The people Jesus knows

Even though we had but one student in class today, the lesson was very good and blessed my heart and mind.

The question we addressed was, "How did Jesus relate to the people He met?" In Mark 2, He showed how He related to three groups of people. The first one was those who are hurt and need healing. The story is one of the most familiar in the Gospels: the four friends carry the paralytic man to Jesus and have to let him down through the roof. Even though I have heard this story and told it over and over, I wondered about things we are not told. Whose idea was it to go to Jesus, the man or one of the friends? How hard was it to persuade the others to participate with them? Whoever's idea it was to go to Jesus, it was the faith of the four friends that lead them to persevere the many obstacles they faced once they got to the house where Jesus was. They could have told the man, "Hey, we're sorry, but this is as far as we can go. There's no way we can get past this crowd." The man himself was at their mercy.

Now think about these men faced with this great obstacle. They could have given up but instead they became creative. Hebrews 10:24 (The Message) says "Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out..." They had to press through the crowd to climb to the roof. Were there stairs? If not, I'd say there would be quite a few people who would think that carrying this man to the roof would not be a good idea. And then they had to wreck the roof. Who's going to pay for that? The man's faith might have gotten his friends to bring him, but it was their faith that overcame the obstacles. They were willing to face the crowd, endure criticism, and pay for the roof. That's why it says in verse 5 (The Message), Jesus was "impressed by their bold belief..." Wow! What would it be like to impress Jesus?

What are the implications of this story for you and me? I think about how little an obstacle it takes to deter me. I could have easily quit when I saw the impossibility of going any further. But I don't want to be that way; I don't want to give up easily. I just watched the movie, "Gran Torino," with Clint Eastwood. I can't recommend it because it has way too much profanity. I hate that. But there is a priest in the movie who tries to make friends with Clint's acerbic character. Now the first time Clint talked to me the way he talked to that priest, I would have been done. But this priest kept coming back and coming back. And in the end, he won Clint's respect and confidence. It was a good lesson for me to watch.

I hope that the next time I share my faith or try to meet another's need, I remember this lesson and press on. I want to be creative and inventive in looking at the situation. And I want to have the "impressed-with-their-bold-belief" kind of faith.