Carrying the Mat

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday, we said that being Christian community means getting your hands dirty! Can you remember the last time you were so excited to bring someone to know Jesus that you would’ve done something insane like destroy someone’s home by ripping their roof off and digging through the ceiling? The people that carried the paralytic in Mark were more than stuck with his care - they were passionate about it. They got muddy and sweaty and were probably looked at with more than a few raised eyebrows, as dirt started to crumble down through the ceiling onto Jesus preaching below...

When other people got in the way, they went a different way. They literally climbed outside of the box and persevered until they got the person they cared about to Jesus. Now, let’s notice a few things about the people who are carrying this person.

First, the Bible doesn’t say anything about who they are. It just says “some people” came bringing to Jesus a paralyzed man. It doesn’t say how old or young they are. What colour or nationality they are. What doctrine they believe. If they’re men or women or transgender. It doesn’t say. So, this is an opportunity that the writer of Mark has given us to insert ourselves in the story. Can you see yourself here?

Notice secondly that a specific number is given for how many people are carrying this paralyzed person. Four. This scene doesn’t have one lone person gripping onto the corner of a mat, trying to drag it through the crowds, staring defeatedly at the roof of the house, realizing that there would be no way she could possibly lift her burden through. The gospel writer offers instead a picture of one person, carrying each corner of the paralytic’s mat. Each one bears weight, using the strength they’ve been given and combining it with the strength of others so that together, they can bear the pain of the person who is suffering.

We often try to do it the first way. We look at the pain of others and of the world and say it’s too much for us to bear. And we’re right. It is too much. Which is why we’re not asked to do that. The only person in the world who was ever asked to do that was Jesus Christ, bearing everyone’s pain and sin in his self on the cross. But, we are human, and God has created us to bear each other’s pain together - not suffering in silence alone and not avoiding one another because we are too frustrated by the depth of what seems to be required of us and by our individual inability to cope.

Mother Teresa said, “Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each other's faults and failures.”

Which leads us to the final observation for today about these four people. There is nothing special about them. They have no significant gift that we are aware of. They’re described with no remarkable physical feature. They’re not super-people. They are simply people who have a little bit of strength and a willingness to serve. They did what must have seemed crazy and awkward, something with no guarantee of turning out well. In fact, it had every possibility of turning into disaster.

But they did what they had the capacity to do to get that person as close to Jesus as possible. They didn’t perform miracles or give a great speech that caused the crowd to part in awe of their eloquence. They simply used their hands to carry and to dig.

Do you try to carry burdens all on your own? Do you think you have nothing special to offer? Do you have the compassion to carry others and the humility to get on your hands and knees to dig a way to Jesus?

FOCUS READING

Mark 1:3-4 (NRSV)

Then some people* came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.