Surprised and Amazed
Mark 2.1-12
1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
A few of us were gone this past weekend. We were looking together at the theme of the Serve event this coming summer – Surprised by God. We could look through the gospels and see that story after story is something that Jesus does that surprises the people. Here the story ends with the statement that this amazed everyone. Who would not be surprised to see someone get up from their bed after years of paralysis? Amazement is the proper response. The people started with a response that questioned Jesus and his authority as he brought forgiveness. Most changed that perspective as they saw him walk.
That is the same with the story Pastor Allan Kirkpatrick worked from on this past Sunday. Showing us that the disciples are amazed at the fact that they made it to dry land after the storm. The surprise of the demons begging Jesus for mercy. The surprise of Jesus responding to the demons by sending them into the pigs. The surprise of the pigs jumping over the cliff. The surprise of the villagers seeing the demon possessed man sitting calmly. The surprise that Jesus says yes to requests of demons and villagers, and not to the man wanting to come with him.
We see big surprises and we are amazed to see at God at work. We will also see God in life in the smaller surprises that come. Pastor Allan mentioned the small piece of finance that reminded them of God’s faithfulness. We can see many instances in our lives where God put little things in place so that we can see him. I think we can be reminded of the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, “Stop waiting for miracles. Your whole life is a miracle.”
Take a look and see the places where God has been active in life with us in the past days or weeks. Big or small things will all point to God being with us. Look for God to be present in the coming days. It will happen. Likely in the time between my writing and the reading of this blog many of us, if not all, will have seen and recognized the hand of God in our lives.
We can walk through life with the questioning position that denies any real action of God in what takes place. Or we can life in the surprise and amazement that God keeps being present in the big things of life and the smallest of things. Open our eyes to see God working and restoring life today.