Mark 2
Mark 2:1-28
1 And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house.
2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them.
3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.
4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts,
7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?
9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’?
10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic,
11 “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
13 Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them.
14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.
15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.
16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
18 The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”
19 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.
21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; or else the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is made worse.
22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him:
26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”
27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
Here was Jesus, the son of God, healing a paralyzed man and bringing deliverance to those who were bound in sin, and yet there was, as is the natural human tendency, an immediate launching into what was wrong. They were presented with a way out of religious constraints; all they could do was find problems with it. When God is moving in demonstrations, His ways and methods will not conform to preconceived notions of man. Because He did something in days of old that was so wonderful doesn’t mean that He’s going to do it that same way again. He may need a new wineskin/piece of cloth. Especially because it doesn’t fit into our logic or preference, He’s going to do precisely that, because faith isn’t based upon reasoning, but an inner unction the mind cannot control. We want to squeeze legitimacy into our well-formed notions, while God is wanting to wonderfully liberate us from containers that will break to carry an overwhelming glory that is His alone.
God desires for us in this historic time to let go of skepticism that may really just be attempts at validating our own unproductive ways. Instead of embracing the role of “deciders what is wrong,” there is an opportunity to embrace the Spirit of life in Christ that is leading to adventures not yet known. Forever based on the Word that is unchanging, there may be a need for adjustments to our perceived revelations for the Spirit to freely flow. The methods(Sabbath) will need to serve the Son of Man and not visa versa. So much better it will be to run with joy into the fields of freedom and provision than ride the sidelines among the naysayers and possessors of “discernment.” As long as the heart is kept pure in its pursuit of the Master and departure from the world, the Spirit will guide from an inner voice to yet-to-be-discovered uncharted adventures.