Lent 2 2023

Today’s Reading: Mark 2:1-12  TEV

“Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the

paralyzed man, “My son,  your sins are forgiven”

Mark 2:5

Most people reading today’s scripture focus on Jesus’s response to the teachers of the law who question his right to announce to the paralytic that his sins are forgiven.  But there is another lesson here for us around the relationship of the four men who brought their paralyzed friend before Jesus to be healed.  Because of the crowded conditions in the house where they were bringing their friend, they are forced to climb onto the roof to use one of the access points common to the houses of that time.  Through that opening they drop their friend before Jesus who notes, not the faith of the paralytic but rather the faith of these four friends of his and in that response he teaches us something of great importance about friendship.

We live in a culture that has lost the meaning of the word friend.  Facebook announces that many of us have hundreds of friends, the majority of whom have little interaction with our daily lives.  The friends of the paralytic, however, were people willing to go to any action necessary to get him into the presence of Jesus, whom they believed could offer him the help he needed.  Their faith combined with their commitment to their friend defines what constitutes true friendship.  True friendship is a commitment to be with others as we see their needs both in the good times and the bad.

I recently saw this illustrated by a man who, at his own expense, traveled over a thousand miles to be at the bedside of his friend who was in a critical condition and later died.  His presence at his friend’s bedside was a time of prayer and tears as they concluded some 35 years of friendship. And he knew that if it had been him in that hospital bed, his friend would have been there for him as well.  The scripture leaves us assuming that the bond between the four men and the paralytic was probably a reciprocal one.

All of which asks us to consider who are the real friends in our lives.  We are fortunate if there are even a few who come to mind.  Then we are challenged to consider what kind of friend we are to each of them.