There are many wonderful messages in the gospel story we just read, but the one detail that jumped out at me this year is not the paralyzed man himself nor the healing power of Jesus, but the role of his four friends in this miracle. Talk about determined! These guys must think a lot of their paralyzed friend because it seems there is nothing they won't do to help him! Actually, these guys are pretty funny! Let's take a closer look!
By the time this story took place, Jesus' popularity had grown tremendously. Last week's gospel about the healing of a leper ended with these words, "It had become impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in deserted places. Even at that, people kept coming to him from everywhere."
After a little time had passed, Jesus tried to slip into his home in Capernaum, but word got out quickly that he was back home and they gathered around the house where he was staying in such numbers that the door was completely blocked.
Most people carrying a paralytic through a crowd like that would have given up and told their friend that it was impossible - maybe next time - but not these guys! These guys believe in the old maxim, "where there is a will, there is a way!" So these guys drag their poor crippled friend up, on his mat, upon the roof of the house! Then they rip a hole in the roof and lower their friend, by ropes tied to his mat, until he was dangling right there in front of Jesus!
Notice the exact words the writer uses when Jesus realizes what is happening. It says that Jesus was so impressed by the faith of his four friends that he heals this paralytic.
It occurred to me, as I was reflecting on this story, just how much friends play a role in creating miracles in our lives. I know they have in my life!
Friendship is not just about the warm feelings we have toward certain people. If that were so, the four guys in this story would have just felt sorry for their friend. Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. Because of their friendship, these four guys were driven to do something, whatever it took, to help their friend. In this sense, friendship connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, affection and respect, along with a degree of rendering service in times of need or crisis. Friends engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. Some of the qualities of real friendship include the tendency to desire what is best for the other, sympathy and empathy, real honesty and mutual understanding. Jesus may have defined friendship best when he said, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." Jesus would agree that real friendship is more than just having warm feelings for another.
Real
friendship involves positive action like the positive action displayed by
the four guys in today's gospel. Such positive
action is enshrined in the saying, "Real
friends do not let friends drive drunk." A real friend
will intervene in times of crisis regardless of how badly an impaired friend
might react under the situation. It's not about feelings in that moment. It's
about what is actually good for the person at the time. As the Book of Proverbs
(24:26) puts it, "An honest answer is the sign of true friendship."
As Martin Luther King, Jr. said it this way, "In the end, we will remember
not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." One of the
surest evidences of friendship is the ability to tell a friend a fault and
having him listen with gratitude and correct the error. As one of my favorite
quotes puts it, “We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among
those who don’t.” In other words, people who tell us what we want to hear are
not necessarily our friends and those who tell us what we don’t want to hear
are not necessarily our enemies. The spiritual masters traditionally call this
“fraternal correction.”
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