Healing

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Medicine To Die For, Part IV

To Find a Carpenter

Inspired by the story in Mark 2:1-12; with Psalm 136, Proverbs 13:12; John 3:16, I Corinthians 15:22; and Colossians 1:27

The carpenter. It was all about the carpenter.

But what was it about the carpenter?

Beginning with Adam and Eve, Max told Mr. Shipwreck the story about the fall of mankind: how God had given them a simple command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; how they disobeyed, figuring they knew better; and how their fall from grace brought sin and death into the world.

Filling their lives with misery and self loathing. Sickness and disease. Scary movies and car accidents. Crippling them in every way imaginable and then some.

But God reached out to them. Reached out to all of mankind. Because that’s the kind of God He is. He provided a cure to forgive their sin and get them out of the “same old, same old” stubborn rut they were in. And He did it for everybody.

That cure, Max explained, was Jesus, the Master Carpenter and God’s only begotten Son. He came to earth as a man to show mankind just how much God loved them. One way in which He demonstrated this love was by healing people of their illnesses and handicaps.

There was never an infirmity that Jesus couldn’t or wouldn’t cure. He spoke the word and they were healed.

The blind. The deaf. Lepers. Those taken with fevers. A woman with an issue of blood. A man plagued with an entire legion of devils. No matter what the problem, Jesus healed them. Each and every one.

But Mr. Shipwreck’s favorite story was the one about the man who went through the roof.

And that was no accident.

It was a let-down. In the literal sense of the word.

As far as we know, the man didn’t fall off a roof like Mr. Shipwreck had. But he did get let down through a roof. By four friends who cared enough to bring him to Jesus.

There’s a lot more to that story than meets the eye. For example, have you ever considered everything that’s involved in climbing to the top of a roof, dismantling a huge chunk of it, transporting a dead weight up there without dropping it, then finding a way to set it down inside a crowded room in just the right place and at just the right spot without injuring (or killing) the person in the process?

It had to be a daunting task, to say the least. And it took four people to do it. Four who were willing to do whatever it took to lay the paralyzed man before the feet of the carpenter.

Mr. Shipwreck had four such friends. They were Max, Esperanza, LaShawna, and Mohammed. Four fired up Christians determined to lead him to Christ no matter what the cost.

He didn’t know what good friends he had until that day. Never stopped to consider their message or their positive outlook on life. Never once thought to ask them about their faith.

Over the years they had dropped numerous hints his way, showing their love of God through kind words and deeds, occasionally inserting a Bible verse into the conversation.

But he had always been too busy to pay attention.

Until that fateful day.

The day he broke his neck.

Now there he was, lying on his ‘mat,’ going nowhere.

The perfect audience for four zealous preachers who had made it their objective to save his soul.

But getting him to Jesus wouldn’t be easy.

First there was the mat, representing everything upon which Mr. Shipwreck had rested all his hopes and dreams. Hope Deferred had chewed numerous holes in that mat, making his heart so sick that it was amazing he had any hope left at all. So the first task was to renew that hope.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory,” Esperanza told him. “If you’ll give your heart to Jesus.”

And with many such words she encouraged him to have faith in God.

Her cheerful message revived his spirits, patching the mat in no time.

That was one.

And then there was the ascent. How was that to be tackled?

“Whoa! Not so fast! A little more explanation, please. . . Okay, I get it already. You can speed it up a little. . . But not that fast! . . . There. That’s good. Nice and steady. . . Easy does it. . . Ow!”

“Sorry, Mr. Shipwreck. I didn’t mean to bang your head.”

“Nearly cut my ear off with that scripture, young man.”

“I’ll try to be more gentle next time.”

“Praise the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.”

LaShawna’s psalm was the one medicine that got him through that long, shaky ride up Jacob’s ladder.

Thanks, LaShawna.

Meditating on God’s goodness sure helped to get your mind off your troubles.

Temporarily anyway.

Finally they reached the top.

“Esperanza! This is no time to play phone tag! I need you to hold that ladder! LaShawna, pay attention please!”

Thanks, Mohammed. You’re a life saver! Things were feeling a bit shaky up here for a moment. Nice to know someone’s looking out for my best interests.

Now for the transition from ladder to roof.

With a heave and a shove, his two servants set down their sack of potatoes.

“Man, this guy’s heavy!”

“You’re telling me!”

Mr. Shipwreck suddenly realized what a burden he had become. Was he really that much of a pain to live with?

A sudden twinge of acrophobia threatened to choke him.

Then up trilled LaShawna’s song, followed by Esperanza’s encouraging “Everything’s going to be all right!”

They could hear Jesus giving his sermon down below.

And hoped he wouldn’t wrap it up too quickly.

Max took out a note pad, a tape measure, and a pencil. He ran the tape measure around the mat and scribbled notations on the paper. Setting them aside, he put his ear to the roof, waited a few seconds, then went to a different spot. This he did several times.

He stopped and pointed to a spot on the roof about two feet away from the mat.

“He’s right under there, where my foot is.” He ran the tape measure along the roof and traced the length with a piece of chalk until he had drawn a rectangle. Satisfied, he set the chalk down.

Mohammed came over to take a look. “This job is going to take a lot of work. You’d better get the body out of the way, to make more room.”

The body?

Was that all he was to them - ‘the body?’ Just a lump of nonviable tissue?

Mr. Shipwreck’s newfound hope began to sag.

He wondered if he had made the right decision, letting them do this.

But there was nothing he could do about it now. This lump of tissue was at their mercy. For better or for worse.

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