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The scene is the back blocks of Capernaum. Michael is a young man from Jerusalem. He has been visiting relatives. Today he has come to see Jonathan.
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| JONATHAN: | Nice to meet you, Michael. I don’t think we’ve met before.
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| MICHAEL: | Quite true, but I have seen you - just once - a few days ago.
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| JONATHAN: | So you were there?
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| MICHAEL: | At Ben Enoch’s house? Yes!
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| JONATHAN: | And that’s what has brought you here today?
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| MICHAEL: | It certainly is! I saw what happened, heard it all. I was right near Jesus. See this lump of mud? Because of the crowd, I couldn’t dodge it - it landed on my shoulder!
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| JONATHAN: | My four friends were enthusiastic - keen to get me to see Jesus!
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| MICHAEL: | Jonathan, I came with questions...
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| JONATHAN: | Because you didn’t know me, you weren’t sure I was genuine? You thought it might all be a "put up" job, right?
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| MICHAEL: | Well, I did wonder! But now that I’m here, in your house - now I see your bed, your sticks - the evidence of your suffering!
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| JONATHAN: | For many years now, Michael. And no cure! But that’s not all - a worse agony within!
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| MICHAEL: | What do you mean?
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| JONATHAN: | Jesus has released me from the guilt of sins long past. Paralysed, I could no longer do them. Yet my mind went over them again and again.
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| MICHAEL: | The officials didn’t like Jesus forgiving your sins - they gave one another black looks! I heard one of them mutter, "It’s blasphemy!"
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| JONATHAN: | Did they say that? I don’t think they know who Jesus is! Not that I do myself, just now!
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| So the conversation went on. What had happened to Jonathan those few days before? We need to go back to the record in Mark 2.1-12.
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| Reader: | Mark 2.1-12.
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