crazy faith

Something in Mark 2 made me pause and think about the importance of community:

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

I’m always moved by how the paralytic has people close enough to him who will carry and lower him through a roof to Jesus. I’m not sure if they’re friends. Maybe they’re family members. Could just be people with compassionate hearts. To me it’s a picture of passionate community; that uncanny desire of finding ways of breaking impossible barriers in a person’s life in order to bring them nearer to Jesus.

Seems to me part of the cost in following Jesus isn’t always wrapped in trusting God to forgive our junk as much as it is believing that God can do the same in other people. You see it’s not “his faith” that captivates Jesus’ heart. It’s “their faith” which is the basis for why Jesus doesn’t mind that they’ve just busted through his roof.

Forgiveness is granted to this man because he saw the absolute recklessness of a few friends who believed that Jesus wouldn’t mind their absurd and impractical faith. Jesus saw how fairy tale like it was to see grown men carrying a man on a mat… breaking through things… creating a mess of things… interrupting his theology lessons.

I’m not sure what happens to the paralytic man after he’s healed and walks off with his mat. I’m not sure what the dialogue was like with his friends after the miracle was completed. What I do know is that the text ends with this statement: “This amazed everyone and they praised God saying, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this’”(2:12).

They’re amazed. At Jesus authority? Yes. That’s the main point. Amazed at his friends faith too? Even more so. They’re amazed that Jesus loves the reckless faith of people who want to make things happen through Jesus alone. I think Jesus digs it too because it’s really his own story.

Jesus punches a hole through the exterior of the cosmos and lowers his way to us. He’s born through Mary and takes on human form. He becomes poor so that the poor can be with him. He associates with all ethnic backgrounds so that all can become part of the God’s people. He messes up traditions. He fulfills laws. He leaves things upside down, interrupting the course of how people understand what it means to worship God. In doing so he invites every single person to be part of God’s people: “I came to call not the righteous, but sinners” (2:17). And if that wasn’t crazy enough for us he dies on a cross and then resurrects promising to come back to restore all things.

I’m not sure what kind of community life people experience in their churches but I do know that the kind of community that makes Jesus stop everything he’s doing is the kind that says you don’t give up on people no matter how absurd or upside down it seems to others.

Moved by the impractical and reckless faith of God’s people today.