CALLED TO HEAL
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE: MARK 2
Lesson 6 January 16, 2021
Key verse
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’”?
Mark 2: 9
INTRODUCTION AND STUDY
Every one of us have felt pain at some point in our life. Sometimes it hurt real bad but sometimes it is just a nuisance. Sometimes we get sick but then we recover from our sickness pretty quickly. Some people however get sick and it takes a long time for them to recover.
The doctors sometimes have a hard time to find out exactly why people have certain kinds of illnesses. The Bible tells us however that sometimes people have so much pain on the inside which we cannot see that it begins to show up as a pretty bad sickness on the outside. It shows physically.
This is what happened to a man in our Study today. He had so much hurt and pain and it was so bad that he became paralyzed. He could not walk, look after himself, or help himself. Life was pretty tough. It is likely that he did bad things and so was responsible for the guilt, the hurt and pain inside him.
But he had several very good friends who were prepared to help him when he became desperate. He needed healing in a hurry. But they had no hope for the doctors could not help him.
But he and his friends heard about a great teacher who was a great preacher that had been sent from God and who had been healing people of all kinds of sicknesses and even casting out demons that had been hurting people.
He was teaching them about God. He told the people that the kingdom of God had come to them and that He was the promised Messiah that would save the people if they only believed that He was from God and was the representative of God the Father.
Jesus was in a house in the city of Capernaum and a large crowd gathered in the house and those that could not get into the house crowded outside so nobody could get into the house easily.
The Four friends of the paralysed man did not let this crowd stop them. They put their paralysed friend on a mat, pushed their way through the crowd, took him up a ladder and put him on the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching. Then they cut a big hole in the roof of the house and lowered the man so that he was right in front of Jesus and surrounded by the crowd that was in the house.
The houses and the materials holding up the roof in those days were made of clay bricks and the roofs were flat and made of dry sticks and wood beams and then sticks and mud were placed on some cross beams of wood so that it would be solid and hard. They were not too difficult to break and as a matter of fact after the rains came and washed away the mud the owner of the houses had to repair the roofs. Their houses in the city of Capernaum were definitely not built the way we build our houses.
When Jesus realized the great amount of work and effort that these four men did to help their friend get rid him of his tremendous amount of pain Jesus congratulated all of them for their faith for they went through all that trouble because they knew that Jesus was able to heal the man that was paralyzed.
But instead of just healing the man right away Jesus told the man that his sins were forgiven. Jesus realized that there were some religious leaders called scribes and Pharisees that were sitting there.
But this did not stop Jesus for telling the man that his sins were forgiven. Jesus had the power to forgive sins but these religious leaders were hostile to Jesus for saying that for they did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah that God the Father had promised to send to help the people. They had seen all of the miracles that Jesus had done just as the prophets in the Scriptures had said Messiah would do, but they still refused to accept that Jesus was Messiah because they probably figured that they would have to stop doing the wrong things that they were doing and start helping the people who were suffering.
Jesus pointed out to these people that it was just as easy for Him to forgive the sins of the man because He had the power to do so and so to prove that He had the power Jesus told the man to take up his bed and go to his house as proof that everything was now okay with him. The pain that he had filled inside him which made him paralyzed was now gone. The man obeyed Jesus, took up his right away and left for his house.
The people were amazed and glorified God saying that they had never seen anything like this before.
You should therefore remember that even when you make bad choices and do things that make you hurt inside you to the point where you feel badly remember that Jesus has the power to heal that pain. Jesus knows you’re making bad choices which you cannot hide from Him for He knows everything. He knows that because we are human beings many times we make bad choices and do things that hurt others and hurt ourselves.
Jesus wants us to stop making those kinds of mistakes. But He stands ready to help you. He knows everything about us even if we do not talk out loud. These religious leaders had not said anything out loud when Jesus told the paralysed man that his sins were forgiven, but Jesus knew what they were thinking, for they were thinking, Who does Jesus think He is to be forgiving sins?
They knew that only God could forgive sins. They should have known that if Jesus told the man that his sins were forgiven and then Jesus told the man that he was healed and he should take up his bed and walk which he couldn’t do before, it should have been proof to the religious leaders that Jesus not only could forgive sins but He could also heal showing that the man’s a sins were forgiven.
We are all glad that the sick man’s friends didn’t give up when they saw that the house Jesus was in was so crowded. They were very creative that they realized that they could climb to the top of the house and cut a hole in roof to get down to Jesus.
Jesus was not upset that they had interrupted His teaching for He knew that the man needed to be healed. So Jesus, since He was so full of pity for the man, and was so merciful and gracious, that He not only healed the man but in addition forgave the man’s sins.
That tells you that Jesus loves people. He does not like when people get sick. Jesus has told us that He loves you even if you have sinned. What He wants you to do is to change and repent of your sins. Then He will come and live with you and help you grow spiritually.
We thank Jesus for being so kind and merciful to us and so willing to help us.
We should therefore tell people about the kind and loving Jesus who is willing to heal sicknesses that we can see, as well as sicknesses and pain inside us that people cannot see. So we should always thank Jesus, worship Him and pray that He will help us and help others too and give us the ability to tell people about the loving Jesus who heals and forgives sins.