Authority to Forgive

Mark 1:39–2:22, John 5:1–47A leper kneels in the road and asks for the one thing no one can give him — to be made clean — and Jesus reaches out and touches him anyway. Back in Capernaum, four friends refuse to take no for an answer, tearing open a roof to lower a paralyzed man into a crowded room, and Jesus responds with words that stop the religious leaders cold: your sins are forgiven. A tax collector gets an unlikely dinner invitation, and questions about fasting reveal a bridegroom hiding in plain sight. Then in Jerusalem, at a pool surrounded by the sick and hopeless, a thirty-eight-year healing collides with a Sabbath law — and a claim about the Father that will follow Jesus for the rest of his ministry.We are in a Mark-John Harmony. Today’s episode covers: Mark 1:39–2:22; John 5:1–47 (healing a leper, the paralytic lowered through the roof, the call of Levi, questions about fasting, and healing at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath).