Jump Start # 206

Luke 5:19-20 “But not finding any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, He said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

  Our passage today comes from a day in the life of Jesus. What a fantastic example of faith and determination. Jesus is in a house teaching. There is a crowd. It is packed. Four friends bring their crippled friend to see Jesus. They have the hopes of a miracle. Jesus can heal. He’s done that before. They reach the house and there is no way in. Many would have gone home. Many would say, ‘We’ll try another day.’ But not these friends. They are determined. Up on the roof they go. Many houses had flat roofs with straw or tiles that could easily be removed. I expect they went up to check it out first. Then they started removing tiles. As Jesus is teaching, a hole appears in the roof. Dust falls below. Four faces peer down. They spot Jesus. They remove more tiles. They go down and get their friend on the stretcher and lower him down. I expect Jesus stopped teaching. Everyone in the house would have looked up at what was going on. Down, down, down he is lowered. Jesus sees all of this. Everyone else sees this. This is a first. No one has seen anything like this. The people move aside to make room for the stretcher. Jesus’ first words are, “your sins are forgiven…”

  Great story. What incredible faith. What amazing friends.

  Two simple lessons here: First, faith is visible. Jesus saw their faith. What did He see? He saw four friends who believed that Jesus would make a difference. They would not give up. That is the way faith is. Faith is action. Faith is demonstrated. Faith is not passive. Faith is not silent. Faith will move a person. It moved Noah to build the ark. It moved Abraham to move out of Ur and journey to a land God prepared. Faith will move you to obey Jesus. It will move you to walk  in righteousness. When someone says they have faith but you don’t see it and they talk and walk like the world, something is wrong, especially with their faith. It’s simply not working.

  I like the unity of these friends who believed and worked together to lower the crippled before Jesus. One person could not have done this on his own. It took them all. Without all of them believing, the crippled man would have remained on the ground outside the house.

  The second lesson is seen in Jesus forgiving the crippled. His friends brought him to Jesus to be healed, and the Lord healed him in a way they never knew. It does little good to heal crippled legs if the heart and soul remain crippled. A person with crippled legs can go to Heaven. But a person with a crippled heart cannot. Jesus healed the man’s greatest problem. Most of us do not realize this ourselves. We worry when a loved one gets cancer, and we should. We call upon brethren to pray for them. Wonderful thing to do. But what about their spiritual condition? How many have cancer of the soul and we think nothing of that. If the cancer leaves and they die without knowing Jesus, they will be lost.

  Knowing this ought to cause us to be more concerned about the soul than the body.  But we get that backwards. Jesus didn’t. He started with the soul. He cured the soul first and then healed the body.

  May we see this great lesson from our Lord.

  Roger