Four Portraits, One Jesus: A Synoptic Comparison

Mark and Luke walk into an art studio...

Now that we've walked through the gallery of each Gospel's portrait of Jesus, let's zoom in on a familiar story that is shared between the Gospel authors to get a better idea of how the Gospels are able to add small nuances to the same stories, contributing to the overall picture of Jesus they want to paint. For the sake of simplicity (and keeping this read under 5 minutes!), we'll only be looking at Mark's and Luke's telling of the story.

Remember that Mark is writing before Luke, and that Luke is using Mark as one of those sources he mentions in Luke 1:1-3. This means that Mark wrote an account first, and it serves to illustrate the life of Jesus as Mark wants to portray it. Then, Luke copied over the essential details of the story, but he changes a few things as he sees fit. Some of these changes are nothing more than Luke's style of writing. For example, even though Luke is longer than Mark, sometimes he'll say things a little bit more succinctly than Mark, and sometimes he'll trim details here and there. But Luke also makes changes to Mark in order to make a point.

You'll notice, as we've been saying all along, that the story we'll be looking at is not just the same story; it's also told in almost exactly the same way with many verbatim overlaps. But there's a small handful of differences, and a few of these are far more than differences in memory. Instead, they are conscious choices, different brushstrokes on different portraits of Jesus.

The story we're looking at today is found in Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26. Here we see Jesus being brought a man who is paralyzed, and the crowd surrounding Jesus is so dense that the paralytic needs to be lowered through the roof. I'll summarize the main details as we go, but it might be helpful to read over each account; it will save me a lot of room here if I don't have to copy them over.

Again, the main core of the story is the same. Both Mark and Luke note that it was after "seeing their faith" that Jesus said to the man, "Your sins are forgiven." In response, the teachers and the scribes begin "thinking to themselves" that Jesus must be blaspheming, putting forth the rhetorical question, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" We are told that Jesus "knew what they were thinking," and then we are given His response: "'Which is easier: to say...'your sins are forgiven,' or to say 'Get up and walk?' But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,' he said to the man, 'I say to you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.'"

All of these details are shared, and what's more, all that you see in quotations above represents verbatim or near word-for-word agreements between each story. And yes, perhaps Luke's Jesus calls the man "friend" while Mark's Jesus calls him "son," or sometimes Mark may repeat that this man is "paralyzed" where Luke doesn't (and vice versa). You may also notice that Mark specifies that this all took place at a house in "Capernaum," whereas Luke does not. All of these minor tweaks that Luke makes to the story can be boiled down to style and do not really affect the meaning of the story.

We're looking for something much more significant.

It is my hope that if you took a moment to read these two stories, you noticed that Luke makes his biggest changes to the story at the very beginning of this episode.

You see, as you read through the Gospel of Mark, this story in chapter 2 is yet another story that takes place on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee—this is about the only place where we see Mark's Jesus working until the end of chapter 4, and even when He does go "somewhere else," He is apparently only visiting "nearby villages" (Mark 1:38).

If all we had was Mark, we could easily get the impression that Jesus's ministry is only having its impact in Galilee. But Luke opens his retelling of the story by making sure you know that the crowd "had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem" (5:17).

Today, you might get from Jerusalem to Galilee in about the same time it took to drive from Grand Rapids to Detroit. For Mark, this bit of information wasn't necessary for his purposes. He can just as easily tell you that Jesus is growing in popularity to the point where He cannot remain hidden by telling you that crowds are surrounding Him the moment they hear He's in town. But remember Luke's purpose: writing to believers who were unsure that they belonged to the Christian community, Luke focuses on the wideness of Jesus's ministry more than the other Gospels. By telling you how far and from what cities people were coming to see Jesus, Luke needs you to know that Jesus's ministry is expanding beyond the local and the familiar. No matter where you're from, Jesus has something for you.

Luke goes further, adding that "the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick." When you read through Luke's Gospel, especially after reading Mark and Matthew, you will be struck by just how often Luke, the narrator, directly calls Jesus "the Lord." And here in this story, Luke tells you that the power of the Lord—referring to the God of Israel—is with Jesus. What does this mean when you put it all together? That when Jesus heals and forgives in the Lord's power, He does these things in his own. Luke's Gospel has a much more intensive focus on the lordship of Jesus, and He uses this story to advance that claim.

Of course, Mark would not disagree with Luke on this point. But when we take this addition that Luke makes and compare it back to Mark, an interesting contrast emerges. In the wider context of Mark, Jesus is going to be accused of blasphemy in chapter 14. In fact, we're told that this is what ultimately makes those trying Him think that He is "worthy of death" (14:64). And don't get me wrong, this is definitely implied in Luke, but the idea of "blasphemy" is not explicitly mentioned in Luke's retelling.

So what effect does this have in Mark? For the person who has read and reread Mark all the way through, you can't miss this connection: what Jesus does for this paralyzed man here is ultimately going to get Him killed. Even more so than the lordship of Christ, Mark wants us to see that Jesus is actually suffering with the paralytic; He's giving away His life so that this man can find his. And just as clearly as that, the portrait of Mark's Jesus stands before us with absolute clarity: as God's anointed, Jesus uses His authority to lay down His life and to suffer with us rather than to exalt Himself.

Have any questions? Shoot me an email!

Prev: Four Portraits, One Jesus (Part Two) | Epilogue: Why Don't They Just Call Him "God"?
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