Their attitude might not have been all that pretty at the time, but it’s a reasonable question that the scribes asked: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). As one individual to another, you could forgive me for that time I did that thing that hurt you; but it’s hard to see how any mere human could have the authority to forgive all my sins against everyone with a sweeping statement like, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (2:5).

The way the story develops, we can see that the healing of the paralyzed man was not part of Jesus’ original agenda. The four friends brought the man to the meeting; it was too crowded to get inside; they found a ladder and somehow got the paralytic up on top of the house, opened up the roof, tied their belts to the corners of the stretcher and swayed him down to the floor of the living room, in front of Jesus. And then, after all that, Jesus didn’t jump to heal him; instead, he used this moment to talk about forgiveness.

We can see that the paralyzed man and his friends, along with the leper (1:40) and the crowd at Simon’s house (1:32), were all looking to Jesus to heal various bodily ills. Mostly that’s what we pray for, too. But it looks like his priority is to heal our souls by offering forgiveness.

In this case, we can see that the healing was secondary. It only happened after the scribes asked their question: the paralyzed man got healed “so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (2:10). It seems it would be wise to draw the lesson that maybe I’ll be healed of my illness, or maybe I’ll die of it: but the crucial thing is to know that I’m forgiven.

* * * * *

What is it like, Lord, when we ignore you until we get sick, and then ask you to heal us so that we can get better and go back to ignoring you once more? Change our hearts, O Lord: and teach us to seek you day by day, for forgiveness, repentance, and virtue.