On Wednesday members from our team had the opportunity to teach two High School SRE classes. Both classes looked at Mark 2:1-12; Jesus healing a paralysed man.
To illustrate the idea that only God can forgive sin we had a simple but powerful idea. Liz Hooper should slap me! Here is how it went down…..
I played a simple guessing game with the youth in our SRE class, on the final question I cheated. With Liz’s strong desire to see justice done, she rose to here feet, exclaimed ‘HOW DARE YOU!!’ and slapped me; a full open palm slap across the face. Deb then stepped in and said ‘I forgive you Liz’. The students were then asked, ‘what is wrong in this scenario?’ One student replied ‘violence is never the answer, sir!’ Which is true, another student said ‘Deb can’t forgive Liz because she isn’t the one that Liz hurt’.
Here we see the reality of Jesus’ curious actions in Mark chapter 2. If sin is wrongdoing against God, then God is the only one who can forgive sin. But in Mark 2 Jesus says to the man ‘your sins are forgiven’, claiming to do something only God can do. Then to prove that he in fact is God and has authority to forgive sin, Jesus heals the paralysed man.
A powerful lesson…that deserved a dramatic illustration….twice. #mooremission
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