did it without the jerk attitude of Dr. House. Whereas Dr. House spends a full hour deliberating and diagnosing the problem, Jesus came to earth because he already knew the problem. The problem is sin and if its not removed quickly you are going to die. Do you understand the urgency? The patient sits in that glass enclosed room that House hardly ever visits with some sickness that he will soon die from. Unless. Unless House figures it out on time. 8

But Jesus knew the problem and the solution. And its soooo easy. Or it would be if we weren’t so steeped in our illness that we refuse to notice our sin. Actually its worse than that theologically. When Paul starts talking about our sin, he doesn’t say we are super sick, he says we are dead. We neither have the ability or desire to be healed.

My friends, we have a town full of religious and nonreligious dead people. Or to stick to the metaphor Jesus gave us here, a town full of desperately sick people in need of a doctor.

Finally, let me make one thing perfectly clear. Make no mistake about it. He will not bring the crowds, he will not heal the sick so that we might build ourselves up. He is here for one reason and one reason only—that he might be glorified. That is verse 12 of this chapter. The healing resulted in the people being amazed and they praised God.

God is the one who will get the praise for this

I hope you pray with me every day that The spirit of God will come and shake up this town. That his presence will become so real here that people can do nothing but be astonished at what is happening. I pray for a revival like unto the Great Awakening where God came so powerfully that people cried and fainted and many lost control. I pray for a revealing of the glory of God in our midst.

E. The glory is being revealed

And we see glimpses of that even now don’t we? A couple weeks ago we talked about the glory of God and what amazed us about him. John Ross told a story about a miraculous healing that baffled the doctors. I spoke of the glorious nature of the galaxy. Jackie Adema went the other direction and spoke of the glory found in an atom with the nucleus and electrons swirling about. So many had encouraging stories and all recognized the glory of God in every story.

Read The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis if you struggle seeing the glory of God. Read Peter Kreeft if you want to see how God shows his glory so beautifully. I love his paragraph on it

“We know it from the magic words of the poets; or we know it from the wordless word of great music, work of the Muses, not of man; or we know it from the word spoken by human love, the moment when the world's most prosaic word suddenly becomes the most wonder-full word in the world, the word "we"; or we know it in high liturgy, in the solemn joy of adoration before the astonishing mystery of God-with-us, when we are side by side with Mary, hailed by the angelic annunciation of the heavenly glory, visited from another world, another dimension; or we meet the glory in great art, when a picture becomes no longer an object in this world but a magic window opening up onto another world for us, a hole in our world, as the stars were to the ancient Greeks and as the painting of The Dawn Treader was to the Pevensie children; or we know it in the electrical shock of an absolutely perfect flower, or in the high, clear, crystal glass of a winter night, or in the seagull's haunting, harking call to return to Mother Sea.

My friends, I love to see these things but I so long to see the glory of God revealed in the forgiveness of lost people. I am afraid that perhaps we have stopped expecting God to act. We believe he can, but we don’t expect it much anymore. 9 I am expecting this year that God will do something amazing in our midst. I have already begun to see a stirring. Perhaps he will show himself glorious today in the saving of a sinner or two or three

My friend if Jesus is working on you right now, I beg of you to come forward as I pray. If you don’t know what you want but you know you need something, come forward. I offer you something amazing. Its not even really my offer—its his, and he says he can heal you from a life of pain and sin. He offers healing, he offers forgiveness. Will you come?

Perhaps Jesus is making himself known to you right now. Perhaps he is calling for you to be healed. Healed from a life of pain and sin. He offers healing, he offers forgiveness. I read from the bulletin as I make my final appeal.

To all who are spiritually weary and seek rest; to all who mourn and long for comfort; to all who struggle and desire victory; to all who are strangers and want fellowship; to all who hunger and thirst after righteousness; to all who sin and need a Savior;--this church opens wide her arms and offers welcome in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

Let’s pray 10

So which is easier? Structurally it seems far easier to say “your sins are forgiven”—even in the Greek avfi,entai, sou ai` a`marti,ai( even in the Aramaic which Jesus was likely actually saying then to say Arise, take up your bed and walk\ e;geire kai. a=ron to.n kra,batto,n sou kai. peripa,teiÈ

I doubt that is what he means though.

I think what he means here is that it is far easier to say “your sins are forgiven” because there is no proof that they actually are. It’s a matter of falsifiablity. He is saying, “Oh you think its easy for me to say things like “your sins are forgiven.” Anyone can say such things?

I almost get the picture that Jesus is teasing the scribes.