Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus

Mark 10:46-52.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, March 29, 2020. 

Today, we have the story of Blind Bartimaeus being healed.  There are two issues at hand in this story that I would like to get out of the way up front.

First, the Gospel of Matthew relates this story and says that there were two blind men.  It does not name them, but the story is obviously the same as this one.  Some may point to this as a contradiction, but that would be superficial.  Where there are two men there is also one.  Mark chooses to focus upon a particular individual and even names him.  Perhaps Bartimaeus was well known at the time of the writing.  Matthew doesn’t focus on the individual, but rather the dynamic of healing blind men.  So, this should not be pressed as an error, only a difference in the focus of the eye witnesses.

Second, Luke records this miracle as happening when Jesus comes into Jericho, but Mark has it happening as Jesus leaves Jericho.  This is more than a difference in focus, and seems to create a contradiction.  Surely, both statements can’t be true, a person may think. 

A detective often has to deal with various eye-witness testimonies that may appear to contradict each other, even after weeding out false evidence.  The detective uses the art of questioning witnesses to ferret out what exactly they saw and didn’t see.  In this way, testimony that appears contradictory can often be explained.  Of course, we are unable to go back and question Mark and Luke, or, better yet, Bartimaeus.  Archaeologists have pointed out that there existed an Old Jericho (the city rebuilt on the rubble of Joshua’s famous battle), and a New Jericho that had been built up near it.  Herod had several palaces built there.  We see this dynamic even in our cities today.  Large projects, like international airports, require large spaces that would require the removal of vast historical areas.  This is why we see municipal districts that develop around a large project outside of a nearby city.  Thus, it is quite possible that Jesus leaves Old Jericho and heads towards New Jericho.  This would satisfy that Jesus is both leaving Jericho and going towards Jericho at the same time.  Of course, this is not completely satisfactory because it is simply a theory.  We can’t verify it by asking the witnesses.  Thus, this becomes a situation that is not technically contradictory, and yet we don’t know exactly how Luke and Mark’s testimonies overlap.

With that all said, our story challenges us with the reality that there are times of spiritual opportunity in our life.  It is as if God Himself were walking by us.  In those moments, there are things that He wants to do for us, but we must want them.  We must be seekers, knockers, and askers.  Let’s look at our story.

The beggar outside of Jericho

It has been common throughout history for those with physical disabilities to present themselves to society for charity.  We basically call this begging.  No one really wants to be reduced to such a humbling and humiliating place, but sickness, disease, and genetic problems are common in this fallen world.  It is easy to blame God for these things.  However, He did not bring these things into existence.  They are the results, or effects, of the Fall, and our rebellion against the Creator.  There was a beggar outside of Jericho, which is the last city on the Jordan plain before heading up into the hills towards Jerusalem.

Again, we remind ourselves that we are close to a week out from the crucifixion of Jesus.  He is actually on his way to give his life as a sacrifice, a ransom, for the sins of the world.  Yet, he stops at Jericho, among many other places, on his trip.  By the way, Mark does not share the story of Zacchaeus, the wee little man, but that story (from Luke’s Gospel) happens on this day as well.

A large crowd is around Jesus, and, when Bartimaeus is told that Jesus is near, he cries out.  Let’s look at what he cries.  First, he uses a title of Jesus that is used to refer to the Messiah, “Son of David!”  It is possible he has been told that Jesus is the Son of David, or he may have come to that conclusion by himself.  Many passages in the Old Testament promised that one of the seed of David would sit on his throne forever, and bring peace to Israel and the earth.  Isaiah 35:5 says, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.”  Yes, this can be applied metaphorically, but it is intended to also be literal.  You could say that the literal becomes the proof of the metaphorical meaning.  Perhaps scriptures like this are in the mind of Bartimaeus as he cries out.  He believes that Jesus is the Messiah, and if he is the Messiah, then it is possible for his eyes to be healed!  He has faith in Jesus.

In the second part of his cry, Bartimaeus begs for mercy.  This is a man who knows how to beg; he has had to beg for a living.  He has learned to be persistent and press his need.  He can’t let this opportunity pass without trying.  On this day, there is a man who can do something for him far better than plopping a coin into his hands or bowl.  He begs for mercy.  “Have mercy on me!”

Mercy is a beautiful word.  It is different than justice.  You never hear anybody begging for justice upon themselves.  We tend to beg mercy for ourselves and justice upon others.  Justice is something that we can lay claim upon.  It is what we or another person deserves.  He has to do with setting right what is morally wrong between us.  Mercy, however, is the cry for something that we don’t deserve.  It lays claim upon the character of the person we implore.  To ask mercy of a merciless man is folly, but to ask mercy of Jesus, to ask mercy of God our Father, is to ask mercy of One who is full of mercy.  You should take time to read and meditate on Psalm 145, but I will put some of its verses here.

⁴ One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts.  ⁵ I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, And on Your wondrous works.  ⁶ Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, And I will declare Your greatness.  ⁷ They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, And shall sing of Your righteousness.  ⁸ The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy.  ⁹ The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works.

We are told that the crowd warns him to be quiet.  The word “warn” is basically a rebuke, and they are basically telling him to quit making a scene and shut-up.  In contrast to the great mercy of God, whom Jesus perfectly represents, is the crowds who couldn’t care less about this man.  Like a surging sea, the crowd is always crashing this way and that way, but generally it never crashes in the direction that God would have it go, except when He intervenes to accomplish His purposes.

There are many things that can get between us and the mercy of God.  People are one of the biggest obstacles.  It can be a large group, like this crowd, but it can also be an individual or series of individuals.  Regardless, they don’t care for your soul.  This causes you to despair and walk away from the mercy that God wants to give to you.  Listen friend, God has made mercy available for you, but you must want it bad enough not to listen to the merciless crowds, and those merciless individuals that you have encountered.  The song comes to mind:

“No man careth for my soul!,” thus cry the millions.  

“No man careth for my soul!”  O, hear their plea!  

Won’t you give your life today to spread the Gospel, 

So that Christ can save their soul and set them free?

Bartimaeus doesn’t give up, and neither should you.  He cries out to Jesus again over the top of the crowd and all of their resistance, and Jesus hears him!  O how many voices both external and internal are ripping at you constantly, telling you to shut-up, telling you to quit, telling you that there is no hope for you?  Don’t let the lies of the crowd in your life crowd you out of God’s inheritance for you.

The mercy of Jesus

In contrast to the crowd, we have Jesus who is ever merciful.  Praise God for Jesus!  Jesus tells the people to call the man and so the suddenly become very helpful to the man.  Rise up!  Jesus is calling you.  At this point, Bartimaeus throws off his outer cloak and approaches Jesus.  More than likely, he is ridding himself of this “begging cloak” in order to look more respectable before Jesus.  Yet, it seems to also represent how all of us must spiritually approach Jesus.  We must cast off the rags of our own righteousness and beg of him a truly white cloak of his righteousness.  This is the only way that we can come before God the Father, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.  How many things we must cast aside in order to have what we need from Jesus!

Jesus asks Bartimaeus what he wants, and the answer to that question seems to be fairly obvious.  Yet, Jesus asks it.  The man had asked for mercy, which is a general request, but Jesus wants him to give voice to the specific need that he has.  Now, we must never put the things that we desire above Jesus.  If we have to choose, then we must always choose relationship with Jesus over the top of things that we may want.  Jesus also had to make such a decision as he approached the cross. In his humanity, he did not want to die on a cross, but this was the plan.  It could not change.  Thus, he chooses relationship with the Father, and all who would believe upon him, over the top of avoiding the cross.

This can put us in a point of tension.  Some people will not pray for specific things because they think it is not spiritual to do so.  They somehow see it as beneath a true believer of Jesus.  They basically teach that we should pray for God’s blessing in general and leave everything up to Him.  This may sound terrifically spiritual when we hear it.  The problem is that it contradicts the Word of God.  All throughout His Word, He challenges us to come before Him with our request.  We are told, “You have not because you as not…”  Thus, only praying for blessing in general is a mere posing, and pretentious pride.  Jesus heals, period.  Yes, he doesn’t heal everybody that we pray for, but he is still the fountain of healing.  If we don’t seek him, knock on the door of heaven, and cry out to him for a particular mercy then we may never receive it.  This tension that we live in is the tension between being persistent because you know your God is merciful, and yet trusting His answer, be it “Yes,” or “No.”  What do you really want?  And, are you seeking God for it specifically, and trustingly?

Bartimaeus calls Jesus “Rabboni,” which basically means, “my Lord.”  He hasn’t really been a follower of Jesus and a disciple on his travels, but he still dares to call Jesus his Lord.  Even if you don’t know Jesus today, he really is your Lord and savior.  He is the Lord of lords, and the King of kings.  To those who will own him as their king, He will come forth as a healing and delivering savior.  He does not reject those whom the Father brings to him.

Then, Bartimaeus simply asks for his sight.  We are not told the back story of his plight.  Was he born blind?  Did he have an accident?  How long has he been so?  There is always a great story behind all who come to Christ.  Maybe you do not feel that your story is quite as grand as a blind man receiving his sight, but it is a great story nonetheless.  In fact, in a way all of us come to Christ begging for our sight.  Oh, Jesus, this world has blinded me to the truth and I don’t know what I can trust.  Help me to see so that I can know the truth and be set free!  How bold of Bartimaeus to ask for such an impossible thing.  Let me have my sight!

Jesus tells him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”  We should stop and recognize that what the man has done up to this point happens because he has faith in Jesus.  Do you have faith in Jesus today?  Maybe you had it yesterday, but some things have happened to rob you of your faith.  Our prowling enemy, the devil, is always looking to rob us of our faith in Jesus.  Without faith, it is impossible to please God and receive anything from Him.  Ultimately, we need our sins forgiven.  Natural sight is useless, if I don’t see that Jesus can set me free from my sins.  In the miracles of Jesus, there is always a spiritual parallel that it points towards.  We need our spiritual eyes opened to the plight of our sin and the mercy of Jesus to forgive us of our sins.  The healing of this blind man was to give hope to others that Jesus was the true light sent from the One who created eyes in order to open the eyes of people spiritually.  Oh, Church, let us not be blinded by this world!  Let us see the light of Jesus and have a faith that conquers all the obstacles in our path!

So, what is the result of this miracle, or any miracle for that matter?  All of the miracles of the Bible beg the question, “What did they do with that miracle?”  We are told that his eyes immediately opened and he received his sight.  What a moment that must have been.  Jesus had told him to go his way.  In other words, you are free to go wherever you want to go.  Is it possible that some who were healed by Jesus later fell back away from him?  It happens even today.  There are people who have had great things done in their life by God, but they are no longer following Him.  They have learned to rationalize the events and “deconstruct” them into mere reductive coincidences.  How tragic.

It is not enough to get something like a healing, financial help, a job, or wisdom about a decision from God.  If I don’t persevere through this life and remain in relationship with my heavenly Father then it is only a sad trinket that I can’t carry into the after-life.

We must not serve God in order to get things from Him.  Otherwise, we will one day part with Him when a cross stands in our path, and He is on the other side bidding us to follow.  However, let us never forget that the God we serve is the God of miracles.  A fringe benefit of following the Lord of Heaven is that He is merciful and there is no telling when He might say, “Your faith has made you well!”

Blind Bartimaeus audio

Obstacles to Reaching Jesus

Mark 2:1-12.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 17, 2019.

Although we will look at a story where Jesus heals somebody, this story is not so much about healing as it begs the question, What is our greatest need?  It positions a physical healing opposite the forgiveness of sins and questions if we would work so hard to be rid of our sins as we would to be rid of sickness or disease.

I could have entitled this as, “Obstacles to being Healed,” but that is not the true emphasis of the story.  Jesus is asking us to think about why we might come to Him and what really is our greatest need.  If we see Jesus only as a means to an end, then He simply becomes a gumball machine from which we get our gumball and then walk away.  However, Jesus has not left this option open to us.  Even being free of sins can become a means to an end if we are only seeking to assuage our guilt and avoid judgment.  We need more than physical healing and we need more than spiritual forgiveness of sins. 

Ultimately, we need a relationship with Jesus, who is the Lord of all those things and more.  Jesus is not a means to an end.  He is the end or goal for which we must desire and strive.

He had a physical obstacle

We do not know how long this man has been paralyzed nor how he came to be in that condition.  However, it would pose a problem to finding Jesus and asking for a healer.  At least the leper in the previous story could track down Jesus and catch Him on the road, but this man is debilitated to the point that he cannot do this. 

Yet, this man has friends who are willing to help him.  It is important in life that we have people who care about us enough that they will help us when we need them.  Of course, we too should be a friend back towards them, but friendship should not be about an equation of help. 

In this life it is easy to let differences and hurts lead us into isolation from the world, but we still need others.  We need others because we are not enough by ourselves and God desires others to help us.  He created us to be social creatures who work together for the good.  No one person has all the gifts, regardless of how talented they may be.  Eventually they will need others around them.  It is true that there are some people from whom we may be better off dissociating ourselves.  Yet, hurt can cause us to dissociate from people who don’t deserve it and to our own detriment. 

Still, no number of friends can replace Jesus in your life.  Thus, the best kind of friends are those who will help you to come to Jesus for all the needs in your life, not just healing.   Four friends determined to carry their paralyzed friend to Jesus so that he could be healed.

The crowds around Jesus were too large

When the paralyzed man and his friends get to Jesus, there is a problem.  There are too many people surrounding Jesus and they cannot get close enough to ask for help.  We are going to see later in the story that not all of these people are believers in Jesus.  These crowds are themselves a physical barrier, and yet they can also be psychological barrier to people who do not like crowds.  Some people are not interested in Churches and crowds of Christians.  Yet, they still need Jesus. 

In His humanity Jesus was often surrounded by crowds, but in His divinity, He is always accessible to those who will reach out to Him in faith, whether by themselves are with the help of a friend.  Don’t just limit yourself to inviting people to Church to hear the Gospel.  Learn to share Christ with people one on one, or in smaller groups of friends.

Notice that these friends are not easily daunted.  They don’t quit just because they run into an obstacle and it gets hard.  Instead, they devise a way around the obstacle, which involved tearing through the roof and lowering the man down in front of Jesus by ropes.  Their faith or belief that Jesus would heal the man stirred up a determination within them that wouldn’t quit.

Sometimes, whether individually or as a group, we can lose heart because we run into barriers.  If getting people to Jesus was easy then they would already be with Him.  No, this is a difficult job that is full of obstacles.  Am I determined to help my friends get to Jesus?  Of course, in our lives today the answer will not be tearing a whole in a roof.  However, may God help us to see the true barriers that keep our friends and family at a distance from Jesus.  Let’s continue reading at verse 5.

The man is a sinner

This story takes a turn with the response of Jesus.  Here is a man on his sick bed, lowered down by ropes in front of Him.  Yet, Jesus chooses to tell the man that his sins are forgiven.  This is important because it changes the story.  To the man and his friends, his greatest need was to have his paralysis healed.  To Jesus, the man’s greatest need was to be free from his sins.

Now, it is easy to let this story become cluttered with the intellectual trappings of healing.  We are not told if the paralysis was due to his sin.  So, we should be careful of making this about the need to have your sins forgiven before you are healed.  Jesus will go on to heal the man, but not because he now has his sins forgiven.  Jesus himself states that he healed the man to prove to them that He had power to forgive sins on earth.

There are many things that we need in life, some of which we only think we need.  However, they all pale next to the need to have our sins forgiven.  Our sins separate us from God and cause us to be guilty before Him.  We do not deserve His grace or His benefits.  We only deserve His wrath and judgment.

The statement of forgiveness in verse 5 is connected to the statement of Jesus in verse 10.  Jesus has the power (both authority and capability) to forgive sins.  As believers we can assist our Lord in helping people to be free from their sins.  This is their greatest need, whether they understand it or not.  What does it profit a man to be healed in this life, but not have their sins forgiven?  Yes, you would think that it would always be good to have both, but one is immensely more important than the other.

There was an unbelieving, religious community there

It is important to recognize that not all who surround Jesus, then and today, truly believe in Him.  You either believe or you don’t.  However, there is a tendency within us as humans to give up faith while attempting to keep remnants of religion.  It can be a security blanket, sentimentality, or even crass opportunism.  Without faith in Jesus, religion is dead and cannot help us, but with faith, religion can be pure and full of life. 

These religious unbelievers think that Jesus is blaspheming because only God can forgive sins.  However, they willfully forget that God had set up a whole system of priests whose job it was to perform rituals through which they could declare that people’s sin was now forgiven.  This delegation of forgiving was not blasphemy.  It was merely obeying what God had sent them to do.  They just weren’t used to seeing this outside of the temple compound and the priests.  Surely, Jesus must be blaspheming.  Yet, the priests over the centuries had been pointing people to the Lamb of God that would one day come in order to take away our sins, once and for all.  Jesus stood as the ultimate High Priest and declares that this man is forgiven.

This leads to a challenge from Jesus.  He asks them which is easier to say to the paralyzed man, Your sins are forgiven, or Arise, take up your bed and walk?  “Your sins are forgiven” is easier in the sense that it can’t be verified.  How can you know it actually happened?  It is not like you get a certificate in the mail stating that God has forgiven your sins.  Yet, “take up your bed and walk” is easier in the sense of actually doing it. 

Do we really understand that healing people is easier for God then forgiving their sins?  Healing is so easy that humans themselves are figuring out ways to get the cells and DNA to do what they are supposed to do in some situations.  I doubt we will ever get to a place where we have conquered all disease.  However, no man on earth has any power to forgive someone’s sin outside of Christ.  The obstacles to being set free from sin are legion: We can be paralyzed to even try and come to Jesus, We can fight with and reject those friends who try to bring us to Him, We can give up when we run into obstacles that make it hard, and We can even believe that our sins are too great to be forgiven.

I pray that today you will see the truth of this passage.  Sin is our biggest issue, and not just getting rid of it.  Sin itself is a barrier to the relationship that God intended for us to have with Him.  There is nothing more important in life than to have Christ declare over us that our sins are forgiven.  If you do not know Christ or you have friends that do not know Christ, I pray that you will not let any of the obstacles of this life and your own heart keep you from coming to Christ.  He will receive you with open arms if you will turn from your sins and run to Him.

Obstacles Audio

Obstacles To Jesus

Today we are going to be in Luke 5:17-26.  Here we will see that there are obstacles that get in the way of us finding Jesus, or being touched by him.  Some of these obstacles are physical and some of them are not.  Some of them have to do with ourselves and others are outside of us.  However, it is faith that overcomes all obstacles in order to be touched by Jesus.  Without faith in God we will never press through these obstacles, nor receive from Jesus what God has for us.

Now this may sound like all the work depends on us.  However, the Truth is that we are only cooperating with the immense work that God has already done.  The Son of God had come to Earth and took on the additional nature of a man.  He had lived a sinless life and had come speaking the Truth and healing.  Thus we should never over estimate the greatness of our actions.  Yet, faith is necessary.  Without faith it is impossible to please God and without it no one will see God.  Let’s look at this story.

The Crowd

In verses 17-19 we find Jesus in an unnamed town and he is teaching.  It says that the Spirit of the Lord was present to heal and yet there was a crowd that had formed around him within the building and outside.  The success of Jesus had itself become a wall around him.  This physical issue of Jesus is pointed out in John 16:7, “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”  The Holy Spirit is not limited to a physical body and can be everywhere at once.  While Jesus walked this Earth, he was limited to a body and only so many people could hear him and get close enough to touch him.  This day it was a problem for a man who was paralyzed.

We also know that the crowd is a mixed crowd.  It is mixed with those who need healing and those who just want to see it.  It is mixed with those who believe in Jesus and those who are looking for means to oppose him.  In fact wherever there is a crowd around Jesus, even in today’s churches, it is mixed in motives.  Some who are taking up room around Jesus do not believe and get in the way of those who do want to believe.  Some who refuse to be touched by Jesus physically block those who are trying to get near.  Is it possible that satan could crowd Jesus with deceivers and false disciples in order to discourage those who truly want Jesus?  You better believe that it happens.  Just remember that not everyone crowding around Jesus and His Church really want Him.

Much of the crowd only want things from Jesus.  They may not be actually resisting him like the Pharisees and Scribes.  But neither do we only want him.  The problem is not that we want things or even healings.  The problem is when our desire to get these things gets in the way of really hearing what Jesus is trying to say to us.  Do I want things from Jesus more than I want Him?  If I received no healing would I still trust Him?  If I have to choose I choose Jesus.  That is what faith is.  It is holding to Jesus because only He has the Words of Life.

Now even though the crowd can be an obstacle and should be challenged to make a choice, the person on the outside also needs to make a choice.  Are you going to let the crowd around Jesus keep you from Him?  Are you really going to say to Him when you stand before Him in eternity, “You didn’t make it easy enough for me.  Or, It was too hard.”  Really?  Do you remember the woman who had a feminine problem where she was bleeding every day?  She had wasted all her money on doctors with no cure.  Decades later she is poor and weak.  Jesus is surrounded by a crowd.  Who could expect her to be able to get through the crowd?  However, she wanted a touch from Jesus so bad that she pushed through the crowd just to touch the hem of his garment.  It is interesting that in that story (Luke 8) we are told that the crowd “thronged” Jesus.  It literally means to suffocate or choke.  I wonder if God is sometimes choking and suffocated by the unbelief and lack of faith of the crowd that has pressed in around Him today, looking for things from Him more than wanting just Him?

Yet in this story the man is paralyzed.  He can’t even do what that poor, weak, bleeding woman could.  Here we see that we do need friends.  Sometimes the obstacle is in me.  But as we explore this aspect, keep in mind that no matter how much we need friends, we need Jesus more.  The best friends are those who help us to get to Jesus.  So don’t let the presence of the crowd or the sin of the crowd keep you from Jesus.  Do you want Jesus?  Then press through the crowd and reach him.  Don’t hold back.

Physical Conditions

Now let’s focus on the fact that the man is paralyzed.  His health is an obstacle to getting to Jesus.  Now bad health can range from paralysis, zero ability, to the sniffles, only hampered.  If I only have small physical issues then I need to find ways around them and press through.  Yet, in this case that won’t work.  He needed help.  This is true if we are the paralyzed man or we are the friends.  People need help to come to Jesus.  No one who has ever been saved became so without the help of people.  So don’t let physical issues keep you or your friends from pressing through to Jesus.

God put us in families with neighbors who should be our friends so that we can care for one another.  His clear command to love our neighbors is best done by doing whatever it takes to help them to know God’s provision for them and receive it.  The heart of the Great Commission (Go into all the world…) is first helping our immediate friends and family and then scoping out to the ends of the earth and those we do not know.  No one will come to Jesus without someone going out of their way to help them.

Now not all physical obstacles are in our body.  The building itself was an obstacle.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  What is the problem and how can we get around it?  It was no easy task but the solution that came to them was to lift him up onto the roof, break through the roof and lower him down in front of Jesus.  This is probably not the only thing they could have done, but it is what these friends of the man did.  The key is not the way, but the minds and hearts that partnered together in order to help a friend.  It is a holy task to take the time to discover what it is that keeps and individual from Christ.  IT is a holy endeavor to work to remove those obstacles.  Neither is it a pretty sight.  It will involve hard labor and difficulty.  But these are the sorts of things that love does.

Am I such a friend?  I may not have any paralyzed friends who need me to cut through a roof.  A real friend helps his friend to overcome those obstacles within and without in order to get to Jesus.  Yet, we are going to see that this man was not just a sick man who couldn’t get to Jesus.  He was also a sinner.  Yet, his friends helped him anyways.  Compassion.

Sin

The story builds up to the moment where the man is lowered before Jesus, obviously sick and in need of healing.  Yet, Jesus says the unexpected, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”  What?  I came to be healed of paralysis not have my sins forgiven.  Don’t you know we are in public?  I didn’t want anyone to know I was a sinner.

Sin is our biggest obstacle to reaching Jesus.  O, sure the sin of OTHER people is an obstacle.  But, here we are looking at his own personal sin.  He was a sinner.  He wanted his paralysis fixed, but he needed his heart fixed.  Now there are some people who love to keep others in their sins.  These Pharisees and Scribes who were cynically watching Jesus that day were some of the biggest sinners.  They didn’t need physical healings but they needed their sins forgiven.  They did need touched by Jesus.  They could care less about the suffering of the people and that Jesus was healing them.  They didn’t see a miracle and rejoice.  Instead they went back to their plotting room and said, “We’ve got to kill this guy, or everyone is going to follow him.”  They didn’t care about their brothers and sisters physically and only pretended to care spiritually.  Jesus really does care about both.  Watch your own heart.  As Christians we can become so self-satisfied that we no longer have compassion for those broken by their sins.  We are called to help overcome these obstacles, not rejoice that you don’t have them.  The first way we can do that is to cease sinning against them and then love them despite their sin and try to bring them to Jesus.  Don’t settle for friends and family who are stuck in sin.  Fight for their souls in the name of Jesus.

“Which is easier to say?”  Jesus knows what they are thinking when he tells the man his sins are forgiven.  There is an irony in this question.  If you were a godly person it would be harder for you to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” because that is God’s job.  Yet, in a sinful world and as a sinful person, it would be easier to say that you can forgive sins because it can’t be seen.  Forgiveness of sins is an invisible thing.  But physical healing is obvious.  Now Jesus could have healed the man and then forgiven his sins.  But he does it the other way around for emphasis.  We think his greatest problem is paralysis.  In this world we strive to fix real problems, yet just not the most important ones.  Sin was the man’s most obvious problem to God.  If you could choose to have only one thing from God, you would be a fool to choose physical health.  The man’s amazing healing was Jesus way of proving he could forgive sins.  In fact, all of the healings Jesus did were not because he was on a personal mission to wipe out all sickness and disease in the world.  It was always a means to help the faith of those who were hearing him teach amazing things.  Now it wasn’t true because Jesus did a miracle.  The miracle was true because what Jesus was saying was taught all throughout the Old Testament.  The miracles were not supporting a man who was contradicting the word of God, but one who was fulfilling it.  “Behold, the lamb of God!”

This man left glorifying God that day and for good reason.  But notice the affect on the crowd.  Yes they were amazed, but a fear of the Lord had also settled upon them.  “What manner of man is this who forgives sins and proves it by healing paralysis?”  Signs can help us.  But if we do not have a fear of God no multitude of signs will persuade us.  Because we do not fear God, we become lazy in reading God’s Word and internalizing it.  We become lazy and resistant to listening to the Holy Spirit.  And then, when the Truth appears we kill it.  Why?  We do so because we have been saying no to Truth in so many little ways until we are insulated from Jesus.  Friend, don’t let obstacles keep you from Jesus.  He has already done the heavy lifting all you have to do is believe enough to push through these wet paper bags that remain in the way.

Obstacles to Jesus Audio