Are You a Friend Like This? Do You Have a Friend Like This?

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Mark 2:1–5 ESV And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” CONSIDER The whole town rushed to get to the house where Jesus was teaching. And while everyone was rushing toward the place, four men were running in the opposite direction. They were rushing to find their friend who had no chance of getting there because he could not walk. Can you sense their urgent excitement as they found him? Can you hear those two words of the gospel from yesterday's post? Now. Here. They had to get their paralyzed friend into the presence of Jesus.  Can you picture them somewhere between walking and running, each holding a corner of the mat on which he lay, trying desperately not to drop him? They arrived only to find the room was filled to capacity with people overflowing beyond the door into the street. Undeterred, they made their way to the roof. This is a stunning picture of faith—four friends, carrying a fifth, now tearing a hole through the roof. Try to imagine the scene inside of the house as Jesus began to feel bits of dried clay and palm branches from the thatched roof hitting his head and landing all around him on the floor.  If I'm there, here's what's going through my mind: What an interruption! Where was security? And who is going to fix the roof? Not Jesus. He stops preaching. He looks upward at the descending spectacle. Four men, each desperately clinging to a corner, awkwardly labor to lower a paralyzed man on a mat through the ceiling and onto the floor in front of Jesus. Then these words flash like a neon sign before our very eyes: And when Jesus saw their faith, . . .  We know nothing about the faith of the paralyzed man. This is a story about the faith and love of his friends.  And when Jesus saw their faith, . . .  And, church, how do you spell faith? Yes, R.I.S.K. These friends left the building of respectable religion. They loved their friend with a risky and even unreasonable love. Something tells me they knew this secret: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Heb. 11:6). Faith is love in action. And when Jesus saw their faith, . . .  I think we know the rest of the story.  But I have to ask you: Do you have friends like that? Are you becoming a friend like that?  PRAY Lord Jesus, thank you for calling us friends and for inviting us into friendship with you. And thank you for the way you invite us to bring our friends to you. I want to be a friend like these four men in the story who desperately wanted to get their hurting friend into your presence. And, yes, I want to have friends like this. This kind of friendship sounds like the now-here kingdom. Show me the way. Praying in Jesus's name, amen.