Day 5: Jesus shows His power to forgive
Miranda (who just turned twelve) is famous in our family for asking, “Would you rather?” questions. Sometimes, they’re questions about magical powers, like, “Would you rather be able to fly or to teleport?” Sometimes, she just asks, “If you could have a superpower, what would it be?” In our passage today, we’ll see Jesus using two of His superpowers: the power to heal and the power to forgive sins. If we were picking one of those superpowers, we might pick the power to heal. After all, there are a lot of really sick people in the world, and it would be amazing to be able to heal them! But we’ll see in Mark today which power Jesus thinks is more important.
In verses 1–2, what happened when everyone found out that Jesus was home?
What did the friends of the paralyzed man do in verses 3–4?
What do you think they were hoping Jesus would do?
What does Jesus do instead in verse 5?
How do the teachers of the law react in verses 6–7?
Okay. Again, it’s not so fun. Sin hurts other people, but it is also an offense against God. So, only God has the right to forgive sins. That’s why the teachers of the law are so shocked by Jesus’ words. They think He is “blaspheming” (saying something bad and untrue about God) because Jesus is claiming He can do what only God can do.
How does Jesus respond to their complaint (vv. 8–9)?
How would you answer Jesus’ question (v. 9)?
We might think it’s easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven!” than “Get up and walk,” because you can’t see someone being forgiven, so you could say it had happened when it hadn’t. But how does Jesus prove He has forgiven the man’s sins in verses 10–12?
How does Jesus use His power in this story?
How did people respond in verse 12?
In the Gospels, Jesus often calls Himself “the Son of Man.” He uses that title thirteen times in Mark’s gospel alone! So, what does it mean? In the Old Testament, it can just mean a human (e.g., Psalm 8:4). But it’s also what God calls the prophet Ezekiel throughout the book of Ezekiel. And the prophet Daniel has a vision in which he sees someone “like a son of man” who comes on the clouds of heaven and is given a universal, everlasting kingdom by God Himself (Daniel 7:13–14). So, Jesus has amazing power!
In our society, people spend a lot of money on doctors and medicine and hospitals—and physical healing is good! In fact, the world’s first hospitals were started by Christians because they wanted sick people to have a place where they could be cared for. But what difference would it make in our society today if people believed that having your sins forgiven was even more important than physical healing?
For Jesus, it was easy to heal people. He just had to say the word. But as we read on in the gospel of Mark, we’ll find that forgiving people’s sins is much harder. It cost Jesus His life.
“Righteous” means being right with God. The Pharisees were extremely religious Jews. Most people would have seen them as super holy: the most righteous people in town! When we meet Pharisees in the Gospels, that’s almost always how they see themselves. But we’ll notice as Mark’s gospel unfolds that the Pharisees hate Jesus and don’t want Him to be king.