Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, “What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, “We’ve never seen anything like this before!” (Mark 2:5-12)Jesus knew before he did anything that it would make these people mad when he said to the man, you sins are forgiven. He knew it and he didn’t care. He did it anyway.
Jesus was the kind of man who was kind and gentle, but really did not suffer fools gladly. If you were in trouble or had difficulties, that was one thing. He would do anything to help you. But if all you were doing was picking trouble, he could also give that.
He stood before the man and said you sins are forgiven. The religious leaders were mad because they felt only God could do that and they didn’t like Jesus. Even though it was obvious to even the most casual observer that Jesus had some special spark of the divine in him, still they refused to believe.
There were even times when they would come up and demand a sign and Jesus would turn them away. If they wanted signs, there were signs galore. All they had to do was open their eyes and they would see a sign.
But when they came demanding a sign, they wanted nothing more than to be acknowledged by Jesus as leaders, as special people. And Jesus would not do this. He had little or no use for them and their legalism. They had made their minds made up in spite of the evidence, they would believe what they wanted to believe. So Jesus didn’t even mess with them. He went to people who would hear him and pay attention.
The man who Jesus healed knew who he was. The people standing around knew who he was. It was only those who were educated and “knew things” that had trouble believing in him.
And it made them mad as blazes when Jesus bypassed them and went directly to the people, having the audacity to just do what he wanted. That was why they killed him. He embarrassed them and challenged their authority. Nobody did that and got away with it.
The same unfortunately holds true in churches today. It doesn’t matter how much good is being done, those who want to be in leadership are going to fight it because they are either not in charge or are not being acknowledged or stroked.
And they will kill the preacher or the church leaders doing the good work if they have to in order to keep their positions.
It hurt Jesus then and it does now too.
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