HELPFULNESS 4 - Point others to Jesus, who can help them!

Helpfulness 4 - English files 

Hilfsbereitschaft 4 - German files

Devotional Thoughts about Mark 2:1-12

From the three Gospels telling this story we learn a bare minimum about the people who brought a paralyzed man to Jesus: there were four of them. We don’t know their age, sex, rank or nationality, but they were probably relatives or friends of the lame man. Who else would be persistent enough to do what it took to get him to Jesus?

This incident seems to have happened in the second year of Jesus’ ministry when He was very popular in Galilee. Word had spread that He was teaching, and the house was packed out. Sick people were in the audience as well as scribes and Pharisees who were already waiting for evidence of blasphemy in Jesus’ words.

As nobody was willing to budge to make room for another sick person, the helpers had to come up with another solution. They carried the man up to the roof (surely by an outer staircase) removed some planks over Jesus’ location and began lowering the bed (which in illustrations looks either like a board or a hammock) to put the man in front of Jesus.

Jesus tells us the only other thing we know about the people who’d brought the man: they had faith. He told the man his sins were forgiven. Of course that excited the scribes, who thought they’d caught Jesus in blasphemy. Jesus added that he could get up and walk, which he did. The audience glorified God.

Lord, please help me to act in faith like the friends of the lame man and bring people to You.