What does faith look like? Have you ever seen someone’s faith in action? I have been amazed to watch people at the bedside when a loved one is dying and hear their words of hope and assurance of a heavenly reunion in that moment. I have seen friends don work gloves and safety goggles and travel for hours to help people affected by hurricanes. I have watched someone wave on their way back to surgery, grinning at the knowledge that they were in God’s hands. Each time I see someone’s faith, I am struck by the notion that to see this, they have to have heard the Word proclaimed in their lives. That makes our job as faith-sharers so much more important. Real faith is both seen and heard.

In this marvelous and familiar story of the four friends who carry their paralyzed friend to Jesus for healing, we both see and hear how faith is experienced in this story. In the very first sentence we read that the people heard Jesus was at home. After healing a demon possessed man, Jesus was now ensconced in a home so that he could do his primary ministry: Teach the Word of God. He could no longer be a street preacher because the crowds besieged him with requests for healing and nobody could hear a thing.

As the man was being lowered from the rooftop, Jesus looked up and saw the faith of his friends. Faith in action is the best way to get Jesus’ attention. Their complete faith that Jesus could heal their friend was met with the man’s sins being forgiven. Wait, what? That was not what they had come for.

Mark 2 (Common English Bible)

2 After a few days, Jesus went back to Capernaum, and people heard that he was at home. ² So many gathered that there was no longer space, not even near the door. Jesus was speaking the word to them. ³ Some people arrived, and four of them were bringing to him a man who was paralyzed. ⁴ They couldn’t carry him through the crowd, so they tore off part of the roof above where Jesus was. When they had made an opening, they lowered the mat on which the paralyzed man was lying. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven!”

Jesus was a problem solver, and he instantly saw the real problem here. Yes, legs that worked would solve this man’s problems, but the greater issue of his sins were addressed first. What good are legs if one is damned for eternity? So Jesus took his divine authority and healed him of his sin. Of course the legal experts saw and heard this differently. They saw a blasphemer claiming to be God. But Jesus, seeing into their hearts and hearing their thoughts asserted himself as God’s son. He had the authority to forgive sins and the power to heal his physical ailment.

⁶ Some legal experts were sitting there, muttering among themselves, ⁷ “Why does he speak this way? He’s insulting God. Only the one God can forgive sins.”

⁸ Jesus immediately recognized what they were discussing, and he said to them, “Why do you fill your minds with these questions?⁹ Which is easier—to say to a paralyzed person, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk’? ¹⁰ But so you will know that the Human One has authority on the earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed, ¹¹ “Get up, take your mat, and go home.”

Miracles of faith are all around us if we just pause long enough to see what God is doing in our lives and stop to listen to his Word being proclaimed through Scripture, preaching, sharing, and action. What do you see? Are you listening? God’s healing is evidenced through our actions when we show and tell of his Good News. Where will you put your faith into action today? Get ready. You’ve never seen anything like Jesus!

¹² Jesus raised him up, and right away he picked up his mat and walked out in front of everybody. They were all amazed and praised God, saying, “We’ve never seen anything like this!”

Faith in Action by Wende Pritchard