Mark 2:2, commentary and pictures

News that Jesus was staying at Peter's house in Capernaum drew men, women and children from every direction, filling the house and the space about the entrance until there was no room to receive more, even near the door, while he preached the word to them. His disciples sat near him to hear and understand the truths they would afterward proclaim throughout the world and across the ages. The press blocked the palsied man and those bearing him on his bed from coming into his presence or even within hearing, so they tore open the roof and let him down before him while the crowd waited in almost breathless silence. The word he preached was good tidings of mercy and deliverance and miraculous power to cure every malady and free those held by Satan, and in that setting he joined preaching the truth with healing the sick as the pattern to follow. The healing that followed was wrought to manifest with convincing evidence that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins as well as to heal the sick, first giving the sin-burdened sufferer peace through pardon and then restoring his body in full vigor.

House Crowded to Hear

News that Jesus was staying as a guest in Peter's house in Capernaum spread abroad and drew men, women, and children flocking from every direction to hear Him as a wonderful Teacher teach the word. His gracious instruction had already been heard and His wonderful miracles had already been witnessed, showing that He turned none away and that even loathsome lepers found access to His presence and were healed, giving hope that a helpless sufferer might be relieved if brought under His notice. Many gathered inside the house and around its entrance, filling it so completely that there was no room to receive more, no, not so much as about the door, while He preached the word to them.

His disciples sat near Him while He taught because they needed to hear and understand the truths they would later proclaim in speech and writing throughout the world and across the ages. They listened so they could later proclaim His teaching after hearing it in that crowded house. The crowd itself was mixed in motive and background, including religious leaders intent on accusing Him, people eager to hear though understanding only in part, curious onlookers, and people of different social groups and nations, and for some hearers His words planted seeds of life that would later bear fruit.

The dense crowd blocked the way so that the paralytic and those bearing him on his bed could not come directly into His presence or even come within hearing of His voice. The crowd's presence made it difficult for the paralytic and his friends to reach Him through the press. They at once tore open the roof and let down the bed where the sick of the palsy lay before Him, while the crowd waited with almost breathless silence to see how Christ would treat this apparently hopeless case.

The gathering is also described as beside the lake, where the people were gathered about Him as He taught and where He laid His hands on the sick and the lame, the blind, the paralytic, and those dying of various maladies, who rose up in health. His teaching in such a crowded home shows that He brought divine instruction to people where they gathered, including in their homes, rather than teaching only from the pulpit. His presence among them brought families under the influence of His teaching.

Forgiveness and Healing Power

This crowded preaching belongs to Christ's ministry to people seeking help for spiritual and physical needs, and the account of the man sick of the palsy is set forth to teach lessons about His healing ministry, God's healing power, the work of caring for the sick for restoration of health, and His power to heal the soul. The word He preached was good tidings of His miraculous power to cure every malady, words of mercy to the despairing and deliverance for those held by the power of Satan by a word of sublime authority. Those tidings revived hope in hopeless sufferers and made them long to come to Him and place themselves in His hands for relief and forgiveness.

His gracious instruction had already been heard and His wonderful miracles had already been witnessed, showing that He turned none away and that even loathsome lepers found access to His presence and were healed. So news of His miracles of mercy aroused hope again in the despairing palsied man that he too might be relieved if brought under His notice. His friends who reported His wonderful works assured him that others as sinful and helpless had been healed and even lepers cleansed, which encouraged him to believe his own petition would be granted.

The paralytic had lost all hope of recovery, his disease the result of a life of sin with suffering embittered by remorse, his wasted flesh already showing signs of decay with dissolution doing its work upon his body. He had appealed to Pharisees and doctors and priests who coldly pronounced him incurable, abandoned him to the wrath of God as evidence of divine displeasure, tortured him with the thought that God had cast him off, and held themselves aloof as holy while themselves more guilty than those they condemned, leaving him entirely helpless and sunk in despair seeing help from no quarter. Though fearing the pure Physician would not tolerate him in His presence or allow him entrance, his chief desire was not so much physical restoration as relief from the burden of sin by pardon and peace with Heaven, being content to live or die according to God's righteous will if forgiven, crying to come into His presence with no time to lose. He had heard of Jesus through his friends and asked to be brought to the mighty Healer, besought his friends to carry him on his bed, which they gladly undertook.

In this setting Jesus bound together preaching the truth and healing the sick, a union that is the pattern to follow, and the case instructs physicians how to minister to a diseased mind as well as to the body. His first work was to give peace of mind through forgiveness, saying thy sins be forgiven thee, which filled the sufferer's heart with peace and joy as he received the words in simple faith with silent joy. The miracle that followed was performed to manifest His power to forgive sins and proves with convincing and unquestioned evidence that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins as well as to heal the sick, that He is the promised Saviour, with the restored body showing His power and compassion toward the guilty and suffering and confirming the message of salvation.

The man rose with the strength of youth and in the full vigor of manhood, carrying with ease the couch on which he had been slowly borne as if it were a feather's weight, going out blessing God at every bounding step with obedient arms, fresh flesh, firm free step, and joy and hope and purity and peace in his face. He returned to his own family walking in full health with strength and hope restored, his family gathering round with tears of joy scarcely daring to believe, glad thanksgiving going up from that home, God glorified through His Son, and the man and his family made firm in faith and loyalty with no doubt dimming their faith. The people fell back to give him room to pass and gazed with awe-struck faces as if heaven had opened and revealed the glories of the better world, whispering that they had seen strange things that day while watching in awe. The work so impressed their minds that the influence of the leading Jews was for the time forgotten, leaving the Pharisees dumb with amazement and overwhelmed with defeat with no opportunity for prejudice and jealousy to inflame the multitude, in marked contrast between Christ's gentle dignity united with miraculous works and their proud and self-righteous bearing.

The stronger this evidence, the more the scribes and Pharisees armed themselves with hatred, malice, skepticism, and unbelief till left to forge chains binding them in hopeless darkness with no reserve power left to reach hearts so hardened. They recognized but would not confess the presence of a superior being who possessed and claimed as His own a power they thought belonged to God alone. The story stands full of hope and encouragement with a lesson of warning from their caviling.