A Children’s Sermon on Mark 2:1-12 — The Healing of the Paralytic

Preface for Parents and Pastors

Here’s a children’s sermon on Mark 2:1-12. It was the Gospel lesson assigned for the 7th Sunday after Epiphany. This year, however, Easter came pretty early. By the 7th Sunday after Epiphany we were already in Lent. So I’m filling in for future years. 

There is so much juicy material here that it’s hard to choose. 

• It starts with the crazy scene of people crowding Jesus out of his own house, wanting healing. 
• Then there is the love and determination (Jesus calls it “faith”) of the paralyzed man’s friends.
• But how can I not point out the oddity of Jesus looking at the faith of the four friends, and granting forgiveness to the paralyzed man? Justification by faith by proxy? 
• Of course there is Jesus’ tussle with the scribes. They are always a popular stick figure for preachers to blame. 
• Then there is Jesus’ odd reasoning — asking whether it is “easier to say’ the man is forgiven or that he should get up and walk. 

I’ll just have to dive into this children’s sermon on Mark 2:1-12 and see where the story takes me.

A Children’s Sermon on Mark 2:1-12

Good morning kids! I am so happy to see you. It’s great that you are here in worship this morning. And I’m especially glad that you came up to hear the children’s sermon. 

The story about Jesus we are reading in worship this morning happened soon after he started traveling around, teaching and helping and healing people. 

The people he helped were so grateful, so joyful, so happy for what Jesus had done that they told everyone they knew about him. Soon, more and more people came looking for him. They wanted to learn about the Kingdom of God. And they wanted him to help solve their problems.

A Big Crowd

One day, after helping a whole bunch of people, Jesus went to his home. He lived in a town called Capernaum. 

“Boy am I tired,” said Jesus as he came in the front door.

“Can we come in too?” asked Peter. 

“Of course,” said Jesus, “Make yourself at home. I’m just going to go change my—”

“Knock! Knock! Knock!” Someone was at the door. 

Jesus looked around: Peter, and James, and John were there. Mary and Martha were there. All his disciples were there.

“I wonder who that could be?” he said. 

He opened the door. There were a whole bunch of people outside. 

“Can we come in?” one asked. “We heard you are teaching about the Kingdom of God.” 

Then another spoke up. “And I was hoping you might heal me.”

And another spoke up. “Plus, we heard you are really fun to be around, and you tell good stories.”

“Well, sure,” Jesus said, “come on in.” 

He got them all settled and said, “I’ll be back in a minute. I was just going to—”

“Knock! Knock! Knock!” Someone was at the door again.

“Peter,” Jesus said, “could you answer that? It’s too crowded for me to reach the door.” 

So Peter opened the front door. 

“Jesus!” he called out. “There’s a huge crowd out there. The whole front yard is full of people!” 

One of the people at the door said, “We heard you are teaching about the kingdom of God in there. Could you leave the door open so we can hear?”

“Yeah,” said another, “and maybe you could talk real loud.”

“And maybe later,” another voice said, “could you come outside and heal me?”

A Noise from the Roof

Well. Jesus finally went and changed his clothes. He came back and sat down in his living room and started to teach. He taught his disciples. And he taught all the extra people who came inside to hear. Plus he talked extra loud so the people in the front yard could hear too.

“Let me tell you a story,” Jesus said, “so you’ll know what the Kingdom of God is really like. Once upon a time there was a baker and she—”

But all of a sudden there was a lot of noise coming from the ceiling. “What was that?” asked Jesus.

There was banging. 

There was scraping. 

Then there was the sound of boards being pulled up. 

And then a cloud of dust and dirt came down on Jesus and all the people around him.

They all looked up. Instead of the ceiling they saw blue sky. There was a huge hole in the roof!

Then, through the hole, they saw four heads. 

“What are you doing to my roof?” asked Jesus..

“That looks big enough,” said one of the heads..

The other three nodded. 

One of them said, “Let’s go get him!”

“Get who?” asked Jesus. 

“Back in a minute!” the first one said. And all four heads disappeared.

A Surprise Visitor

Well, all of that was quite surprising. But then something even more surprising happened. 

The hole in the roof went dark all of a sudden, and they all looked up to see why. There was something being lowered through the roof. It was a long rectangle made of wood, with cloth stretched across it, like a bed. There was a rope attached to each corner.

Down, down, down it came.

”Careful fellas!” said one of the men on the roof. “We don’t want him to fall off!”

Jesus said, “Fall off? Who are you talking about?”

But then the stretcher was right down in front of Jesus. There was a man lying on it.

“Well hello!” Jesus said, smiling. It really was kind of a funny situation. “Nice of you to drop by.”

“Sorry!” said the man. “I can’t walk. These guys are friends of mine. They made me do this. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

Then voices came down from the guys on the roof.

“We wanted you to heal him!” said one. 

“But the crowd was too big,” said another. 

“We figured this was the only way,” said a third. “We totally believe you can help our friend.” 

“Yeah, Jesus,” said the first, ”you totally got this.”

Then there was a pause. 

Finally the man on the stretcher said, “Sorry about your roof.”

Jesus said to the guys on the roof, “You four really have a lot of faith. I’m impressed. So you know what I’m going to do? Because you four have so much faith…”

Then he looked at the man on the stretcher. “Because your friends have so much faith I’m going to tell you something very important: All your sins are forgiven. God totally loves you—and he always will.”

Forgiveness?

The man looked a little confused. 

The guys on the roof said “Um, that’s nice, but we were hoping, actually, that you could help him walk.”

Then some of the religious leaders spoke up. “You’re not supposed to forgive sins! That’s God’s job.”

Jesus said, “Okay, I’ll do something you think is hard. Then maybe you’ll know who has the power say sins are forgiven.”

Then he looked at the man on the stretcher. “Get up, my friend. Pick up your stretcher and go.”

And the man who knew he couldn’t walk got up, took his stretcher, and wove through the crowd to the door.

Jesus watched him go. Then he looked up at the four guys who were looking down through the hole. He said “Now about my roof…”

Wondering 

I wonder what Jesus must have been like if so many people wanted to be near him?

I wonder what the man did with his life after Jesus made him able to walk?

I wonder if Jesus looks at our faith when we try to bring help to people we care about?

++++++++++++

You are, of course, free to use this children’s sermon, or adapt it as you find most useful. But, if you use it, please do one (or more!) of the following.

• You can let me know that you are using it, either in the comments below, or using the contact form above.
• You can put a little notice in your church bulletin that your children’s sermon is adapted from one published on GaryNealHansen.com.
• You can support my work over on Patreon. (Just $1 per month brings my children’s sermons straight to your inbox about two minutes after they go live. And every little bit keeps me going…)