DAILY BYTE
This story brings another very important point about healing home to us, and it is this:
EVERYONE NEEDS SOMEONE.
In Scripture, there are no examples of healing being isolated incidents, occurring outside the context of community and relationships.
In this case, the man on the mat had 4 friends who were quite literally willing to smash through all sorts of things – from ceilings to cultural and religious taboos in the quest for their friend to become whole.
So let me ask you a very personal question. Do you have those you would trust to carry your mat? No matter how shameful and embarrassing? Who do you share your weaknesses and struggles with? Who do you reveal your brokenness to? You can’t always be the strong one, at some point someone else will have to carry your mat for you.
At first this may be an unpleasant discovery for you, but it will be one that will certainly bring untold joy if you open your heart to it.
For when it comes to healing – everyone needs someone! That’s just the way God made it to be. It is within community that we find strength, courage and ultimately healing.
The psychologist Henry Cloud tells the remarkable story of his experiences of leading a group of inpatients at a hospital. One of the members of this group was a pastor named Joe. Joe’s ‘mat’ was a sexual addiction that he had wrestled with for years, yet despite numerous confessions and prayers for healing, he just never seemed to be able to break through it.
Finally his desperation and guilt were so much that he checked himself in to a hospital for help. Part of his recovery program was attending Henry’s group. One morning a nurse informed Henry that Joe would not be coming to the group that day. When Henry visited Joe he found out that it was because he had suffered a relapse the night before.
After some effort, Henry managed to convince Joe to come anyway. During previous sessions, Joe had barely spoken, seemingly content just to listen to the sharing of others. Clearly, he preferred carrying the mats of others to being carried himself. This particular morning however, Henry pushed him to share. Slowly, painfully, Joe began to allow others to see something of his sense of shame and failure.
He spoke to them about his years of guilt, of standing in the pulpit and being terrified that someone might have seen him the night before where he shouldn’t have been. He shared his immense shame of claiming to speak for God when he felt he was the biggest hypocrite in his congregation, and yet for all the pain his behaviour caused him he just couldn’t stop.
Joe could barely choke out his words and as he told his story, he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. “Look up at the group,” Henry urged him.
“I can’t, I’m too ashamed,” Joe sobbed.
But Henry kept insisting that Joe look up, until finally he did. A broken man raised his head and made a wonderful discovery. He looked around the circle and found that every pair of eyes looking back at him was filled with tears. Every heart ached with pain for his anguish. There was no shame or condemnation, just pure compassion.
It was a joyful discovery! For the first time in his life, Joe found that he was not alone with the brokenness that had paralysed his soul and crippled his spirit for so long. Finally, a few people had seen his deformity and yet still chose to be his friends.
At long last, a man who had preached grace in so many sermons tasted it for himself, and as he did so he heard the words spoken so long ago to another crippled man, “Child your sins are forgiven.”
Henry writes that Joe’s addiction was broken that day. He still had much work to do and a long way to go. There were confessions to make, new habits and spiritual disciplines to develop, but the cruel force of his affliction was broken in that moment of profound acceptance.
For the simple truth is that everybody does need somebody! We see that in this story, and indeed throughout the Bible. For better or worse, we are shaped by people more than any other force in life. In the same way, more than anything else, God uses people to heal people.
So I ask you again – who would you trust to carry your mat?
FOCUS READING
Mark 2:3b-5 NRSV
And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
