The Roof That Came Apart

There was a man who could not walk.

His legs would not carry him. His feet would not run. When he wanted to go somewhere, somebody else had to take him there. He needed help for the smallest things, help just to get up in the morning, help he could never get for himself.

But this man had friends. Four of them. And oh, how they loved him.

One day they heard that Jesus had come back to town. Jesus, who made sick people well. Jesus, who had just filled Peter's nets with fish until two boats nearly sank, and who looked at each hurting person as if that person were the only one in the world. The friends looked at each other, and they knew. They picked up the corners of their friend's mat, and they carried him.

But when they got to the house, they could not get in.

People were crammed in the doorway and packed against every wall. There was not one sliver of room left, and the friends could see no way through.

They did not go home. Instead they carried their friend up, up onto the roof, and they began to dig.

They pulled the roof apart. Scratch and scrape and tug, until dust came raining down on all the people below, until there was a hole big enough for a man on a mat. And gently, carefully, they let their friend down through it, right into the middle of the room.

Right in front of Jesus.

Everyone went quiet. The man lay there, looking up. And Jesus looked down at him, and his eyes were so kind.

You might think Jesus would say, "Stand up." That is what the man came for. That is what everyone was waiting for.

But Jesus saw something deeper than legs that would not walk. He saw a heart that was tired and heavy. He saw the part of us that is broken on the inside, the part nobody else can reach, the part you cannot fix no matter how hard you try. And Jesus said, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Forgiven. All of it, lifted away. The man had come to have his legs mended, and Jesus reached down and mended the deepest part of him first.

Some of the important men sitting there were angry. Only God can forgive like that, they grumbled in their hearts. Who does this man think he is?

They had asked exactly the right question. That is who he was.

Jesus knew their thoughts. So he turned back to the man, and he smiled, and he said, "Get up. Pick up your mat. Go home."

And the man did.

The legs that had never carried him stood him up. The feet that had never run went running. He scooped up his own mat and walked out through the crowd, and everyone gasped, because they had never, ever seen anything like it.

The One who can mend a body can mend a heart. The One who can forgive can heal. He had come for all of him, the outside and the deep-down inside.

And he still comes. For every part of you that you cannot fix yourself, he is the One who reaches all the way down.