Today's "Moment With Mark" (27) - Sin & Sickness
9 December, 2012
Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven." But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there said to themselves, "What? This is blasphemy! Who but God can forgive sins!" (Mark 2:5-7)
I can almost envision the looks on the faces of the friends. They look at each other and inwardly they are questioning, "Why is Jesus talking about sins being forgiven? We didn't go to all that trouble to get sins forgiven. We came to get our friend healed physically". What's that got to do with sin being forgiven?
The answer? Probably just about everything! Especially if his physical condition is a reflection of his spiritual condition. Maybe Jesus is getting to the very heart of the man's real problem. If the leprosy is somehow attached to the man's sin, then to deal with and resolve the heart condition via forgiveness is to also deal with the leprosy which is the presenting symptom.