April 27

---

…He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’ Mark 2:5

---

🔊 This paralysed man had been carried by four eager and expectant friends.  They had been so eager that they could not wait for the end of the meeting; they broke up the roof where Jesus was speaking, and let their paralysed friend down.  Were they disappointed when Jesus did not immediately heal him?  Perhaps, but for the man himself, these words must have been a flood of healing balm.  Jesus called him “Son”, and this meant more than a religious pat on the head!  It meant: ‘You are included, you are accepted, you are adopted into the family’. The phrase “your sins” is between the words “Son” and “forgiven”.  The man would have known exactly what sins Jesus was talking about, though they are not detailed.  Jesus spared the man public exposure, and released him from the terrible burden of guilt and shame that had doubtless produced, first paralysis of spirit and then of body.  The man would have been transported away by the power of forgiveness, into the arms of a loving heavenly Father.  Jesus dealt first with the root of the man’s problem and then with its symptoms: “…arise, take up your bed and go…”  Waves of joy came because Jesus had dealt with the man’s problems root and branch.  He will do the same for us.