My Wife and I recently set out for a late autumn adventure
the first week of December driving roundtrip to northern Florida from New England
to particulate in a sailing regatta. It was a rigorous endeavor and we did the
distance in two days instead of the planned three. That gave us an extra day to
“rest up” before the regatta. When we arrived at our modest motel room I
crashed and Denise opted to work off her road raggedness by taking a walk
around the downtown for a little light exploration.
The next day we awoke to a warming muggy Florida Friday and
Denise talked me into a walk downtown in the still of the dawn to find a place
for coffee. She took me down deserted streets and lanes and our “walk” started
to take us many blocks from “downtown” center. I was getting a little anxious
and we got into a little bit of a “we’re lost” argument until I was overcome
with a still, calming voice that suggested that I “knock it off”, relax and
relinquish to Denise’s instincts (and experience from her previous evening’s
exploration). Within minutes we turned a corner and there before us was small
store-front with a sign that read: “Palate Coffee Brewery”. That was it.
We spent several hours at that place and met everyone who
walked in; the local President and CEO of the Christian Chamber of Commerce (of
all things …) and he did most of the introductions. It turns out that Fridays
are when local business leaders congregate there throughout the day. We
received the testimony of a local ministry leader who shared her passion for
local homeless children before a gathered group. The café owner was a Pastor and
the place was set up as a not for profit to support missions. The staff were
all volunteers/barista trainees (which explained why it took so long for my
latte). I also learned that they trained their barista’s so they would go on to
work for good paying jobs at other cafes in the go-go Central Florida Market
which includes Orlando.
When I was asked what I “did” I, of course, mentioned my
commitment with “Truth at Work” and they wanted to know more. I have since
introduced them to the leadership of Truth at Work in Indianapolis and who knows where that will
lead. My wife and I quickly recognized that our trip to Florida was not really
about a sailing regatta – but rather - about this encounter.
Before we left the café I asked the proprietor the
significance of the name of the place and he said that it had to do with the
paralytic on the pallet in the Book of Mark. Then as I looked around I saw that
the interior décor was all of pallet pieces and even the tables were made from
parts of recycled pallets. It occurred to me that there was probably some deeper
meaning to the significance of the “Pallet” and so we talked about that
briefly. I asked if he had ever preached a message about the “pallet” and he
had not, so I committed on the spot to do a study on it as soon as I was able.
Here is that study:
Anchoring Verses:
John 5:7-9 7 The
invalid (paralytic) answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when
the water is stirred up, and while I am coming [to get into it myself], someone
else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up; pick
up your pallet and walk.” 9 Immediately
the man was healed and recovered his strength, and picked up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the
Sabbath.
Mark 2:1-12 After a few days, Jesus went back to Capernaum, and people
heard that he was at home. 2 So many gathered that there was no
longer space, not even near the door. Jesus was speaking the word to them. 3 Some
people arrived, and four of them were bringing to him a man who was paralyzed. 4 They
couldn’t carry him through the crowd, so they tore off part of the roof above
where Jesus was. When they had made an opening, they lowered the mat (pallet) on which the paralyzed man was
lying. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic,
“Child, your sins are forgiven!”
6 Some legal experts were sitting there,
muttering among themselves, 7 “Why does he speak this way? He’s
insulting God. Only the one God can forgive sins.”
8 Jesus immediately recognized what they
were discussing, and he said to them, “Why do you fill your minds with these
questions? 9 Which is easier—to say to a paralyzed person,
‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your pallet, and walk’? 10 But so you will know that the
Human One has authority on the earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who
was paralyzed, 11 “Get up, take your pallet, and go home.”
12 Jesus raised him up, and right away he
picked up his pallet and walked out
in front of everybody. They were all amazed and praised God, saying, “We’ve
never seen anything like this!”
# # # #
The Bible contains innumerable accounts of signs and wonders
to which the people always exclaim, “we have never seen anything like this
before!” and so, again, I experienced a divine encounter that brought me before
authentic believers in a place I have never been before. And they were not
strangers to me. Sojourners encountering brethren sojourners. Aliens
encountering aliens - in a place called “Palate Coffee Brewery”.
Signs and wonders and yet multitudes still did not believe!
So many signs and so many wonders, yet so many turned and left when it became
the least bit difficult to selflessly submit to the Lord. Jesus even asked His twelve
intimate ones, “will you leave Me too?”
The call of Jesus is personal - not spectacle - and not
general. The miracles are personal and the call is personal. To forgive sin is
far greater than to perform a sign or a miracle – to cure a mere temporal
physical ailment. All die the “first” death (referred to in Revelation 2, 20
and 21).
Yet, the darkness resists the light and cringes from it. We were
children of darkness and in that darkness we yearn for a distorted shelter
“with” our sin. Sin that never satisfies.
In Christ we find deliverance “from” our sin. He is our
strength – not us. The paralytic of John 5 “recovers” his strength, picks up
his pallet and walks. How long had
that man struggled without Jesus and without power? We, like he, clutch at our
sin because we have become comfortable in it. Like the slaves of Egypt we hunger
for the familiar chains. What obscures our ability to see the power of Christ
that will allow us to rise up and walk? The answer is the one thing that always
amazed Jesus when He encountered it: Authentic Faith – the substance of things
hoped for – the evidence of things unseen (Heb 11).
Oh, how those chains addict us, keep us and - in submission
to what is false – blind us and restrain us from the glory of God. The myth of
Pharaoh, the myth of scarcity, the fear of want versus the lyric of abundance
and freedom and the gift of eternity restrains us from TRUTH.
The paralytic at the pool of Bethesda
and the paralytic lowered through the roof of that cottage in Capernaum both lay on a pallet. Central to these two scenes is Jesus’ forgiveness of their
“sins” foremost. The paralysis, the physical condition, is secondary. The
“cure” is merely a contrast that can be comprehended by mere men to the glory
of what Jesus represents – eternal fellowship with God through Jesus –
deliverance from the paralysis of sin.
The Greek root word(s) used for “pallet” in the New Testament texts here are; KLINE and KRABBATOS
which relate to the words KLINIDION and KLINE from which we get the modern words;
“recline” and “incline”. The Greek root words refer to the following; a couch,
recliner, to be far spent, to bow down, to turn in flight, to wear away, a
mattress.
As we let the Greek root word meanings sink in it becomes
apparent that the pallet is the excuse of man – his submission and retreat
toward sin. We recline in our fallen-ness – our paralysis is our giving-in to
the sin. We are indeed far spent and bowed down to our sin and we do indeed
turn in self righteous flight from our recovery in Christ. I recall an excerpt
from the eloquent verses of the poem “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson;
I
fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I
fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I
fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind;
and
in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up
vistaed hopes I sped; and shot, precipitated, adown Titanic glooms of chasmed
fears … from those strong Feet that followed - followed after… but with
unhurrying chase, and unperterbed pace.
Deliberate
speed, majestic instancy,
They
beat, and a Voice beat … more instant than the Feet
“All things betray thee, who
betrayest Me.”
We are worn down and sin weary. We are betrayed by our sin.
Our “pallet” is
our responsibility; our role. We are cured by Jesus and once we are renewed
through Him we take up that responsibility and the bridling of our old sin
nature with it – with the exquisite assistance of the Holy Spirit – our
Paraclete. We pick up and carry our pallet as Jesus commanded those two
paralytics because it no longer carries us and nor do any who were the bearers
of that old sin pallet in that
cottage in Capernaum
or anywhere else. Neither do we lounge or take our rest upon that pallet of affliction any longer.
Jesus said, in Matthew 11; “Come to Me, all you who labor
and are weary, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from
Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Forgiveness IS healing. Jesus is healing. With Jesus, sin
falls away and with it the crutches and paralysis of sin. The rolled up pallet is an echo of our past
dependence on sin.
And so I thank God for the precious and most divine
encounter my Wife and I recently had with the blessed Proprietors and
supporters of the “Palate Coffee Brewery” in Sanford, Florida for bringing me
closer to my consciousness of the sin
nature that will always lure me to recline in complacency, become ensnared and paralyzed
by sin, resting on my pallet and
recoiling from the power of His Holy Spirit to overcome my eternal terminal
illness.
I must take up my pallet and walk by His power.
Galatians 5:1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which
Christ has made us free, and do not be ensnared again with a yoke of bondage.”
2 Timothy 2:4: “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself
in the affairs of this life, that he may please those who enlisted him as
soldier.”
To my brethren in Sanford,
Florida, I am thankful for your
hospitality and the encouragement of your lives. I am even more thankful for
the sovereignty of God that guides the circumstances of my life through His
Holy Spirit and so I thank the guiding hand of The Holy Spirit for His control
over my life. There are NO coincidences.
Blessings,
Bill
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