Which is easier: to say to a paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins… I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.
Mark 2:9-11
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Which is easier?
Jesus has just told a paralysed man, carried in by four others, that his sins are forgiven. Some scribes think: this is blasphemy, only God can forgive sins. They don't say it aloud, yet Jesus answers. His question is clever. Anyone can say that someone's sins are forgiven, because nobody can check it. Get up and walk: everyone sees that at once.
Jesus ties the two together. What you can see, a man getting up and going home, vouches for what you cannot see. The forgiveness was real. The walking proves it.
Question for today
Do I believe I am forgiven, even when I see or feel nothing of it?
Prayer
You have the power to forgive, Lord Jesus. When I doubt whether that applies to me too, remind me of the man who walked home. Amen.
My prayer
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