Amy C Walters

Jesus Heals a Paralytic – Luke 5:17-26

As news of Jesus’ teaching and healing spread, the crowds started to grow. When a group of friends seeking healing for a man who was paralyzed were unable to access Jesus, they went to Plan B–lowering the friend through the roof. Through their efforts we see that faith is persistent.

Let’s take a moment to picture this scene; the setting, who’s in it, what’s happening, and what the people in it might be feeling as these things are happening. The story starts with Jesus teaching as he’s in a house filled with people. The house is crowded and it’s filled with Pharisees and teachers of the law who are sitting there, listening to him teach.

And then, off in the distance, come some men, carrying a man who’s paralyzed on a mat between them like a stretcher. Luke doesn’t tell us how many people there are carrying this man. He doesn’t even name them, even though they play a big role in this story. They’re anonymous. We don’t know how far they’ve come from, but they are carrying their friend and planning to present him to Jesus.

The friends arrive at the house, and it’s crowded. They look for a way in but can’t find one because there’s so many people packed inside. So their plan A has not worked.

They’re stuck outside the house. They can maybe even hear Jesus teaching inside. They are so close, and yet they are left on the outside.

How might that have felt for them? Maybe discouraging. We’ve come all this way. This was our plan, our only option. But we are left on the outside.

They could have been frustrated. Why can’t we get in there? We need to do this. This man needs to see Jesus.

What were their options at that moment? They could have decided, well, I guess we better go home. This is not gonna work out. Maybe they could have decided, let’s find another time to bring him here. Or maybe Jesus will leave here at some point, and then we can go and find him later.

Instead, they persist. They don’t give in to discouragement or frustration. They don’t go away and find another time. They go to plan B–go up to the roof. 

So they carry their friend up onto the roof and start removing the tiles in order to lower their friend down. This is gonna be hot and sweaty work as they are in the sunlight, as they have to carefully lower their friend down, making sure to do it evenly so they don’t accidentally dump their friend. It’s dirty work to remove the roof tiles.

Think about the people inside the house at this point too. They are sitting there listening to Jesus teach, and there would definitely be noise up above as these men are up there pulling up the ceiling tiles. Suddenly light is coming in, debris is falling on their head. This would be a major distraction and interruption to Jesus’ teaching, especially when a man comes down through the ceiling, right in front of them.

Picture them having to scoot closer to each other and get really tight. It’s already crowded in this house, so crowded those men couldn’t get in in the first place. And now these men are having to crowd together even more as a paralyzed man on a mat is coming down right on top of their heads.

How would that feel to be someone in the house? To be honest, I would be frustrated and annoyed. I’m trying to listen to Jesus here, and you are being a distraction. You are interrupting what is happening.

But the men on the roof persist in spite of maybe some angry glares up in their direction. They are so determined to get their friend to Jesus.

What about this friend, this man who was paralyzed? Again, we know very little about him, where he comes from, how long he has been paralyzed for. We don’t even know if he wants to be there. Did he talk his friends into this, or did they talk him into this?

I think at the very least, it would be pretty embarrassing to come down through the roof in front of a crowd of strangers in the middle of a teaching time. All the eyes would be on you. You would feel pretty helpless and exposed. It would cost a lot of your pride and dignity to be in that spot.

But there he is. His friends have gone to all this effort to bring him there, to find a way to get him into the house in front of Jesus. And now he has been lowered down through the ceiling, and he’s lying there.

And Luke tells us in the story that Jesus “saw their faith and said, ‘friend, your sins are forgiven.’” 

Jesus saw their faith. That’s a plural. It’s not just the paralyzed man, but the friends as well. Now, I don’t know if “their” refers to just the friends or the friends and the paralyzed man together, but either way, this is collective, the faith of this group. 

And Jesus, seeing that faith, first forgives their friend and then heals their friend. He says, “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat and go home.” And the man immediately stands up in front of them, picks up what he had been lying on, and goes home praising God.

Can you imagine his friends on the roof peering down through the hole that they’ve made and seeing this happen? How incredible would that feel? Your friend has been forgiven. The purpose that you came for has been accomplished.

Did they run down from the roof immediately and meet him outside as he makes his way through the crowd and starts to head home? Did they have a little dance party right outside as they celebrated the healing and forgiveness of this friend?

What about the man who had been healed? How incredible would that feel? To have this encounter with Jesus where you are forgiven and healed.

Notice too that immediately he stands up and picks up his mat. This man’s muscles are not atrophied. He’s not wobbly as he gets up. He doesn’t need assistance. He’s even able to pick up his own mat and carry it out of there. He’s at full strength. That’s what Jesus’ healing does.

These men had to go to great lengths to get their friend in front of Jesus. But do you think they doubted for a moment whether the effort was worth it? No! All the effort paid off as they saw their friend healed and restored and forgiven. How incredible to get to be a part of that? 

So what are the obstacles that these men faced in getting to Jesus? There’s just the hard physical labor of carrying their friend, of removing the roof tiles, of lowering him down. There was discouragement as they came and Plan A didn’t work, and they had to come up with Plan B. There’s just the potential embarrassment and shame from this paralyzed man being lowered through the ceiling in front of the crowd. There’s the possible reaction of the crowd of being upset at the interruption. 

There’s another obstacle too–anonymity. These men aren’t named. In fact, after those men lower their friend down from the ceiling, they aren’t mentioned again. Luke just kind of leaves them up there on the roof. We don’t know what happens to them next.

We want to be known and recognized for what we do. And these men, at least in this story, don’t get that recognition. But that was okay with them because their focus was on getting their friend to Jesus.

The key truth that we see from this story is that faith is persistent. 

That might be kind of obvious–persistence is probably written in the very definition of faith. And yet sometimes we can forget. As we are on our own faith journey, we can get turned back sometimes by the obstacles that we encounter.

We can get discouraged with how much effort or how long it’s taking to accomplish something, or that we have to keep coming up with another plan. Plan A doesn’t work, maybe plan B and C and D don’t work, and life has just not turned out the way that we expected.

We can get hung up on anonymity, not being recognized for our efforts, feeling like no one sees.

And yet in this story, Jesus sees their faith. These men were not anonymous to Jesus. He saw their faith. And Jesus sees yours too, as you persist in the things that you are involved in, even if you feel like nobody else sees, Jesus does.

Sometimes we can give up and not persist in things when we feel like other people are against us. We don’t want to be rude. We don’t want to interrupt. We don’t want to make people uncomfortable. And yet the discomfort of the people in this story is secondary. What’s primary is getting their friend to Jesus.

When we are on our own faith journey, sometimes we need those reminders to persist, because there is a big payoff. Just as these friends see their paralyzed friend healed and forgiven, there is a reward for us as we persist in our faith as well. We may get to see it in our lifetime. We may have to wait for heaven. But there is a reward.

Something else I want you to take note of here, too: Luke doesn’t tell us how many friends there are in this group carrying this paralyzed man there. But there is something about walking this faith journey together. There may have been some in this group that did get discouraged and want to give up and go home. But together, they were able to encourage one another. They were able to share the load. And that helped them persist.

Part of persistence is doing the journey together with others so that when we have our times of discouragement, when we want to give up, we can help one another. That’s a key part of persisting in faith.