Healing and Forgiveness
Image: Martineric @ Flickr
Mark 2:1-12 Expand passage
1A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
6Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
8Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, 11"I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
When I was asked to write this article I was on the verge of saying no. I had too much other stuff to do: exams to study for, full time job and my room to tidy. But I said yes because I thought it would be good for my brain. However after puzzling over the passage, getting overly stressed and nearly having an argument with a friend who tried to help me out, I began to regret agreeing! I felt I knew next to nothing about complex theology and I was developing a headache. On top of everything the space bar on my computer broke.
So I decided to write about what I do know: medicine. I am sure none of you have the faintest idea who I am, so I will introduce myself.
My name is Claire, and I work in a hospital. I’ve done many jobs in various hospitals in Northern Ireland but at the minute my main hideouts are theatres and Intensive Care in Antrim Hospital. Most of you are not from good ol’ Norn Iron and are therefore blessed that you will never work with me, or be treated by me.
Sometimes I find the best way to understand a passage is to imagine I was there. Picture in your head: the house, the hoards of people. Feel the heat of a middle eastern noon, smell the stale stench of sweat and feel the crush of many bodies, all straining and pushing forward. Why were they pushing? Who was this man and why had he such a following? What did he mean by saying ‘your sins are forgiven? Did he really have that authority? Was he reinforcing the belief that illness was a punishment? Yet he looked with such compassion at the man on the stretcher…
The assumption that the people in this passage seem to be making is that illness is caused by sin. However as a healthcare worker it’s an assumption I’m loath to make. Since I’ve been working, I’ve noticed that I’ve had to develop an emotional detachment in certain situations: cardiac arrest, terminal cancer, intensive care patients. However my faith demands that I have compassion for those I care for. And certain situations do seem very unfair. Of course illness can be a punishment for sin: as I write this, the papers here are full of the story of a 19 year old man who requires a liver transplant, having developed end stage liver failure after a weekend of heavy boozing. However I’m sure you are aware of several passages that do not support this belief in every instance. For example in John 9:2 when Jesus’ disciples refer to a man born blind. Jesus tells his disciples that the man in this instance was born blind to that the work of God might be displayed in his life. In the Old Testament a key example of this is the story of Job. Job’s friends tried to convince him that he was guilty of some hidden sin, however he was vindicated and the entire unpleasant experience occurred in order to bring glory to God because of Job’s faithfulness.
God does use illness and other periods of suffering to bring us closer to him and encourage us to rely on him. A commonly quoted passage is Hebrews 12:7, where the writer encourages us to view hardships (illness, financial insecurity, persecution) as God’s discipline in order to perfect our faith and witness. Ultimately this will bring glory to him. In this passage Jesus does exactly this: he uses the suffering of the man and his healing to glorify God and demonstrate that he was more than an itinerant healer and preacher. He uses the belief of illness as a punishment in order to provoke the religious leaders. Only God could forgive sins, and thus by saying in this situation ‘your sins are forgiven’, he was either blaspheming, or he had been given the power to do so by God. And he demonstrates that he has this power by giving an outward physical sign: the man walked.
Of course, modern medicine has moved on so much now. We understand much more about what causes illness, and how we can treat it. Technology allows us to perform microsurgery with the aid of robots, we can use scans to create virtual 3 D images and pick out tiny tumours. Many of the illnesses that were prevalent in Jesus’ time are now virtually extinct in the western world thanks to the discovery of bacteria and then antibiotics. As a trainee in Emergency Medicine, I correct people when they jokingly suggest that I am training to be a surgeon and learning to cut people up. Instead I reply that I stitch people back together again when they cut themselves up! But my efforts are rarely as good as the skin had been previously, and not just because of my poor needlework, I should add. The nature of wound healing means that there will always be a scar. Medicine, healthy food, and exercise can all be used to keep us healthy on the outside. But our sin leaves a scar on our soul that can only be removed by Christ, as he offers us his forgiveness. And in contrast to my needlework, his forgiveness is perfect: no sin is too large – or small.
I realize that this article won’t have answered all the questions you might have about pain or suffering. It is a subject to be tackled by a theologian, not a doctor, and C S Lewis’ (a good Ulsterman) book ‘The Problem of Pain’, might be a good place to start. It’s a massive subject and one that will not be fully answered on this earth. If you have any thoughts please don’t hesitate to put them on the discussion board.
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Thank you for writing and sharing this interesting and informative article.
God bless you.