Imagine digging a hole through your neighbor's roof. What could possibly cause you to do that?
Yet this is exactly what four men do in the Bible. They lower their paralyzed friend through it, right in front of Jesus.
In Mark 2:1–5, Jesus is home in Capernaum. The word soon gets out. There's a crowd. No room anywhere.
The friends believe. Deeply.
Picture being inside. Dust falling on your head. The sky opens and a man on a mat floats down from the ceiling.
You expect Jesus to heal the paralysis. But Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus tells the man his sins are forgiven.
Imagine hearing that right when it happens. What do you think?
Mark never tells us what the paralyzed man believed. Maybe he'd given up. Maybe he really believed the miracle could happen. Either way, he couldn't get there on his own.
That's church at its best.
Maybe some of us are the man on the mat right now. Too hurt to walk into church.
Others of us are on the roof.
We know people who can't get to Jesus by themselves. A cousin who stopped praying. The neighbor sitting alone at the funeral.
We can't heal them ourselves, but we can bring them to the One who can.
So our call is to pray for them when they can't. Drive them to church. Sit with them. Keep showing up.
It might cost us something. That roof belonged to somebody.
Who do you know that can't get there on their own? And what would you be willing to dig through to bring them?