“We Never Saw Anything Like This!” - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

We’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this morning.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark’s gospel 2:1-12. This passage tells the wonderful story of a paralyzed man who was healed because of the faith of four friends. But there was something else going on in the house that day and

Mark tells this story to show us just how radically different Jesus was.

The last verse in chapter one tells that Jesus became so popular because of His ability to heal the sick and cast out demons that He had to go out into the deserted places to avoid being forced to abandon the longer range work He had come to do.

Let’s face it even way back then if a ‘teachers’ wanted to have lots of followers but at some point it almost always happens that the focus turns from teaching people to keeping people happy so they’ll stick around. Jesus wasn’t about to go that way.

Now after a few days spent away from the city Jesus returns and goes into a house. Most likely Peter’s and word spread fast that Jesus was in the house and a crowd formed filling the house and spilling into the street and they were there not to for healing but to hear Him preach.

The crowd would have included people from all walks of life especially the poor of the city. So this event signals a major milestone in Jesus’ ministry. The ‘sign’ of the Messiah was that He would preach good news to the poor. Jesus was bypassing the accepted way of doing things by taking this message directly to the people instead of being filtered through the ‘approved’ channels.

This must have been refreshing and exciting to most, but threatening and scary to the religious leaders who were there. This radical messiah was anything but ordinary.

Now as Jesus is preaching things get interesting. Four men heard Jesus was back in town and they went and picked up their friend who was a paralyzed and took him to see Jesus so that Jesus could heal him. But when they arrived the crowd was so large they couldn’t get anywhere close to Jesus so they decided to haul their friend up on top of the house and they tore a hole in Peter’s roof so that they could let their friend down right in front of Jesus.

Then when Jesus looked up and saw the faith of these four friends He… forgives the man’s sins. Now if you didn’t already know the story you’d be surprised by that wouldn’t you? The most natural way for this to play out would be for Jesus to reach out and heal this man.

But there were some special guests in the room, the Scribes. (this would be the place in the movie where the ‘duh, da, DUN’ music would play) This is the first time they’re mentioned in Mark’s gospel. They were responsible for maintaining doctrinal purity, and at some point they had received a report about this radical Messiah and they sent a delegation to check things out. What a coincidence that Jesus decided to come back to town just when they were there. Not!

Just like us the scribes would have expected Jesus to heal the man. That’s the show they were expecting to see. But when Jesus forgives the man’s sins He’s taking aim right at the scribes. While most of the people would have scratched their heads at what Jesus said the Scribes knew the ‘doctrinal’ challenge that Jesus was throwing at them.

vs. 7 makes this clear. It was almost like they were saying to themselves ‘Did He really just say what we think He said?’ Then Jesus knowing what was going on their heads drives the nail home in vs. 10..

By using the title “Son of Man” Jesus claimed that He was God.

Years before the Prophet Daniel had written…..

Daniel 7:13-14 "I was watching in the night visions, And behold, [One] like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. 14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion [is] an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom [the one] Which shall not be destroyed.

No one else probably noticed it but…

The scribes were put on notice that they had to make a decision about Jesus. Either He was God or He was a lunatic, or worse a liar. While they were wrestling with this new revelation Jesus drives the point home even deeper when He heals the paralytic man and tells him to get up and take his bed and go home.

Jesus never did anything by accident. Every move was planned and carried out for effect and sometimes we may not understand why He did things a certain way, like the time He spit in a blind man’s eye to heal him. But in this case it’s important to note that Jesus didn’t touch the man to heal him, instead He spoke the words that restored this man’s health.

The scribes knew there was only one other who could speak things into existence, and it was God. By this very sign Jesus was forcing them to make a decision about Him.

The last line in this passage sums the experience up very well “We never saw anything like this!” The crowd was amazed by what they saw, but the scribes left that day with a sick feeling in their gut.

The scribes had a problem; what would they do with this Jesus?

Today, we’re confronted with this same radical Messiah.

Deep within every one of us is something that needs to change, something that we need to give up to allow us to climb higher and go farther with Him.

Today we’re confronted with the same question “What will we do with Jesus?”

It doesn’t have to be sorrowful, it might be that this radical Messiah is wants you to surrender you doubts and fears and allow Him to re-awaken hope that He really can do the impossible even for you. But some He’s challenging to give up our self-serving, self- absorbed ways and take up His cross and follow Him, really follow Him. 

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