Paralyzed…or friendless? Which would you rather be, if you had to choose one? Healthy, but lonely? Or helpless, but loved? The choice isn’t always ours to make. Which do you think the following man preferred?

Mark 2:1 says, “Then they came to him (Jesus) bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.” Paralyzed. He couldn’t move himself, but his four friends carried him to Jesus on a stretcher. He wasn’t always paralyzed. Once he and his four friends were younger. They may have all worked together, maybe even played together when they were kids. You can’t help but care about your friends! You pull together when one friend faces some kind of tragedy. This man had been paralyzed, but he hadn’t been forgotten. He had four faithful companions who would do whatever they could for their friend. Thank God for friendship!

This day these four heard the news. Jesus was in town! All four agreed, “Let’s get him to Jesus!”

I’m sure it wasn’t the first time they had carried that stretcher. It may have been common in Capernaum to see that stretcher pass by, helped by four familiar hands. As they carried their friend through the streets, their hopes for his recovery had never been higher. But when they found the house where Jesus was teaching, they couldn’t get near it. The door and the walkway were jammed with people. Verse 4 begins, “And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, and let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.”

These men meant business about helping their friend! There were probably stairs leading up to the roof. Have you ever carried someone on a stretcher up the stairs? The trick is to keep the back end of the stretcher level with the front end, or you might dump the person. They got him safely to the roof. Thank God for a flat roof! They figured out where Jesus would be standing in the house below. Then the noise began; tiles were breaking. Plaster was falling. Structural supports were somehow broken out. Now for the delicate part.  Maybe they ripped up pieces of their clothes to make ropes. They began to lower their friend down through the hole on the stretcher, working in perfect unison to keep him level.

Suddenly the man on the stretcher saw a head appear, then a neck and shoulders. He felt his body finally touch the floor beside the dusty, dirty feet of Jesus. He looked up. And Jesus looked down. He’d often looked up from his bed into the faces of his faithful friends. But he’d never seen a face like this before. And he’d never met a friend like this before. Jesus understood this paralyzed man’s greatest need. But he also saw something most precious in those four friends still up there on the roof.

Verse 5 begins, “When Jesus saw their faith...” Their faith! Not the faith of the paralyzed man. He may not have had any faith at all. But if those four men hadn’t believed that Jesus could heal their friend, would they have gone to all that risk and work? They not only believed that Jesus could do it. They knew Jesus would do it! And nothing was going to prevent them from getting their friend to Jesus! Up on the roof, maybe lying on their bellies with their heads bent down through that hole, they heard Jesus speak these words to their beloved friend. “Son, your sins are forgiven you”.

What comfort must have flooded this paralyzed man’s heart. The four on the roof must have felt it too. Friend, how would you feel, if you were on the floor at the feet of Jesus Christ, and he said to you, “Your sins are forgiven you”?

You know as well as I do that everyone of us has been guilty of sin in the eyes of God. We have broken his Commandments. You may be the strongest person on earth physically, but if you’re still committing sin, you are every bit as paralyzed, in soul and spirit, as this man was in body.  So paralyzed by your own anger, pride, fear or bitterness that you can’t even keep the Commandments of God. And you’ve grown so used to sinning against him, that you don’t even know you’re paralyzed.

But are you willing to put away all the excuses for the wrongs you’ve done? Are you ready to take full responsibility for your sins? When you, friend, are finally willing to lay yourself at the feet of Jesus, and confess your helpless sinfulness to him, then your heart will hear Jesus saying to you too; “Your sins are forgiven you”.

That hole in the roof suddenly became like the gateway to Heaven. Five hearts were overflowing with gladness and joy. There is no joy like the joy of sins forgiven!

But not everyone was happy that day. Verses 6 and 7 tell how some of the religious teachers in the house thought, “Why does this man speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?” Jesus knew that only God could forgive sins. Then why did Jesus forgive sins? Simply because Jesus was God, and he was about to prove it once again.

In verse 9, Jesus answered those skeptics, “Which is easier to say to the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’, or ‘Arise, take up your bed, and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man [Jesus] has power on earth to forgive sins, (he said to the paralyzed man) ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and go to your house.”

As soon as Jesus said that, both sickness and sin were gone from this man. With a heart made pure and a conscience now as white as snow, this man stood to his feet and put his stretcher under his arm. The crowd stepped aside as he walked out of the house. He was ready to live the rest of his life for the man who had just become his nearest, and dearest friend, Jesus.

Now, if you have not yet given your life to Jesus; let’s talk a little more about...friends.

If you drive by your best friend’s house tonight, and see it burning, I believe you would do everything in your power to see your friend and his family rescued from the fire. You wouldn’t waste a minute. But what if you couldn’t save him? What if (God forbid) your best friend should die tonight, whether by fire, or accident or sickness? Is he prepared for Heaven, should he die tonight? Or do both you and your friend still do some things that you both know are wrong? Can you even ask God for forgiveness, and sincerely mean it?

No one enters Heaven unforgiven, no matter how much you love them. Why haven’t you done all that’s within your power to see that your friend’s sins are forgiven him so that he can escape the hot and eternal fires of Hell? Why haven’t you knelt together and confessed all your sins to Jesus, then turned away from them once and for all? Then you could walk together on that straight and narrow road toward Heaven. Sharing a friend like Jesus will make your friendship ten times sweeter. These four men were true friends! They brought their friend to Jesus. There is no greater thing that one friend can do for another. In God’s Book – THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR! Are you ready to be one? Bow your head, and make this your prayer.

“Dear Jesus, just as I am, I lay at your feet. Spiritually paralyzed; selfish and deceitful; you’ve seen it all anyway. Yet you died that awful death for me. Please forgive all my sins, as you did the paralyzed man’s. In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

If you’ve meant that prayer with all your heart, you’ll find that Jesus will become your very best friend. Pray everyday. Read your Bible everyday. Find a Bible believing church and attend there regularly. And, with prayer and patience, bring your friends to Jesus any way you possibly can.   B.T.