Jesus forgives and cures a paralytic
1 After some days Jesus re turned to Capernaum. As the news spread that he was at home,
2 so many peo ple gathered that there was no longer room even outside the door. While Jesus was preaching the Word to them,
3 some people brought a pa ra lyzed man to him.
4 The four men who carried him couldn’t get near Jesus because of the crowd, so they opened the roof above the room where Jesus was and, through the hole, lowered the man on his mat.
5 When Jesus saw the faith of these people, he said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now, some teachers of the Law who were sitting there wondered with in them selves,
7 “How can he speak like this insulting God? Who can forgive sins except God?”
8 At once Jesus knew through his spirit what they were thinking and asked, “Why do you wonder?
9 Is it easier to say to this paralyzed man: ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say: ‘Rise, take up your mat and walk?’
10 But now you shall know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
And he said to the paralytic,
11 “Stand up, take up your mat and go home.”
12 The man rose and, in the sight of all those people, he took up his mat and went out. All of them were astonished and praised God saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
The call of Levi
13 When Jesus went out again beside the lake, a crowd came to him and he taught them.
14 As he walked along, he saw a tax collector sitting in his office. This was Levi, the son of Al pheus. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” And Levi got up and followed him.
15 And it so happened that while Jesus was eating in Levi’s house, tax collectors and sinners were sitting with him and his dis ciples for there were indeed many of them. But there were also teachers of the Law of the Pha ri sees’ party,
16 among those who followed Jesus, and when they saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why! He eats with tax collectors and sinners!”
17 Jesus heard them and an swered, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
New wine, new skin
18 One day, when the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting, some people asked Jesus, “Why is it that both the disciples of John and of the Pha risees fast, but yours do not?”
19 Jesus an swered, “How can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bride groom with them, they cannot fast.
20 But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and on that day they will fast.
21 No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear away from the old cloth, making a worse tear.
22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the wine would burst the skins and then both the wine and the
skins would be lost. But new wine, new skins!”
23 One Sabbath he was walking through grainfields. As his disciples walked along with him, they began to pick the heads of grain and crush them in their hands.
24 Then the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! they are doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath!”
25 And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did in his time of need, when he and his men were very hungry?
26 He went into the house of God when Abiathar was High Priest and ate the bread of offering, which only the priests are allowed to eat, and he also gave some to the men who were with him.”
27 Then Jesus said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sab bath.
28 So the Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath.”
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Comments Mark, Chapter 2
• 2.1 With this miracle on the paralytic cured and forgiven, Jesus gives three answers at the same time: to the sick man, to his friends and to the Pharisees.
When Jesus saw the faith of these people (v. 5). These are the friends of the paralytic, and Jesus rewards their faith.
Apparently the paralytic did nothing more than consent to their advice. At once, Jesus tells him – your sins are forgiven. What a strange thing to say! How can Jesus forgive sins if the man is not conscious of any fault and, at the same time, repentant and awaiting forgiveness? Certainly during his long infirmity, this man had asked himself why God was punishing him (the peo ple of his time believed sickness was a pun ishment from God). Many texts of the Old Testament emphasize the complex connection between sin and illness. It is often illness that makes us conscious of our state of sinfulness, and for his part Jesus does not want to heal unless there is reconciliation with God.
Jesus acts like God: he looked at the sinner, rectified the complexes of culpability and pardoned before healing.
Later the Pharisees arrive. When Jesus forgave the paralytic, the simple people did not realize how scandalous his words were. They did not have enough religious formation to realize immediately that only God could give absolution. It was the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who were scandalized. Their indignation is justified because neither they, nor the others, nor the disciples, yet understand that Jesus is the true Son of God. Je sus silences them: If I restore health in the same way God does, should not I also forgive in the way God does?
Jesus disconcerts those who ask who he is. Better still, he shows that only he can save the whole person, body and soul.
FORGIVENESS OF SINS
Happy this man who was assured of his pardon through the glance and the words of Jesus! God is he who lives and loves and we need to meet him so that forgiveness can be authentic – his eyes meeting our eyes. Be cause of this, God had to become human – Jesus forgives sins because he is a son of man (Jn 5:27) and from him we receive the pardon both of God and of people within the Christian community.
PUBLICANS
• 13. To enter the family of God, we must change some of our values. This conversion is not as conspicuous as participation in devotional practices but is much more valuable. First, we must liberate ourselves from prejudices by which we classify peo ple. Let us stop dividing people into good or bad; those we can greet and those we cannot; those we can love and help and those we cannot. Let us learn that God does not hate the rich or the uneducated, those on the left or those on the right, for God’s merciful plan sees to the salvation of all.
The Gospel speaks about the publicans or the tax collectors (v. 15), who served the foreign powers. Jesus’ na tion was under the domination of the Roman Empire, and the tax collectors were Jews who worked for foreigners.
Patriots considered them traitors. The people knew they filled their pockets; even beggars refused to receive from the publicans. Yet Jesus did not condemn them but chose one of them, Levi, as one of his apostles, of whom the majority were committed patriots.
The teachers of the Law were like catechists or religion teachers. They were well versed in religion and admired Jesus’ teachings, but they did not consider as brothers and sisters the publicans and other sinners (that is to say people who did not fulfill the religious precepts).
Levi is probably the apostle Matthew (Mt 9:9). In this case, like Simon, named Peter by Je sus, Levi would have been given the name of Matthew; in Hebrew Mattai means gift of God.
• 18. Many religious leaders sympathized with Jesus. How they would have liked that he rekindle the faith of the nation! Jesus himself did not feel that his primary task was to reorganize worship and bring people to the synagogues.
The Pharisees were fasting. Fasting, a sign of repentance, supported their prayers that God come and liberate his people. God comes in the person of Jesus: joy and celebration are more appropriate than fasting. The prophets had announced the wedding feast of God with his people when he would come to visit us (Is 62:4-5). Be cause of this, in presenting himself as the bridegroom, Jesus identifies who he really is.
What is the new wine? (v. 22) It is of course the Gospel, and the enthusiasm because of the Holy Spirit that leads the disciples to every kind of madness to manifest the love of the Father and the freedom that they have acquired. In order to understand this, let us read the Acts of the Apostles and the lives of the saints, who have marked Church history.
Old skins: Gospel does not fit into the molds of religion and likewise does not enter into those persons who hold onto them at all costs. Mark wants us to catch Gospel’s novelty. We have just seen Jesus welcoming sinners, now we wonder that he doesn’t come like religious groups with prayers and fasting.
• 23. It was normal that passersby, when hungry, would pick fruit or wheat. The Pha risees were scandalized because Jesus’ disciples did this on the Sabbath, a day when all work was prohibited.
The Sabbath was made for man. No law, no matter how holy it is, should be applied in a way that would oppress a per son.
The Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath (v. 28). For the Jews, the observance of the Sabbath was the pillar of the Law established by God. Who did Jesus think he was?