The Original Elevator

These days when some needs to get from one floor to the other in a building, they can take the stairs, an escalator, or an elevator.  It is believe that the elevator was created by American inventor Elisha Otis, in 1853.  The elevator provides us with safe way to easily access the different floors of a building.  It is used often to move things from one floor to another or more importantly allow people with disabilities or the inability to use stairs or an escalator, access to more than one floor of the building.  It is also the center piece in skyscrapers and other large buildings where walking to the upper floors would be tiring and time consuming.  We often take the elevator for granted when it comes to transportation, but many people are thankful for its creation.  However, the original elevator was not created in 1853, in fact it was used much earlier in our history.  The original elevator was used by a group of men who wanted their crippled friend to be able to see Jesus.

 One day, Jesus was teaching and healing those in need.  A group of men brought their paralyzed man to see Jesus.  They carried him on a mat and when they came to the house, there was no way through the crowd for them to get their friend to see Jesus.  They were desperate to see Jesus so they decided to climb up onto the roof and through a hole in the roof, they lowered their paralyzed friend down in front of Jesus.  When Jesus saw all the trouble that the paralyzed man’s friends went to so that he could see Jesus, he knew that they had great faith, so he healed the man.   He told the man to get up, take the mat, and walk home.  The man got up off the floor, picked up the mat, and walked home praising God all the way home.

The first elevator was used so that a believer could see Jesus and be healed.  That is amazing.  It may not of looked like a modern day elevator, but it is based on the same principle.  Men attached rope the corners of a mat and lowered their friend down to the ground.  There wasn’t a button to push with a G on it for the ground floor.  There wasn’t a bell hop on the mat with him holding his luggage or announcing the floor:

“First floor, bread, fish, and healing.” 

There was a chance that the ropes would snap or one side would be lowered faster than the other causing the paralyzed man to fall off of this homemade elevator.   In the end, this elevator was a life changing, life altering vessel of faith.  The man on the mat elevator was healed by Jesus and from that point on became a true believer in God.  Obviously he and his friends were believers before he was healed or they would not of gone to such great lengths to seek an audience with Jesus.  Faith is a beautiful thing and through faith we can do anything, just ask the men who created the original elevator, or the man that from that moment on for the rest of his life could take the stairs.