Jesus of Nazareth communicated to His followers through parables, discourses, healing of those who were sick and performing miracles.
Let me share a series on the healing stories performed by Jesus, included in any of the four gospels of the New Testament of the Bible.
Jesus healed a paralysed man who was brought to him by four men through the roof of the house where he was speaking to a crowed audience. Not having found space to take the paralysed man through the door, the four men created am opening in the rood and lowered him to where Jesus was seated for his discourse.
This appears in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verses 1 to 13.
Let me share my meditation in five short reflections.1. Engrossed hearers
2. Enterprising men
3 Empathetic Jesus
4 Enraged Scribes
Empowered paralysed man
1 Engrossed hearers
Jesus was visiting Capernaum after several days and was probably in the house of Peter and Andrew. The itinerary of Jesus usually involved going to the mountain to pray, to the seaside to address large gathering of people, and visiting or receiving individuals who were seeking for Him. He was 'at home' (v.1), which is what he often did when he was visiting homes. He made Himself tuned to the environment and was using the opportunity to communicate and engage with people who came to meet him, so much so the place was crowded with no room even near the door (v2). People were engrossed in his teaching that all the commotion of four men bringing a paralysed man in a couch to meet Jesus escaped their attention or did not move them to create space for him even if they had seen them.
It was the habit of Jesus to tell parables and make discourses which would keep people informed about the kingdom of God, entertain them by His stories and educate them by his teachings. This too was one such occasion. The down side of this scene was that the crowd did not seem to do anything to show concern or care for a man, who needed a meeting with Jesus to receive healing.
The people in this gathering were saturated with hearing that they did not choose to respond sympathetically to a human need. This is an unfortunate effect of habitual listening. One gets so engrossed in hearing that the humane response to what one hears is sluggish or non-existent. James in his epistle refers to this as hearers and not doers (James.1:22), 'Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves'.
The dead sea in the Jordan Rift Valley is saturated with salt and no aquatic life is found in the sea. It is well below the sea level that it receives water but does not discharge water in equal measure. This is the consequence of being saturated with hearing and entertaining good thoughts with no corresponding actions of kindness or mindfulness. Also everything floats in the Dead Sea. People can also be like floaters going from one meeting to another with no genuine response of being mindful of the needs of others.
In the story of Jesus of Nazareth feeding the five thousand people, about which we read in John's Gospel (6:1-14), only a boy was willing to give away his five loaves and two pieces of fish, when Jesus looked for food to feed the five thousand who had gathered to listen to Him. It was likely that others also had their food packets, but they kept them for their private meal. I continue to be amazed at the generosity of a boy to give away his food packet for benefitting others, while adults withheld their food packets from being made available to others. The adult behaviour of 'preserving' what was given to them for themselves is a selfish and acquisitive attitude.
Listening to God, His word preached and expounded ought to move us towards kind and generous attitude towards others who are in need. Nehemiah exhorted the people who had gathered to listen to the reading of the Law by Ezra after the wall of Jerusalem was built, 'Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet and send portions to him who has nothing prepared' (Ne.8 :10). That was what People did.
Hearing God and His teachings would make us ready to live mindful of others, if we hear it with our heart. Yesterday, I heard from a doctor couple who work in a rural hospital who have gone there to help in reviving the hospital. They said, 'we feel happy to be here because we are with people who need us'! Living with a consciousness of the needs of our 'neighbour' is the sign of a genuine response to hearing the message of love of God.
2. Enterprising 4 men.
These four men (V.4) whom I presume were moved by the bed ridden state of this paralysed man decided to carry him to Jesus fo Nazareth who had 'power to heal'.
The roof of many houses at that time in Palestine villages were plastered over packed grass in between the beams, which would have made it easier to create the space to lower the paralysed man to the room. Let me not go into the propriety or ethics of breaking the roof; it might sound as an act of trespass to some. However, to me, these four men were like an ambulance driver, who is under compulsion to find the way through crowded streets to reach a sick person to a hospital somehow.
The physical journey of the four men and the paralysed man to reach the presence of Jesus was a deliberate act as they were hopeful of finding restoration for the paralysed person by meeting Jesus. That inward orientation was that which made the long journey possible. It was that persuasion which made them to innovate an access to Jesus in spite of the restrictions due to the crowd.
These men and the paralysed man had also an inner journey to make before they made the physical journey. Jesus referred to their ‘faith’ (v.5) because of which Jesus pronounced forgiveness to the paralysed man. It is belief in God which would enable people to set out on such an inner and outer journey. Even 'faith' in Jesus was a gift given to the four men and the paralysed man. St Paul in I Cor 3:17, raised a question for us to ponder, 'And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive, why do you boast if you had not received?'. Abraham set out on a journey from Haran in faith (Gen. 12:1-5) hearing God’s call and direction. It is God who initiates us into faith and make us trust to change the course of our lives. That was what the father of a child who had convulsive disorder did, by turning to Jesus and asking for help to be freed from his unbelief and help his unbelief to turn into belief (Mark 9:24).
In the early church this healing story was given an allegorical interpretation, according to Roger Foster in his book, Reading with God. The house is ourselves, and to find healing, we need to undertake a journey from the external to inward, to our hearts, where Jesus is present. The externals can restrain us from embarking on an inward journey which can sometimes appear directionless with dislocations and detours. The inner journey is all about going beyond all the crowded thoughts, desires or apprehensions and to seek God who resides within us through His Spirit in the centre of our being.
Every journey starts with a search for the way and the way later can become a response to the invitation of Jesus, ‘I am the way, truth and life’ (John 14:6). Even to find this way, one needs an inner orientation of trust first.
When an artist works on a canvas, he or she would have an image of the picture that would evolve. It is the inner image which moves his hands and mind to synchronise. It was this which the four men pursued while bringing a paralysed man to Jesus. The four men had his restoration and return to normal walking life as their expectation. It is not common to find people who have the wellness of others in their focus. The dream of wellness the four men carried in their hearts for the paralysed man came out of their altruistic orientation. I want to suggest that they were believers in Jesus of Nazareth because of which they would have raised the hope of the paralysed person to come trusting to Jesus. In that sense the four men were evangelists of the good news of Jesus. It is our belief in God, which gives us the confidence to attempt difficult tasks.
3. Empathetic Jesus
Seeing their (four men) faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘ My son, your sins are forgiven’( v.5). Let me explore this encounter in the background of the heroic act of creating a space in the roof and lowering the paralysed man to Jesus. The crowd would have been surprised and rebuked by this sight. The whisper between people might have been about this adventurous act of the four men.
From commending on that act, Jesus decentred from that event to the man who lay paralysed on the couch. Jesus moved from the peripheral to the centre of that journey. It was for the paralysed man the four men did all that were done. To have the focus on the four men is like missing the purpose of all that they did. ‘It is God, God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure’(Phil.2:13). Even this act of kindness of bringing a paralysed man to Jesus was a response to a guidance they received. To desire to do so and accomplish it in spite of difficulties was a God given instinct.
Jesus exercised a Centering act of commending on the faith of the four men and their trustful action. The four men were engaged in something spectacular in one sense, which brought the paralysed man to the presence of Jesus. This act of kindness was an attribute to their faith in Jesus and His healing power. Jesus drew the attention of all the people around to a new reality, by addressing the paralysed man as, ‘My son! Jesus used the occasion to restore him to the status of a son. His sinful ways and drifting from God made him lose the consciousness of his relationship with God. It was the same malady we came across in the parable of the prodigal son. From being a son, after he left his father’s home, he thought of himself as not worthy of being called as a son (Luke 15:21) and desired his father to give him the status of a hired servant. Following this final confession that the prodigal son made to the father, he was restored to be a son and his father prepared a feast of celebration. He was lost as a son for a while, but he was restored because he was regretful and penitent. For the paralysed man and the prodigal son, the restoration of sonship was a restoring experience of having been brought into a new relationship. God restores us to be His sons and daughters when we return from our wandering and drifting.
What is the privilege of a son or daughter! Jesus speaking about it (Mat7:9) said: ‘What man is there among you, when his son shall give him a stone? Or if he shall ask for fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?’. It is a son or a daughter, who is given the privileges of inheritance, access to wealth and resources of the family and the honour of co-inheritance. All sons and daughters also receive forgiveness, acceptance and belonging.
I remember one occasion when a father scolded his six year old son for spilling water on the dining table when guests were sharing an evening meal. The boy turned to his father and said, ’Daddy, I am your son’! The tense atmosphere turned into an outburst of laughter with the rightful claim the boy made of his status as a son. He enjoyed the privilege of being a son and therefore entitled to be forgiven.
Jesus was full of empathy towards the man who was paralysed.
4. Enraged Scribes
There were some scribes sitting in the crowd, who asked, ‘Why does this man speak this way. He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone’! According to the law of Moses, (Lev.24.16) a blasphemer was to be put to death. In the midst of restoration that was taking place for a paralysed man, a group of Scribes were agitated over the ways of Jesus and could not reconcile with the ‘authority’ with which He ministered and healed (Mat.9:3, Luke 5:21, John 10:33).
Let me suggest that it was because of the opposition Jesus faced during His public ministry, He was made ready to face Gethsemne and Golgotha. If only we can endure opposition in our lives, it would work out for our good and for our personal formation. It was written of Jesus, ‘Although He was son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered’(Heb.5:8). In His book, ‘Monastery without Walls’, John Main wrote, that ‘Christian life is a blend of the ordinary and the sublime’. The ‘paschal mystery’ of the life, suffering, crucifixion, death and resurrection was made possible because Jesus endured the trials of life, temptations in the desert, snares of popularity, opposition to His teachings, and the daily ordeal of facing cynics and critics wherever He went. John Main wrote, ‘If we are to fully respond to the call to leave the shallows and enter the deep, direct knowledge of life lived in the mystery of God, then everything in life must be seen in the depth dimension of divine presence. It is foolish to look for signs on the way- signs are a form of spiritual materialism, that Jesus rebuked, because if we are on the way, in the bright cloud of God’s presence, then life is wondrous and all things are signs' (p 221.)
Our disappointments, loneliness, feelings of being let down by people whom we trust, opposition to our ideas, criticism for trivial slips, and everything else we suffer lawfully or unlawfully work together for our good. Is this not St Paul wrote in 2Cor.4:16: ‘Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentarily, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory, far beyond, comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal’. Let us face suffering with hope, because there is some good at the end of it.
Joseph’s testimony authenticated the reality of God working out everything for our good. His response to his brothers when they came to meet him after Jacob’s death revealed his heart. ‘And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result to preserve many people alive’ (Gen 50:18-20). This testimony would urge us to view our adversaries soberly, patiently and kindly. In fact, our suffering can be a means of considerable help to others as it was in the case of Joseph. Jesus spared the enraged Scribes from any serious engagement on this occasion.
5 Empowered paralysed man
The words of Jesus, ‘I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home (V.11) is worth pondering upon. Jesus performed a miracle in the life of paralysed man. He was forgiven earlier and now restored to physical wellness.
The pallet symbolically represented his past. His past might have ben muddled with acts of commission and omission, which led him to be paralysed and bed-ridden. He was forgiven and physically restored, and needed healing of his guilt, disappointment, anger, envy, sense of failure, loss of confidence in himself, etc.
For him to enter into the ‘darkness’ of his past, he needed to go over the accumulated feelings and aspirations, before the baggage of the past can be emptied into his conscious awareness to processionals them. What remains hidden or concealed in the subconscious mind would appear in dreams or haunt the interior of a person. Some get pre-occupied by those events. What is needed is openness to begin all over again or take a needed departure from the fallen past. Our past experiences can imprison us and make us stay as prisoners of the past.
The way out of the past begins with awareness and acceptance of our past, followed by admission of our part in making our past the way it turned out be. When we are in that orientation, we also would find inner strength to forgive ourselves and others and make a recovery journey to revise our lives and renew our commitment to the calling in our lives. Most of us would need supervision or at least accompaniment while we make this interior journey.
Jesus in asking this man healed of his paralysis, to go home would have meant both his interior home and physical home. That journey to his home needed to start with an interior exploration so that he would be more ready to face his physical home. For a person bed ridden so far, who received help from others ought to return to be helpful to others. From being dependent on others he would have to be involved in the affairs of him home and people with whom he had some relationships. It is a free person within, who can make this external changes to live normally and relationally.
Rev Dr Chris Hill, senior pastor of the potter’s house, Denver in his book, Walking to Jerusalem, reveals a devastating story of his childhood- a broken home, living with foster parents one after the other, living in distress and frustration and growing up as a teenager with no hope or purpose. In a children’s camp of 16 years old children, he rediscovered his lost faith. The book is a narration of his journey into his life by meditating on the Biblical characters and making a sense of the different life events in his life. He made a brilliant revision of his life and redeemed his painful childhood with meaning and purpose because he brought his life to the subjectivity of the Scripture and God of the Scripture. I found his confessional narration, as a vivid inner encounter at the depth of his soul’. Such an account is an inspiration to us to begin a journey through the darkness and deserts of one’s past life, to say the least.
In Jesus sending this man home restored of his paralysis, was empowering him to begin an inner journey to experience healing. It is when we can enter our inner home, we can live in our physical home with new relationships and restored connections within our own family and outside. When this happens, the home can become a place of communion.
The two disciples going on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) were recollecting between themselves with pain, anguish and fear all that happened to Jesus of Nazareth leading to His crucifixion and resurrection. Their conversation was de-briefing in content and style. A ‘stranger’ who joined them on the way, having interpreted to them from the prophets onwards about what ought to happen to Christ, joined them at their home on their invitation. It was when this guest took bread to bless, their eyes were opened (v.31). By the time they recognised him to be Jesus, He had vanished from their sight. ‘And they said to one another, were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scripture to us? (v.32). To return to our past under supervision and guidance is life renewing and recovery for a new journey experience from then onwards.
Following a difficult experience of breakdown of relationships, while involved in the affairs of an organization a few years ago, I made an earnest effort to reconnect with people. Most people responded to my gestures and others ignored my repeated efforts. Having grown into an experience of readiness to restore relationships, apart from writing to letters to all of them, offering forgiveness and asking for forgiveness, I planted a rose plant in each of their name in our garden, including for those who did not respond. Now all the rose plants, 22 of them have blossomed and give flowers regularly. To me, each plant and its flowers is a symbol of receiving all those friends into my life again and stay ready to relate to them when they too are ready. Entering into our past can be an unusual experience of communion, even when the responses from others are not forthcoming as expected. It is to such an inner and outer journey, Jesus sent the man home after restoring his paralysis.
This healing story involves the wholistic dimension of health, illness and healing.Late Rev A.C.Oommen, a former chaplain at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, referred to this healing event into a story of 'trinitarian partnership'- friends of the paralysed man, the paralysed man and Jesus of Nazareth'. All miracle of healing according to him, which Jesus of Nazareth performed were an interactive and participatory process. Jesus needed people and the one needing healing to trust Him to perform the miracle of healing. He and Dr P Zachariah had jointly established a 'Faith and Healing Cell' at CMC Vellore to explore healing as God's activity in human lives when he or she is ready to go on journey of restoration, renewal and reconciliation. Late Dr George Joseph, of the Council of Healing of the Church of South India, in the late eighties actively pursued the faith dimension of healing by getting the congregations involved in the mission hospitals to enable people to experience something more than 'restoration' of health, while leaving the hospital. The volunteers from the congregation used to facilitate the process of healing by visiting those who returned from the hospital. In fact, that was how the Church of South India got actively involved in palliative care, as it was important to lead people to experience a healed relationship with God and others when 'cure' was no more possible.
I remember one instance in 1982, when late Mr Bhakt Singh came to pray for me while I was admitted with fracture of my right leg in the upper end of tibia with many intra-articular fragments. The doctors were tentative about recovery as the tibial upper end was not coming together even after three weeks of traction. The intra-articular bleeding added to this non-healing state. It was then, Mr Bhakt Singh came to anoint me with oil and pray. I felt touched during prayer and knew something had happened within me and my body. The next X-ray of the knee was due on the next day. When the X-ray was taken, there was sign of union of multiple fragments. The doctors while reviewing the X-rays of the previous three weeks noticed a substantial change in the last X-ray. The senior consultant, Professor A.J.Selvapandian, during the rounds turned to Anna and said, 'a miracle of healing has taken place'. We disclosed then that there was a prayer offered for healing the previous day. The healing is a mystical experience and God is active to make it a reality in our lives. It is the cure often, and at other times it is healing of one's soul to accept what ever might be the outcome of an illness!
That is how Mary mother of Jesus, welcomed the announcement of the birth of Jesus, 'Behold, the bondslave of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word' (Luke 1:38). We are God's and that is our consolation.
M.C.Mathew(text ) (images from the internet with acknowledgement)
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