Through the Roof

Context

Capernaum is a small fishing town on the Sea of Galilee, the kind of place where a stranger in the market on Tuesday is old news by Wednesday. Jesus has been here a while, healing people and saying things nobody knows what to do with. When word gets out he's back, the whole town empties toward one door.

Somewhere in that crowd is a man who can't walk, and four friends who carry him.

Story

The friends grab the corners of his mat and haul him to the house. But the crowd is wall-to-wall, spilling out the front door. There's no way in. Most people would turn around. We came, we tried, maybe next week.

These four look at each other and start climbing the roof. They dig through packed mud and thatch with their bare hands, raining dust on a room full of strangers, until daylight breaks through and a stretcher comes down on ropes into the middle of the floor.

Jesus looks up. Mark says he sees their faith, and tells the man on the mat:

"Son, your sins are forgiven."

Then, to settle the muttering Pharisees, he tells the man to get up, take his mat, and go home. And the man does, walking out through the same crowd that wouldn't move for him an hour before.

What We Learn

When someone we love is stuck, we usually pray. We send the text, we check in, we say we're thinking of them. What we rarely do is physically carry them to the place where the help is.

The man didn't have the faith himself. His friends carried it for him, and Jesus honored that.

Someone is probably on a roof for you right now.