One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power
of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19
When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. 20
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” 21
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”22
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23
Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24
But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25
Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.26
Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
The Pharisees and the scribes enter into Luke’s gospel for the first time here, but it will not be the last. They seem to be coming from everywhere to hear and see
Jesus. The text says they had come from Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem. But we can understand why. They were the ones who taught the people about the Kingdom of God, they were the ones who were preparing the people for the coming of the kingdom. Now we have
this young preacher who had appeared on the scene talking about the same thing, but getting it all wrong! So, they had to come and check it out for themselves.
We are told that a group of men brought their paralyzed friend carrying him on a mat so that Jesus would heal him. But they could not get to Jesus for the crowd
so they took the tiles off the roof and lowered the man down and thus presented him before the Lord. We all know the story. But what is the point of the story? Why does the Holy Spirit want us to remember this encounter and these words? I
remember hearing a sermon on this text where the minister’s main point was ‘who was going to fix the hole that these men left in someone else’s roof?’ I have to admit, I had never heard that question, nor had I ever concerned myself that it was even
A point of the text, let alone THE point of the text.
But there are other questions that come to mind, perhaps a bit more pertinent than the fixing of the man’s roof. We read that Jesus saw THEIR faith. This has been
a point of much conversation. How and why would the faith of the ones carrying the man be cause for the man to be healed? Did “their faith” include the man who was lame, or was it simply the faith of his friends, and would it be a problem if it were
ONLY the faith of his friends and not his own?
It could be either of the choices. This is not the only time in the Bible that the faith of a specific person has been the means of the healing of someone else. For
instance, the centurion in Luke 7 is the one whose faith is responsible, so to speak, for the healing of the soldier’s servant. We get no word as to whether or not the servant even had any idea who Jesus was, let alone whether or not he trusted Him. And
then of course there is the promise of the covenant that the Lord promises to reward the faith of believing parents by His saving work in the hearts of their children. The principle of grace given to one due to the faith of another is not foreign to the Bible.
Of course, this does not mean that faith is not required of the recipient in matters of salvation. But we must also say that in matters of the healings of Jesus, the texts do not necessarily tell us that this faith was present! Oh, the mysteries of God’s marvelous
grace and mercy to man!
Jesus sees this man, now set before him, and he says, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” This is what sets the Pharisees and Scribes to wincing. They wondered
among themselves as to who this man thinks he is, for only God forgives sin, therefore this would be blasphemy, for this man would be equating himself with God. We want to be careful in our judgments on the Pharisees and Scribes. At least they believed that
blasphemy happens, that it is real and that men commit this sin, and that it is a horrible sin to commit. I say, at least they believe this, because we have to step back and wonder if the modern church even thinks there is such a sin. It very well could be
that the Pharisees understood this far better than most Christians do today.
Blasphemy occurs when unworthy things are attributed to God as well as with worthy things that should be attributed to God, are in fact denied Him. But it is also
blasphemous to attribute that which is God’s alone, to any other. This was a serious charge and the people of Jesus’ day knew it to be a serious charge, in fact if convicted it carried with it, according to the law of Moses, death.
Jesus knows what they are thinking and so asks His own question: Which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say Rise up and walk? But that you may
know that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, (He said to the man who was paralyzed), I say to you arise take up your bed and go to your house.” Now, we might agree that it is more difficult to secure the forgiveness of one’s sins than to
heal someone who is even this grossly handicapped. The first does not require any visible result, the second most certainly does. Any goof can CLAIM to forgive sins, who is to say if they are really forgiven or not? But if this lame paralytic does
not get up and walk, then everyone will know and will know right away that Jesus is a phony.
Here is the point of Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees: If Jesus can make this man whole, if this man really does get up and walk, then they must take at
face value that He can really forgive sins! Two things we are being asked to take seriously but that are often not taken seriously in our day: First is that there is such a thing as blasphemy and the second is the necessity for sins to be forgiven.
Because the modern church has domesticated God and made Him a “pal” instead of an awesome Being that strikes fear into the hearts of any and all who are in His presence,
we have lost a Biblical view of God. This is evident by the shallow and superficial ways Christians worship the Triune God, let alone speak of Him. We have failed to see just how blasphemous much of what we do and say in God’s name is. Here is one pastor’s
conclusion: If the very idea of an Almighty God, wonderful in glory, who inhabits eternity and dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see, if the very idea of a God whose insupportable glory must provoke the deepest reverence in the
hearts of men, if such a God no longer exists in the mind of men or the mind of the culture, how can there be such a thing as blasphemy? For there to be blasphemy, there must be a figure so exalted that everyone understands, commands absolute respect,
reverence, fear and homage. To belittle such a figure as that is blasphemy. But, (and here is the point) God is no longer such a figure in the minds of modern men and certainly not in the mind of the culture.”
And what about forgiveness? Are people today concerned with forgiveness? How many people truly think as they lay their heads down to sleep, whether or not God has
forgiven them their sins? There are many people who will go to bed and worry about their ailment whatever it might be, worry about their personal paralysis or whatever other problem is theirs, but few worry about their sins.
Folks might worry about OTHER people’s sins, how they affect us, how they offend us, how they get in our way of being happy and content, even to the point of justifying
or not dealing with our own sin because we can blame it, so we think, on someone else.
Let a man be convinced of the depth of his sin, his rebellion, and that it is expressly a rebellion against this One True God, and that ONLY this One True God can
forgive it…And, that He will forgive some, but He will NOT forgive others…AND, that for those whose sins He will not forgive there is nothing but the reality of judgment for all eternity, let men truly see this clearly, and then all of this would be different.
The point of this event is not the miracle of the paralysis being healed, nor is the point the men who brought their friend, although those things are commendable,
true and worth our attention. The point of the text, that which struck the Pharisees and the crowd that witnessed and heard what was being said, was the fact that Jesus claims to be able to forgive sins. Only God can do such things, and they are
right! Only God can; Jesus does not argue with that. And what were these people to think, a man says He can forgive sins and to prove it, he says He will heal this man of his lameness. The lame man is before them jumping up and down, skipping home
in joy, and there stands the one who says, He forgives sin…what does all of this mean?
The problem for those who watched this and heard these words, is that they did not know sin. They did not understand their OWN need for their OWN sin to be dealt with
by God, and they did not understand the provision of God, in Jesus, for sin to be destroyed.
But, how is this all that much different from today? Do we understand sin, its depth, its wickedness, and its power humanly speaking, that there was nothing in this
world, of this world, that was going to stop sin from running its course and gaining its desired end? How sinful is sin to the modern Christian? How sinful is sin, to you and to me? How will such a stain be removed? Can it be removed? If you think the stain
is light and small, you will think a light and small remedy to be all that is needed.
This is why I say we should be a bit more charitable in our judgment of the Pharisees and much harder on ourselves, because we have neither a correct view of sin,
its wickedness, its costliness, and what was demanded for it to be destroyed, taking all such things for granted! AND, because sin is so small and not that big of a deal, Christ and our God is small and not that big of a deal, and therefore how can you blaspheme
something that is not believed to be all that Great anyway!!!
They thought that forgiveness would be passed out by God, as most people think it will be today. Just go to church, go through the motions, say the right things at
the right times, have a showing of piety and religious fervor and God will forgive you your sins, whatever they might be. Obtaining forgiveness is not really that big of a deal.
So, we have to ask ourselves, is the forgiveness of our sins a momentous matter that we know lies far beyond the reach of any of our own efforts or the efforts of
any number of people we might solicit to help us with them? Do we see ourselves in this paralytic? Our sins having maimed us, left us unable but to be forever declared unclean and without hope.
The life of Jesus and all that He did, all the miracles, all the wonders, all the stories we teach our children are in fact building and pointing us to this one main
issue: It is the cross, not the healing of the sick that explains why Jesus was in this world to begin with. It is the cross that makes it clear to us, the greatness of our sin, the greatness of God’s hatred of it, and the greatness of the Love of Jesus
Christ who alone would atone for it all.
Be assured of this, when you meet this man, the once paralytic man and you ask him what great work did Jesus do for you, he will not first and foremost speak to his
paralysis being overturned. Ask him when you have been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun…Ask him again, after 100,000 years of living in the reality of Glory and the perfection of God’s Kingdom, and I will guarantee you, you will hear only
of the filth of his sins being atoned for, being forgiven, and being forgiven by the Only One who could do so.
If we will fix our hearts to know, to understand what forgiveness is, what it has cost, what has been done by the Eternal God to secure it for His children…I can assure
you, our hatred of sin will be as you have never thought it could be as will our joy! AND, God will be very great in your eyes, and being in His presence will send chills down your spine…And the mere mention of Jesus, will send you to your knees with tears
streaming down your cheeks, wishing only to wash His feet with those tears as one who has been forgiven much!
Prayer: Father, forgive me for living as though sin is only an inconvenience and not the malady and repulsive reality that it is. Forgive me for seeking to domesticate
and tame my sins instead of mortifying them, and warring against them. May I live every day in the realization of a Love so great that it would endure the full weight of my sin and the sin of the world for the salvation of men, through Jesus Christ my Lord,
Amen.
Hymn: What Wondrous Love is This (A beautiful setting of this spiritual by the St. Olaf Choir)