NOTES for Mar 2:1-12
The Gospels often mention "paralyzed people" and their healings. This does not refer to one and the same illness, but to different illnesses that nevertheless had certain symptoms in common. It refers either to certain forms of paralysis or to nervous disorders because of which a person's coordination could be impaired. In any case, in Gospel times people did not know how to treat these illnesses, and such sufferers were doomed to suffer to the end of their days. The chance to be freed from such an illness was certainly bound to draw many people to Jesus, especially since news spread quickly through the small towns of Judea and Galilee. It is no wonder that He is accompanied everywhere by a crowd of people, a great many of whom are waiting to be healed of their illnesses.
That is how it was in the house in the small Galilean town of Capernaum described in today's reading: so many people had crowded in there that many could no longer enter the house or even get near the door (v. 2). It is no wonder that the sick man, who because of his illness could not walk and therefore had to be carried by his friends on a mat (in the Gospel it is called a "bed," v. 4), could not make his way through the crowd to Jesus. One way remained: through the flat roof, which in the East is usually used as an open terrace (v. 4). Such a roof was usually made of packed clay, and making an opening in it large enough to lower a mat with a man lying on it was not easy, but it was possible.
But the words Jesus spoke at the healing caused bewilderment and objections among the "scribes" who were present (vv. 6-7). In the Gospels, "scribes" are people who studied the "Law," that is, the books of Holy Scripture, and taught it to others. Today we would call such people professional theologians. Like professional theologians in the Church today, these people had special authority in the synagogue because of their knowledge; they were respected, and people listened to their opinion. But, as unfortunately happens at times with all theologians in every age, they often approached questions too formally when those questions did not call for such a formal theological approach at all, often quibbling over details and failing to notice the main thing behind them: the Kingdom of God, which Jesus brought into the world.