Mark, Chapter 2: Sinning causes paralysis

Jesus goes back to Capernum and is immediately besieged by people seeking cures for what ails them. One is a paralysed man. Jesus looks at him and says Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. (v. 3)

Some concern trolls scribes happen to be watching this, and they fret amongst themselves that Jesus is blaspheming. Jesus reads their minds and challenges them, asking Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? (v. 9) As he's talking, he's getting more and more pissed off, so he decides to prove that the son of man has the power to forgive sins. So he turns to the paralysed dude and says Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. (v. 10) This shuts the skeptics up.

Jesus decides to take a beach vacation, but even there people seek him out. He also picks up a new disciple, Levi. They go out for dinner, and while they're eating, people are still coming up to them with their gross diseases and mental illnesses and asking him to heal them. Thank god for health codes, is all I have to say.

The Pharisees make their first appearance, this time to point out that Jesus shouldn't be eating in public, with bartenders and other sinners. Jesus retorts that just like healthy people don't need a doctor, righteous people don't need him. So they ask why they and John's followers fast, but Jesus' followers don't. Tyranny of small differences, that. Jesus compares himself to a bridegroom whose guests eat and drink at the wedding and fast later and tells a couple of confusing parables about a patched garment tearing because the patch isn't pre-shrunk and how recycling a wine bottle makes it explode.

Then we're back to that cornfield interlude where Jesus & co. are rudely picking and eating someone else's corn and the Pharisees have nothing better to do than follow them around criticising them for doing it on the sabbath, as though that's the real crime here. Jesus' answer, again, is David did it and who cares and I'm Jesus, so fuck you.