Let’s raise the roof!

Jesus has been creating quite a storm. Imagine someone, who has no known authority such as a Rabbi, or Pharisee might possess, starting to heal people across Galilee. As we have said, healing was quite common, but Jesus was more than a healer – this was something different. He didn’t crave popularity, didn’t want the story to get out. The story that he was a healer – Jesus’ healing was different. His story was about to lift upwards, and here let’s raise the roof!

Paralysed Man

In Mark 2:1-12 we have the well known story of a paralysed man being healed after being lowered through the roof. Jesus has been healing many and the crowds have gathered, as we saw in Mark 1:29-39. According to Matthew’s account Jesus has come from Gerasa, where he has healed someone with the demon moving into a herd of pigs – we will hear more of this in future weeks. This may not match up with Luke nor Mark’s account. Nevertheless, I wonder whether chronology is important here but what is our focus. In John’s Gospel the Sadducees’s are already annoyed: well the status quo has been turned upside down, power has been removed – and power is quite a focal point in the Gospels. Perhaps we need to turn everything upside down, and enter from above? To do that let’s raise the roof!

Perhaps power needs to come from above?

But physical healing?

And Healing is here for us today. There was a local group called Healthy Minds in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Their role was to link together groups across the Calder Valley, to facilitate engagement. There were also social practitioners employed in the Medical centres. Surely the medical staff were enough? Well, these social proaction’s would link with Healthy Minds to ensure that each person who could chat with another person, find a relationship which would allow them to get out of the house, or at least have a natter on the phone. The idea was that it might help people not attend the Medical centre so much – and anecdotally, it did. I wonder if healing isn’t totally physical after all, but holistic: there are many strands to this healing.

Galilean Houses

The 4 friends of the paralysed man. Oh before we get to the house, let’s pause a moment. What caused this paralysis? We just don’t know. Many people suggest a wide variety of possible causes – but the authors didn’t feel it of importance – why was that? Common, let’s raise the roof!

Anyway the friends wanted the man to be healed and this Jesus character might be their solution. Just the house is surrounded by the crowds. So seeing their opportunity they push through and find the stairway leading up to the roof. What might these roofs look like?

Typical roof, above, from NT times with roof roller. The next photo shows the roof a little later in the year after grass has grown on the roof and died under the summer heat. From the inside of the house the ceiling might look like the cover photo.

Let’s Raise the Roof!

Taking their shovel, pick, implement which was at hand, they removed the baked mud or clay upper layer. Luke 5:19 suggests that there were tiles (κεράμων) up there – and it was possible, archeologists would suggest, that tiles could be present. The word for tiles is also the word we use for ceramics, so some form of clay may have been there. Anyway, after the clay has been removed, they remove the branches, then ease a few logs apart. I suspecting that quite a few of the bystanders below – even Jesus – has sought refuge from the fragments of the roof which have been descending for a wee time.

They then, upon this now far more fragile roof, lower the man down to Jesus.

Jesus heals…

Jesus does not diagnose the condition, but says his sins are forgiven.

Automatically the authorities are in rapture – and not a good one. “He is blaspheming, for only God can forgive sins.”

The healing is not of a physical kind but one where relationships have been restored. Why was this man paralysed?
Was it a physical paralysis, or one where we are unable to approach another or to go outside of the house?

In Mark 2:10 the text refers to Jesus as the Son of Man, linking this to Daniel 7:13. It should be noted that different translations link this Hebrew Scriptural text to the New Testament. In the Hebrew the Daniel phrase ‘Kebar enash‘ means “like a human being“. In some translations it might look backwards from the New Testament and find a link from Jesus to Daniel’s text.

So what is this healing?

We might also see sin as a cause of physical illness. I feel this is wholly incorrect. The symptoms seen were of paralysis: the solution was of forgiveness to bring restitution, to restore relationship. There is no particular sin mentioned nor guilt suggested with this man. This healing is about restoring our lives to one where we may live with peace, with God.

Which is where we end this passage. What is this healing? Is Jesus a healer or something more? Who is this Jesus?

At every stage of Jesus’ ministry, there is that question: “Who do you say I am?”

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Can I invite you to read this article published on the BBC about how we might wish to heal those with disabilities without really considering their perspective? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48054113