Last night I prayed for rain. I prayed that Tropical Storm Brett would turn this way and drop a nice non-destructive gentle rain on us for the next week, all in the hopes that such rain would keep my air conditioning-less condo cool.
Then I realized that the repairman can’t work on the air conditioning in the rain.
Which just goes to show how even our most basic, simplest prayers can go wrong and how, more often than not, we’re not even praying for the right thing.
I’ve been rereading King’s Cross by Timothy Keller for a book study I’m leading. Each time now that I read it, I seem to be going through a different trial in my life and each time I read it, I get something new out of it.
In the second chapter, Timothy Keller addresses Mark 2:1-5. These verses describe the scene of the paralytic, the paralyzed man who is lowered through the roof of the home Jesus is preaching in. Keller describes this as a dramatic scene. The house is crowded. There isn’t even any room outside the door to listen and then here comes these men, who cut a hole in the roof so they can bring their friend to Jesus for healing.
We know exactly what’s going to happen next, because we think we know Jesus so well. He’s going to lay his hand on the man and heal him. Everyone knows this is going to happen. It is rather anticlimactic.
Except that isn’t what happens at all.
Jesus looks at the man and says simply, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Imagine, Timothy Keller writes, how this man must have felt. He came there to walk again. How is forgiving his sins going to help him walk?
Keller goes on to explain what Jesus is trying to accomplish here. He writes: “Jesus is saying, ‘By coming to me and asking for only your body to be healed, you’re not going deep enough. You have underestimated the depths of your longings, the longings of your heart.’”
It has made me absolutely sad and sick at heart these past few days without air conditioning. Yes, it’s warm, but more than that, I hate having something broken in my life. I hate chaos. I hate feeling helpless. I have a hard time doing normal things when the world around me isn’t perfect.
But what Jesus shows me, what he shows all of us with the paralytic, is that we have such a limited understanding of our needs. Because, let’s face it, even when the temperature is nice and cool in my condo, I still struggle with deeper things. I still feel restless. I still long for something more.
We all do.
We think if only we had a bigger house or a nicer car, if only we didn’t have to worry about the bills.
If only it would rain today.
But those things will never heal us.
That longing we have, it’s for a deeper relationship with God.
And that is what Jesus gives the paralytic. He forgives him of his sins. He takes away the barrier between God and the man.
Only then does he tell the man to stand up.
