Jesus in the House 6

Mark 2 Session 6

After reading the account of Jesus in the house from the perspective of the owner I decided that maybe I should tell you my story, how I met Jesus and how he forgave my sins because of the persistent faith of my friends. They believed that Jesus could heal me, I can testify that he did more than just heal me he forgave me and restored my life.

The town was winding down for the night, people where in their houses, kids were being put to bed and the streets were emptying. As you can guess this is not Leeds in the 21st century. My story takes place in the 1st century AD in a town called Capernaum.

This was where I grew up, in a loving home with parents who only wanted the best for me. They were devout Jews, observing all the feasts and high days to a fault. As a youngster this was OK, I could deal with it, going to the synagogue as was our norm. As I began to move into teenage years this ritual became a little too much, after all why should I be made to go somewhere that had very little significance or effect on my life. There was so much more to do out on the streets with my friends, well that’s what they called themselves at the time.

All this tension between myself and my parents started to affect my relationship with them. We began to argue and fall out and as a result I started to stay out later and later. My time was taken up with hanging around street corners, kicking a ball or chalking some graffiti on the walls. Yeah we were no different in those days. We had similar pressures and expectations as you kids today. In short we were bored.

In particular I had 4 friends and the five of us used to have a real good laugh. We would get up to all sorts of pranks each time becoming more daring in our endeavors.

Over time our lives just degenerated into nothing more than rebels, taking and using what we actually had no right to do. My parents were becoming more and more distressed until it reached the point that I decided it was best to move out. Well that is a real shock to any teenager, having to fend for themselves and I was no exception. I suddenly found that in order to live you needed money and that it was expected that one had to pay one’s way in life.

My four friends were in similar situations and between us we decided that we could either get jobs, beg or resort to robbing houses. It all seemed quite ligite to us, after all life owed us a living, didn’t it? The rich of our town had far more than they needed any way so what was wrong with fair distribution?

I suppose in hindsight and with the benefit of maturity on my side I realise that life owes us nothing and that God Almighty is more interested in me as a person than what I can get for myself at the expense of others.

Well over time we were becoming quite the ‘cat burglars’, up on roofs, able to dismantle a roof without sound, drop into the living space, take what we needed to sell on for survival then up, out and over the rooftops into the night with our booty.

It is quite exhilarating to be leaping from rooftop to rooftop, you have to be fairly shore footed though as one slip and you are down between the houses and almost certain damage. Little did I think that this would ever happen to me and change my life forever.

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