Finding Your Stretcher-Bearers
Daily Scripture
Mark 2:1-5
After a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word spread that he was home. So many people gathered that there was no longer room—not even near the door. Jesus was speaking the word to them. Some people arrived carrying a man who was paralyzed. When they couldn’t get him through the crowd, they tore open the roof above Jesus. Once they had made an opening, they lowered the mat on which the man was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven!”
Daily Reflection & Prayer
A paralyzed man in the first century had few options. He depended on other people for much of his daily life. And on this particular day, he depended on four friends who believed it was worth getting him to Jesus.
At first, they did the obvious thing: they carried him there. But when they arrived, the house was packed. People filled the room and crowded around the door. There was no easy way in. They could have turned around. They could have told their friend, “We tried.” Instead, they climbed onto the roof, made an opening, and lowered him down in front of Jesus.
Imagine being in that room. Jesus is teaching when suddenly pieces of the roof begin falling to the floor. Everyone looks up. A hole appears overhead, and slowly a man on a mat is lowered into the middle of the crowd.
But notice what Mark tells us next: “When Jesus saw their faith…” The man on the mat needed Jesus, but his friends were the ones who got him there. Jesus saw their faith. Their faith showed up in their willingness to carry him, climb a roof, make a hole, and refuse to give up when the way forward became difficult.
Pastor Adam Hamilton describes friends like these as “stretcher bearers.” * We all need people like that in our lives—people who help carry us when we are tired, hurting, discouraged, or struggling. And Pastor Adam makes another important point: if we hope to have friends like these, we should seek to become that kind of friend ourselves.
There will be seasons when we can help carry someone else. There will also be seasons when we are the one on the mat, needing to be carried. We may need someone else to pray when we don’t know what to pray, to hope when we are discouraged, or simply to stay beside us when life is difficult. Christian faith was never meant to be carried alone. Sometimes following Jesus means carrying someone else toward him. And sometimes it means having enough humility to let someone carry you.
- Think of someone in your life who may need a stretcher bearer right now. What would it look like to help carry them this week—not by fixing everything for them, but by showing up, praying for them, encouraging them, or helping with something practical?
- Now consider the other side: Is there something you have been trying to carry alone? Who is one person you could invite to pray with you or walk alongside you?
Prayer
Lord, thank you for the people who carry us when we cannot carry ourselves. Help me notice the people around me who need encouragement, prayer, or someone willing to stay beside them. Give me the persistence of these four friends and give me the humility to let others carry me when I need it. Remind me that faith was never meant to be lived alone. Amen.
GPS Insights
Katy Nall
Katy Nall serves as the Director of Local Missions Engagement at Resurrection West.
The amazing Michelle Kirby hired me at Resurrection on February 20, 2020. I didn’t know it then, but she would become one of my favorite humans ever, and certainly one of my greatest mentors. Less than two months later, on April 5, as the world was experiencing the strictest days of the COVID-19 lockdown, my husband was in a serious car accident.He called me from an ambulance, but he was so disoriented that I could barely understand him. A police officer took the phone and told me which hospital they were taking him to, and the line went dead. As I raced there, I passed our wrecked car on the side of the highway. It was totaled. Scary totaled. It was smashed almost beyond recognition, and seeing it sent me into a level of panic I had never experienced before.
When I reached the hospital, the entrance looked like a hazmat site. I ran toward the doors and was abruptly turned away. Didn’t I know there was a pandemic happening?! Of course I knew. What I did not know was whether my husband was okay, or even alive.
I returned to my car and sat in the parking lot, staring at the hospital. I held myself together long enough to call our parents and promise I would update them as soon as I knew anything. Then I reached the point when I could not hold myself together anymore. Somehow, only weeks into my new job, I knew I could call Michelle.
Michelle could not get me into the hospital. She could not tell me how badly my husband was hurt or promise me that everything would be okay. She simply stayed on the phone and made room for all of it—the fear, sadness, anger, and helplessness. Then she offered to pray with me. In the middle of her prayer, the hospital called. Michelle immediately told me she loved me and said, “Go! Go!” The hospital told me my husband was stable but had several serious injuries, and they promised to call with updates every half hour. Before we hung up, Michelle told me, “We all have our turns on the mat. You’re going to get through this.”
That day, while my husband was on an actual stretcher, Michelle was my stretcher bearer. She could not fix what had happened or carry me all the way to the other side of it, but she stayed with me in the moment when I could no longer carry myself. She helped carry my fear into the presence of God. We will all have our turns on the mat. There is no shame in that. Faith does not always look like standing strong or holding everything together. Sometimes faith looks like making the call, telling the truth about how afraid we are, and trusting someone else to hold a corner of the mat.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Adam Hamilton, “Who Are Your Stretcher-Bearers?” in The Way: 40 Days of Reflections (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013).
