7TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth… 

Mk 2:1-12

v. 1. When Jesus returned to Capernauma after some days, it became known that he was at home.

After some days:

There is clearly a pronounced break between this verse and 1:45. There Jesus, having left Capernaum, was unable to enter cities openly. Now he is back in Capernaum once more.

v. 2. Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even around the door, and he preached the word to them.

He preached the word to them.

A well-known expression in the early Church for preaching the good news, the gospel (1:4 and Acts 11:19; 4:29, 31; 8:25; and 15:36). Once again the content of Jesus' word is not more closely specified.

v. 4. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

No doubt they got on to the roof by the outside staircase such as Palestinian houses often had. It is just possible that the Greek words translated removed the roof are a mistranslation of an Aramaic phrase which really meant “they brought him up to the roof”. If so, the picturesque detail about making an opening may be an addition inspired by the false rendering of the Aramaic original. More probably the reference is to making a hole in the wattle and daub of which a Palestinian roof would have been built. (Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw.) Mark's expression (lit. 'unroofed the roof') suggests that he was thinking rather of the tiled roof customary at Rome.

Mat:

The correct rendering of the original; it was the poor man's bed and could fairly easily be carried, which helps to explain v. 12a.

v. 5. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

Faith:

Notice it is the friends' faith as well as the man's own that Jesus takes into account.

Child:

Or “son”. A term of endearment.

v. 7. Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?

Here the sole ground of opposition to Jesus by the scribes was his claiming for himself what they rightly regarded as the sole prerogative of God.

v. 10. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth…

Son of Man:

(i) Mark certainly understood the phrase here in its full messianic sense.

(ii) He, therefore, did not share the modern theory that Jesus only used the expression in its messianic sense after Caesarea Philippi.

On earth:

The scribes were fully persuaded of God's ability and willingness to forgive, but for them forgiveness must await the future judgment. It was distinctive of Christianity that it proclaimed the possibility of forgiveness as a present reality here 'on earth '.

v. 12. He rose, picked up his mat at once, and went away in the sight of everyone. They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this.”

The man's action and the reaction of the onlookers demonstrate the reality and completeness of the cure. There are some close parallels in contemporary pagan stories of healing. E.g. Lucian, Philopseudes II: 'Midas himself, taking up the bed on which he had been lying, went off into the country.'