Review
Chapter 1 is now behind us. Jesus has announced the coming of the kingdom; identified with us, His people, in baptism and temptation; challenged false allegiances to false Arkys (archai) by enlisting His first disciples and healing on the Sabbath; and demonstrated His ascendancy over the unseen spiritual authorities (exousiai) and power structures of the World.
In Chapter 2 He reveals more of His true identity and pushes the envelope even further. He is on an irreversible collision course with every form of human Pretense and Presumption.
“At Home”
This sentence is worth noting for the simple reason that it gives us a picture of Jesus at home. We know that He spent a great deal of time on the road and even made the claim that He “had nowhere to lay His head;” and yet in this instance Mark portrays Him as “back in the house,” in His adopted hometown of Capernaum. N. T. Wright thinks it was His own house.[i] It may very well have been. One thing seems certain: whatever His connection with the place, it was no secret to the people of the village. They knew exactly where to find Him
The Word (Logos)
What was this word (Greek logos) that Jesus proclaimed? A word that had the power to attract such a crowd that the house overflowed with listeners? Can you imagine the excitement, the thrill of a message like that? Think of how it must have felt to be a part of that scene! All the evidence indicates that it was the very same word He came preaching back in 1:15: “The kingdom is here! I have arrived! Forsake all other loyalties and follow Me! I bring you something more than a new “way of life.” What I bring is Life itself – the genuine article. This is the Reality you’ve been waiting for!” It’s the same message we get in a highly theologized form in the Letter to the Hebrews. But here it presents itself in the shape of an earth-shaking Event. It’s a Happening that changes everything for those who are blessed enough to experience it firsthand.
Faith
and Forgiveness
Perhaps the most remarkable part of these few lines is the clause at the beginning of verse 5: “When Jesus saw their faith … ” Faith, we are told here, is something that can be seen. It is visible in the actions of those who embrace it and do something with it. “If you really believe that what you believe is really real,”[i] you behave differently. You step out and make investments on the basis of that belief: investments that might otherwise seem brash, foolish, offensive, groundless, and insane. That’s how it is with the paralytic and his friends. So thoroughly convinced are they that Jesus has the power to deal with their situation that they’re willing to tear off the roof – the roof of Jesus’ own house, if N. T. Wright is correct – in an attempt to reach Him.
And what is His response to this outlandish appeal for help? This, too, is astonishing and wholly unexpected. He doesn’t say, “Rise up and walk” – at least not right away. Instead, He tells the man, “Your sins are forgiven.” Apparently this is the central issue as far as Christ is concerned. This is the real point of the kingdom He comes to inaugurate: not temporary remedies for earthly ailments, but total restoration of the Relationship between broken people and the One they’ve offended. Once that problem is resolved, everything else will follow.
The Right Question
You
have to hand it to the scribes and Pharisees on one point: they knew how to ask the right
questions. So steeped were they in the
Scriptures that they immediately grasped the deeper implications of what they were
witnessing. Sins forgiven? Who indeed but God can make such a
pronouncement (see Exodus 34:6-7; Isaiah 43:25; 44:22)? For Mark, the author of the book, it’s essentially
a rhetorical question. “Don’t you
get it?” he seems to say to the reader.
“Don’t you realize who this is?”
It’s not without cause that the religious leaders accuse Jesus of
blasphemy at this juncture. Wright says
that this brief narrative gives us “a tiny version of the whole Gospel: Jesus teaching and healing, Jesus condemned
for blasphemy, Jesus vindicated.”[i] It’s the whole story in a nutshell.
Forgiveness and Authority
Authority (verse 10). Not just any authority, but authority to forgive. And not just authority to forgive, but authority to forgive on earth. These are the key phrases to bear in mind here.
Authority, Mark seems to be telling us, is not about “bossing people around.” Instead, it’s a question of releasing them from bondage and letting them go (Greek aphiemi). And it’s a present reality – not just a hope for the future.
These studies in Mark, together with past reflections on the Book of Revelation and passages such as Romans 13:1-8, are leading gently but inexorably toward a simple conclusion: Authority is not just a matter of hierarchy or control. It’s a profoundly spiritual issue. So profoundly spiritual, in fact, that we may want to dig into it a little more deeply in our next installment.
For time being, let’s just note that, in this context, Mark once again employs the Greek word exousia: the very word used by Paul (along with archai, “Arkys”) to describe the spiritual “powers and principalities” from whom Christ has set us free. “All authority (exousia),” Jesus tells His disciples at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “is given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). And He proves it in this passage not only by forgiving the paralytic’s sins, but by restoring Him to full health. It’s another “sign” of the coming of the kingdom.
Final Thoughts
Forgiveness. Think about it long enough and you’ll begin to realize that it’s an absolute miracle. Anyone who has ever really had something to forgive – something genuinely hurtful – knows how true that statement is. And the kingdom Jesus brings is centered upon forgiveness: freedom, release, and healing for our poisoned souls. Reconciliation between God and man and between man and man.
That’s what makes it such an impossible and devastating reversal of everything we take for granted.
[i] Wright, p. 17.
[i] Del Tackett, The Truth Project.
[i] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 16.
Wow…..I have never heard that this could have been Jesus’s own house. Really interesting! Reminds me of the part in “The Chosen” where He has His own little camp outside the town.
And, like Dorothy said, I love the idea that His authority is to give life. I am continually amazed by the authority of His name, especially how merely the sound of it pushes back the enemy, and also by the fact that He shares that authority with us. I don’t think we have any idea the authority we really have in the spiritual realm as children of God. May we continue to learn to use that authority to serve, love and set others free. I will be interested to hear more of your thoughts on this!
Forgive me droning on here, but I’m kind of thinking on my (keyboard) feet here–working out something that is a kind of shift in my theological thinking.
I’m going to start out echoing the same appreciation (I hear in Dorothy’s and Tom’s responses) for this different kind of authority–I love it, and it’s so consistent with the rest of Scriptures (and Jesus’ repeated teachings). It’s not about controlling people.
So I’m remembering Matthew 20 when the Sons of Zebedee’s (James’ and John’s) mom tried to solicit positions of authority as right- and left-hand seats beside Jesus’ throne, and Jesus’ cautionary response included “drinking of the cup” of sacrifice as characteristic of what godly authority actually looked like. Then he even more specifically contrasted this authority with that of the Gentile/Pagan world (which represents the same worldly world-view throughout human history, and so much more so today)–that is, authority being about power and control over people:
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (vv. 25-28).
This understanding of authority gives me a new (and better, I think) understanding of God’s authority to forgive sins. It has always bothered me a little that Jesus/God could kind of presume to forgive sins not merely against God (that of course is certainly his placer to forgive), but really against any and all other humans. I was perhaps just a little bit with the Pharisees on this, not because I questioned whether God the Son could forgive sins, but how is it that he could presume to forgive all sins, blank slate, across the board against and for all involved? Don’t I have a right to raise my hand before God and say, “Hey, I get how my betrayer should need to be forgiven by you. But his betrayal of me–that’s between him and me, isn’t it? Doesn’t he need to get my forgiveness?” And I’m not suggesting people who sin against one another don’t need to seek human forgiveness either; but the implication here is, even if I don’t forgive, God gets to say one’s sins are forgiven . . . regardless. Shouldn’t I have some control over my betrayer getting to be forgiven too?
But when I understand authority being not about control over other people, but rather about releasing from bondage (aphiemi), that puts a different slant for me on sin and the forgiveness of sin because (I do believe) the root of all sin is all about control–self-realized power and authority over our own private worlds. It was the original sin when we (per Adam and Eve) would be our own gods, rather than submitting to God’s control. But that was at the heart of the deception–that we could control our worlds and one another, rather than bend the knee to God. That in being free from God, we could truly be free to run our own lives.
But God’s control from the beginning of creation wasn’t about that–it has perhaps always been about this aphiemi approach to authority. As a matter of fact, it seems that this was Satan’s claim to authority as well. God designed us (when he created us in his likeness) to be free of the bondages that enslave any person in the name of “control” and “power” and “authority.” What a beautifully (in the literary sense) tragic irony that the power of control for which humanity was taught to lust (by the father of that lie, Satan) and its promise to be freed from God’s authority, was exactly what must enslave them . . . to themselves (their own flesh), to one another (the ways of this world, Gentile rulers included), and to Satan and sundry spiritual archai (demonic principalities).
So this show of faith by the friends and the paralytic eliciting forgiveness from Jesus makes so much more sense to me. Jesus not only legitimately and theologically, but practically claim godly authority to forgive sins. What separated us from God was our profound (original) failure in faith, taking what we want authority to be for our own, while flouting the freedom that God’s brand of authority innately affords to all who will keep faith in and with him. So of course the remedy to the enslavement of failed faith in God is the expression of faith in God. Sins almost can’t help but be forgiven, since anti-faith is what brought them about.
That’s why I’m realizing now that it makes such sense for God to forgive any and all sins (regardless of whom they are against)–all sins have their root in independence from God, so faith that turns over the reins (our reigns) to God is repentance (or at least a step away) from the original sin state of being our own gods. That’s the kind of faith that was counted to Abraham as righteousness a good 2,000 years before God the Son came into our world to draw out the same in us.
Seeking forgiveness from fellow humans is important ice on the cake, though. Just as the greatest commandment is to love God (show faith in and repentance toward God), so too the second commandment is like unto it (i.e., it’s pretty much the same): love your neighbor (show a kind of faith in and repentance toward them).
Time to cut this rambling off. Thanks for following along with my meanderings. And I welcome any contradictions or corrections. I am thinking on my keyboard-feet here.
Good ramblings! I think all this explains why forgiveness of any kind is such an amazing miracle. Something that only God can initiate and enable on any level.
It has struck me before that in Psalm 51:4 David can write, “against You only have I sinned” when in fact he has sinned against the nation, against his wife, against Bathsheba, Uriah. . . . Is there a different term for offenses against other people? Does the word sin mean only offenses against God?
The collision of Christ and the experts, in His own home, over the authority to forgive sins is remarkable because He does not hesitate to make public what the experts were thinking, though not everything—not their murderous thoughts. To me, this reinforces what Dorothy points out above. Christ is driven to bring life, and not score points with His adversaries. God desires that none should perish. Amazing grace.
Yes.
“Authority, Mark seems to be telling us, is not about “bossing people around.” Instead, it’s a question of releasing them from bondage and letting them go (Greek aphiemi). And it’s a present reality – not just a hope for the future. ”
I love this.
Yes. And amazing. How odd to use authority to give life to others instead of making yourself great.
❤️