Scripture Reference: Mark 2:1-3:6
Who Is He to Forgive Sins? – Continued
Please read Mark 2:1-12 for the background to this section.
From Last Lesson: The fact that Jesus has healed the man with a word excludes the possibility that He is a harmless madman. The fact that He lives a humble life and accepts the rejects of society excludes the possibility that He is an evil tyrant . . .
. . . (Consider this; even Hitler, an obvious evil tyrant, spoke with authority). The only option left is the hardest one of all . . . that He is actually who He claims to be; He is what the Bible points us to: He is the man who is God.
What, then, is the reaction on the day, as the crowd finds their voice, as the teachers sit there in judgement, as the man walks away and his friends celebrate on what is left of the roof? The law teachers will soon be back. In this story, they have merely grumbled quietly, but the accusation of blasphemy will not go away. Even when they see the evidence with their own eyes, as they do here, most of the religious leaders will never accept the verdict. To them Jesus is dangerous, subversive, a threat to their own position. In the end He simply has to go. This cycle of five stories sees the intensity of opposition steadily mounting; eventually it will lead to Jesus’ crucifixion.
The crowd’s reaction is best described by their exclamation, “We never saw anything like this!” They have seen the healings before, though this is probably the most spectacular yet. They have heard Jesus teach before. What is new is the pointer to who Jesus really is. They praise God because they now see His hand clearly at work and they begin to glimpse that Jesus is something more than a prophet and healer. But do they really make the connection? Sadly, from what follows, it seems that most of them do not.
What Does He Think He Is Doing?
Please read Mark 2:13-22 for the background to this section.
How would you feel if your name became a byword for betrayal? In the years before the Second World War, Vidkun Quisling was a gifted Norwegian diplomat, army officer and politician. But in 1933 he founded the Norwegian Nazi party, and when Nazi Germany invaded his country in April 1940, Quisling attempted to seize power. He betrayed his own people, urging them not to resist the invasion, and managed to delay the mobilization of the army. Later the Germans made him head of state of occupied Norway. Not surprisingly, at the end of the war he was tried and executed for high treason. Now in the dictionary a “quisling” is defined as a traitor who serves the enemy occupying his country. When Jesus was on earth, there was a group of professionals who fitted the word “quisling” perfectly. At a time when their country was occupied by Rome, and the area of Galilee where they lived was under the control of a puppet government, these men made their living by exploiting their own people and helping the occupiers to do their dirty work. Not surprisingly, they were detested. These lowest of the low were the “tax collectors,” and in the next verses we see that Jesus meets one of them.
We have seen Jesus meeting outcasts before. At the end of chapter 1, He meets a man with leprosy; He reaches out across the barriers to touch the man and bring the outcast in. We saw that Jesus is not bothered about the barriers that cut people off, not in the least.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 