A Hole in The Ceiling

Talking with a neighbor the other day the conversation quickly steered toward our observations and opinions about faith in God, the neighbor in whom I was in verbal spiritual exchange with was more than just some man living a couple of doors away from me, this man is a new creation and has faith in Jesus Christ just like me, so the friendly discussion had the sense of a Holy Spirit appointment so God could enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we could have a greater understanding of him.  

The paralytic who was restricted to being carried everywhere on a mat was introduced into our conversation for a brief while which got me thinking later on, it got me thinking the next day when I was reading about  this incident recorded by Luke in his Gospel, it reminded me of how important it is to have faith, not only have faith in the Christ’s ability to do miracles, but also to have faith in the words that he speaks, to believe without doubting what God has said in the Scriptures—the story is also recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.

Jesus, found it difficult to keep the news about his miraculous powers a secret, not that he wanted his work a secret, or that he was disinterested in using the power of God to change people’s lives from the object power of want and need, not that he was apathetic concerning the apparent evidence of the power of sin in the world, but he knew that if his work was going to be as effective as he desired he would have to pace himself; even the Son of God had to wisely monitor his physical and spiritual strength, this is why he often withdrew himself from the crowds to quiet places so that he could pray, rest and revive.

The news about Jesus Christ and the miraculous work he was doing spread like a, President Trump, Twitter tweet, once Trump clicks the tweet-send-button on his smartphone the whole world knows what is on his mind, with the Christ, his fame grew every time he healed someone, like when  he healed the man with leprosy in one of the Galilean towns, right after the man was healed Jesus told him to go and show himself to the priest and to make sure he told nobody about what the Christ had done for him, but instead the word got out somehow and the news about Jesus then spread out far and wide, the crowds increased as they came to hear him speak and moreover they came to be healed of their sicknesses.

When I read the story about the paralytic man I noticed how that by divine appointment the Pharisees and the teachers of the law just happened to be at the house where Jesus was teaching, they were not standing outside of the house where most of the people were but they were sitting on the  inside of the house with the more fortunate individuals so they would not miss any of what the Christ was saying, they were likely there to spy on Jesus and possibly used their religious credentials and the special advantages that come along with that to get a good seat within the crowded house, but I must say that when an unbeliever is introduced to the power of God it is by no means a by chance occurrence, it is more of a simultaneous meeting between  the Holy Spirit and the unbeliever.

Luke made sure he added, that the power of the Lord was in that house to do miraculous things, which made me think, was the power of God felt by the people in the house like little goosebumps under their skin like so many today equate with the power of God or was the evidence of God’s power  the witness of the man getting up off his mat and walking, were the Pharisees and the teachers of the law able to distinguish the presence of God’s power, surely this is why the Spirit of God arranged to have them there as the Christ cured a man that was paralyzed, maybe the Spirit of God led them there just to challenge their religious beliefs in that he intended to reveal to them that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, the King eternal, the only God, and prove it to them as he announces that the paralytic is forgiven of his sins?

The Scriptures say, that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law came from every village in Galilee to Capernaum, to the place where Jesus was teaching, which at that time the villages of Galilee numbered in the hundreds, the religious leaders also came up from the south from Judea and the great city of Jerusalem, so there must have been hundreds of religious people there that day to hear Jesus teach and to witness the works he was doing, the house where Jesus taught and healed the paralytic must have been a very large house for that many religious leaders to have front row seats, but my suspicion is that only the most prominent Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting in the house while the small-time teachers of the law had to station themselves on the outside, likely they were instructed to gather information from the people standing outside about the Rabbi teaching inside.

The house where Jesus was teaching was packed with people, even near the house was so overcrowded that the doorway to the house was unapproachable, everyone  there with the likely exception of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were starving to hear the words of truth that Jesus taught, you can be sure that some were even there to receive healing from the Christ as the record proves a paralytic comes along being carried on a mat by four men which I assume were his friends, but the paralytic was not only accompanied by four men because the Scripture indicates that there were more than just four that partnered up with the paralytic seeking the Christ to heal their supposed friend; if that paralytic was living in this day and age I wonder if he would be more apt to get his friends to drive him to the doctor’s office or the emergency room for medical attention before he would have his friends drive him to see the elders of the church so they could lay hands on him, anoint him with oil, and pray over him in the name of the Lord.

The paralytic and his friends put many of us in this generation to shame, they travelled  from who knows how far to meet with the Christ but when they get there they cannot even get through the door because the crowds have it blocked, instead they use their determination to hoist the paralytic up on top of the roof because they have a plan, I am not sure if they knew the owner of the house or if they even cared, desperate men will do desperate things even take incredible liberties when they want something, even if it is to receive from God, they decided that the only way to get their friend before Jesus was to lay the paralytic right at the feet of Jesus, so they dig a hole in the roof of the person’s house that was holding the revival type meeting, then they lower the paralytic down through the hole in the ceiling as he lay on his mat right in front of the Lord.

Can you imagine being in that house listening to the Christ teaching and then all of a sudden hear the noise of someone digging a hole in the roof above, then see pieces of the ceiling fall to the floor, and then witness of all things to come through the hole in the ceiling a man on a mat being lowered by four men?

It had to have got quiet when they heard the noise, I cannot imagine Jesus just went on speaking when the sound of digging was heard over top of him, especially when the ceiling began to fall in pieces in front of him, I can picture everyone in that house including Jesus looking up as the hole in the ceiling began to form, then it got bigger, and soon it got large enough that down comes a man on a mat being lowered into the crowd like a stack of dishes descending on a dumbwaiter.

I think that Jesus was astonished, not sure that he had every witnessed this type of entrance into one of his meetings before, it is not recorded by the disciples anyways, he at that moment determined that the man lowered through the hole in the ceiling had faith, furthermore he was resolute that the men who labored to get the man on the mat in a position that Jesus could not ignore him had the same kind of faith; Jesus was intent on the perception that all these men had faith. 

Too many times, I have heard this story and the people telling it only credit the four men carrying the paralytic as having faith, every time I hear that version the man on the mat had no faith but that he depended on the faith of his human transporters  to get him healed, not sure why this story is told that way, just because the record says that some men came to the meeting carrying the paralytic and then used an ingenious method to get Jesus to notice the man does not mean that the paralytic himself had no faith, the disciples recorded the incident from the perspective of the four men carrying the paralytic, they did not go into the details of the thoughts of the paralytic himself, or do we see a record of the conversation between the paralytic and the men carrying him, for all we know the paralytic was the one that was the mastermind behind this astute  plan, the three disciples who recorded this incident all claim that Jesus perceived their faith, not because of what he witnessed with his eyes but what he discerned in their hearts, it is the same perceptive power that Jesus used to know what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were thinking in their heart, the presumption that the paralytic was excluded in Jesus’s perception of their faith cannot be determined just because the disciples focused on the innovative method used to get the paralytic in front of Jesus so that the Lord would notice him.

Jesus told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven after he perceived his faith and the faith of his supporters, he did not tell the men that assisted the paralytic in getting him set before Jesus that their sins were forgiven, yet he did perceive their faith just like the paralytic, surely they had sin in their life just like he did, Jesus had the authority to forgive their sins just like he forgave the paralytic and yet he did not even mention or release forgiveness to them.

Why was the man paralyzed anyway, was it because of a tragic accident or was it caused by disease, was his paralysis a result of the sins in his life, were there certain sins that caused his physical state, is paralysis associated with the sin in a person’s life, is sin the cause of paralysis today or was it just the cause if any back in the first century,  did Jesus know before he declared the man’s sins are forgiven that it would cause the Pharisees and the teachers of the law to vehemently question the authority of Jesus in their hearts, what did they think when Jesus revealed to them that he knew what was in their heart, in particular what they just immediately thought?

Regardless whether or not the paralytic’s condition was a result of sin he was able to walk once Jesus commanded he get up off his mat and go home, I suspect he was healed of his paralysis the moment Jesus revealed to him that his sins were forgiven, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law had to be dumbfounded once the man was able to lift himself up and begin to walk, not sure if any of the people in the crowd including the religious leaders knew  that if it were not for the man’s faith in Jesus he would have been laying on his mat for the rest of his life.

Picture: CC0 Creative Commons