Four Friends

Yesterday our pastor delivered a message about Jesus healing the paralytic taken from Mark chapter 2. He made the observation that the men that were with the paralytic were his friends. I had never thought about that. It was probably true, who else would carry a paralyzed man across town, dig a hole in the roof, and lower him to Jesus. These men had probably been with him a long time and were not "fair weather friends". They knew if their friend saw Jesus he would be healed and their faith is what Jesus saw (Mark 2:5) and he healed the man. I thought a lot about that yesterday, that the faith of the friends is why Jesus healed him. Our Connection group talked about four friends in our own lives that would drop everything to help us. I was the last one in our group to speak so I was able to hear the comments of the others. There were a couple of people in our group who were disappointed they could only name one or two friends that they would call for help. When it was my turn, I shared about when I fell down our stairs in Cali and broke both my ankles. I couldn't walk for six weeks so I was in a similar situation as the paralyzed man. Our son was a baby, our daughter was three and my mom lived and worked in Mass so she couldn't help me. My friend Laurie organized our church to have someone come every day when Dan left for work at 7:30 and stay until he came home at 6:30. Some volunteers could only come to help for a couple of hours, some brought dinner. It was very difficult for me to just lie there and let someone else clean my kitchen, do my laundry, feed my family, but what I learned is that those people weren't ministering to me because they were my friends (although they were) but because they were being Jesus' servants. Some of them were only acquaintances but they were members of my church and were therefore my friends. Other people who don't have the Church family don't have any way to cope with the hard times in this life so they become alcoholics, adulterers, they abuse their children and spouses or even commit suicide. When God established his church, he knew we would need other Christians to help us in times of need. When we share our vulnerabilities with other Christians we become closer friends and able to connect on a deeper level. When we minister to our brothers and sisters we are being Christ in their lives.