Sermon Notes Sunday September 17

Mark 2:1-12

Home is where the Heart is.

I have a number of places that I might call “home.” Partly it depends on who you are talking to and where you are at the time. Sometimes when I lived in Dallas I would call home Seattle simply because it was easier than saying Rochester, WA and then explaining no, not Washington D.C., WA State.

Today’s Gospel Reading tells us that Jesus is at home. We don’t often think about Jesus being at home. Often we think of Jesus wondering around with people following him. Yet, we know that there were times when Jesus had a place he called home. In the Gospel of Mark that home is Capernaum.

Capernaum is a small fishing village along the Sea of Galilee. The remains of the first century place are visible today and there is a church that hovers above the reported site of this home described in the Gospel of Mark. All that remain are some stone foundations but you can get a sense of the tight community that existed in the time of Jesus. The town itself is smaller than our 5 acres at LUMC. The “streets” or walkways are pretty narrow between the houses. It wouldn’t take a whole lot of people to block the entrance.

The paralytic’s friends are pretty audacious. Climbing on the roof and ripping it apart so that they could lower their friend down to Jesus. They go to every effort to be sure that their friend might be made whole by Jesus.

I imagine that as the paralytic’s friends lowered him down to Jesus they were anxious and hopeful. With each effort they were brining him closer to his best hope for healing. I imagine they were anxious, wondering if this was actually going to work. What if it didn’t work? What if their friend is never healed?

The healing itself is extraordinary, Jesus says “your sins are forgiven.” What does sin have to do with his paralysis? There is this folk religious idea among some in ancient Judaism that sin is what causes our troubles. So some in the village and perhaps, this man himself, believed that it was his sin that caused his paralysis. So Jesus welcomes and heals him by declaring that his sin is forgiven.

I don’t know if it was sin that paralyzed this man but I do know that there are times when I have been paralyzed with guilt. You know those moments when you are so overcome with the guilt of your actions that you don’t know what to do next, you simply wish you could make the situation go away.

Jesus knows that the healing we need is not only physical healing but the healing that we need is spiritual. We need to come to Jesus and be released from sin.

Sometimes all we need to find this healing is to come to a place where Jesus is. Hopefully, we won’t have to tear the roof off the building, but if that is what it takes, may we have the strength to do it. Home is where we are free from sin and death and free to live and love!


What effort are you willing to go to so that your friends might come closer to Christ?

What Sin do you desire for Christ to heal in your life today?