EPIC FAITH

A Reflection on Mark 2:1-12

I became a youth pastor around the age of 20 at a small Baptist church in the woods. The first thing I did was buy a commentary on the miracles of Jesus and taught them during Wednesday night youth group. My first “series.”

This passage is a common go-to for youth pastors. It’s outrageous. Fun. It provided some wonderful low hanging fruit for someone like me who had not become a deep thinker of scripture (I am still working on that).

• Do you love Jesus enough to break through any barrier to get to him?

• Do you love your friends enough to do whatever it takes to bring them to Jesus?

• We need to have a bold faith like the faith of the paralytic’s friends!

• LET’S TEAR THE ROOF OFF THIS MOTHER—wait, no. Sorry. I got excited. Let’s bring it back…

This was a common theme of my 20s. The need to go to God. The need to be radical for Jesus. Not to have an ordinary faith. To have EPIC FAITH. That term litters my journals from the time (which I am trying to decide if I should burn before my children-or anyone-discovers them one day). My college friends Mike + Matt came up with it. It was some kind of vague ministry idea that I was smitten with and carried with me. The kind of thing earnest college students disillusioned with church come up with. When some of the youth group kids formed a band, we became the Epic-Faith* Band (the asterisk notes my obsession with the David Crowder* Band during those years as well).

This story was a prime example of what it meant to have EPIC FAITH.

Jesus rewards this EPIC FAITH with the forgiveness of the paralyzed man’s sins.

But deeper things are happening here. What his friends have lowered him down into is a kind of showdown between Jesus and the religious elites.

The first few chapters of the Gospel of Mark establish Jesus as a person of special authority. The kind of authority believed only to be held by God. Here Jesus claims this authority by announcing that the sins of the paralyzed man have been forgiven. This authority is verified by his command that the paralyzed man simply stand up and take his mat home. Which he does.

The paralyzed man is kind of invisible. He is irrelevant. Certainly, his disability is of no consequence. The miracle only exists to prove Jesus as having the authority to forgive sins—the authority of God.

But this also is not quite right. This reading is the low hanging fruit for someone trying to prove how serious they are about reading the Bible (me in my late-20s phase of flirting with neo-Reform theology).

I think there is yet a deeper thing happening here.

If you read the Gospels you will find them full of people like this paralyzed man. Blind folks. Paralyzed folks. Lepers. People with gross problems and issues. Undesirables. You see them in the same spots over and over again—the margins. The places of worship in Jesus’ world were also the center of market life. And in the medians and at the stoplights and interstate exit ramps of that market life sat the beggars. There were no social systems in place to protect these people. No accommodations. No caseworkers. No family training or counseling. No medical engineering. No sources of income. Invisible. Ignored.

These people were more than just a nuisance though. They were a sort of curse. A blot on a godly society. It was commonly believed that people who lived with these disabilities had sinned in some way against God. We see in John 9 some of this popular theology of the time. The blind man in that story is abandoned by his own parents.

In some ways, this story is astonishing and uncommon because this man has people who obviously care about him. The rumors of Jesus’ powers spread from town to town and these invisible people do everything they can to make their voice heard.

And Jesus, who stares the religious leaders in the face and claims the authority of God, hears them.

He sees them.

He welcomes them.

He embraces them.

He forgives their sins.

In forgiving the paralyzed man of his sins, in a strange way, he is acknowledging his humanity. His brokenness. His personhood. His validity to exist. His place in the kingdom of God.

Jesus emerges in the Gospel of Mark proclaiming “the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:14)

Then he proceeds to gather all manner of non-religious, unworthy, and even radicalized folks to build his movement.

My friend says Jesus always moves toward the pain.

He moves.

He has come near.

We punch holes in rooftops because he first punched the hole in the rooftop.

Maybe what takes EPIC FAITH is to see people the way Jesus sees people. To welcome them. To embrace them.

No one is invisible.

No one’s pain is irrelevant.

Perhaps it requires EPIC FAITH to see yourself as Jesus sees you. To hear his words, “your sins are forgiven.” To see the kingdom of God that has come near. To believe you have a place in the world Jesus is building.

You are welcome.

You are not invisible.

Your pain is not irrelevant.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear your word. Amen.

Go in peace + wash your hands,

-joshua.