Sermon
Mark 2:1-12
Beyond Paralysis
“What did I do to deserve this?” I’ve walked into a lot of hospital rooms over the years and heard that question. Our ancestors in Jesus’ day believed illness and injury to be the direct result of sin. Today, we claim to have moved beyond that. Not only because of developments in science that tell us how illness is transmitted and injury sustained, but also because our theology has developed. We simply don’t believe that God is about seeking out sinners and striking them down with tuberculosis or paralysis or whatever. In Jesus Christ, we have come to believe that God has come among us not to condemn us, but to save us.
So, with that as our preface, what in the world do we do with this healing story that seems to suggest a connection between sinfulness and the man’s paralysis?
I think we begin by resisting the urge to jump to conclusions. I think we begin by remembering that two significant things happen in this story. The first is that the man’s sins are forgiven. This paralyzed man is brought by four very good and faithful friends and lowered through the roof of an overcrowded house in the hope that Jesus would heal him. So we may not be the only ones surprised when Jesus announces the man’s sins are forgiven but the man still can’t move a muscle. I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the four friends, let alone the paralyzed man. Did his friends speak up and say, “A..yeah. Thank you Teacher for the forgiveness…but a…that’s not really why we’re here.” There’s no doubt this man was a sinner, we all are, but it seems obvious that he’s there to be healed.
That’s when the second significant part of the story begins to unfold. Jesus senses that the scribes are murmuring against him for having forgiven this man’s sins. The scribes don’t think Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, only God can do that. To which Jesus seems to be saying, “Yes, you’re right only God can forgive sins. And I just forgave that man his sins. You put it together.” Well, that’s my paraphrase of what Jesus says. Actually Jesus puts it before the scribes in the form of a challenge. He says, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or to say ‘Stand up and take you mat and walk’”? Not surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t get a response. Jesus then says to the scribes and to everyone gathered, and especially to the man on the stretcher, “So you may know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins, I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And he does.
These two significant acts, forgiveness of sins and healing, point to who Jesus is as the “Son of Man” as “Emmanuel” as God-with-us. These two significant acts point to the overall purpose of Jesus’ coming, they point to his mission and ministry, they point to his identity. In Jesus Christ we meet the One who has the authority to forgive our sins and to move us beyond all that would paralyze our lives, our spirits, our person. In Jesus Christ, we meet the One who re-orders reality as we know it.
Early in my ministry I made a hospital call on a young man who was in his twenties and had what’s called “a complete injury.” In other words, he was totally paralyzed from the waist down. As we talked, he told me about all the things he was going to do to get walking again, how hard he was going to work at regaining the use of his legs. I knew otherwise, of course, and maybe he knew it too. Since, I thought it might be better for him to face the music now and begin to adjust to the reality of his injury, I told him, as gently as I could, that he wouldn’t walk again. And those were the last words he allowed me to say to him.
And you know what? He was right. What I’ve become convinced of over the years and by the grace of God is that my reality is often times far too small, too minimalist, too black and white. Reality itself can be paralyzing. This young man didn’t need to feel the paralyzing effects of my reality on top of his injury. What he needed is what we all need, hope.
Hope doesn’t mean we live in a world of make believe, but hope does call us to look beyond the confines of reality as we know it to what could be. I mean, have you ever really thought about what it means to be forgiven, to be truly forgiven, to have your sins wiped off the map of existence, to have God remember your sins no more? Such forgiveness calls us to part with a reality that says such a thing is impossible. The good news of the gospel proclaims a new reality, one that takes us beyond the paralysis of sin, beyond the paralysis of reality, and into the kingdom of God where forgiveness abounds and yes, miracles do occur.
So what are we saying? Are we saying that there’s hope for the paraplegic and the terminally ill cancer patient? You better believe it! But we’re saying more than that, much more than that. We’re saying that God, in Jesus Christ, has re-ordered reality. We’re saying that hope isn’t just something we cling to from time -to-time when we’re feeling our most desperate, but rather hope is a divine gift that forms, shapes, and molds us; hope is our new reality.
And hope begins with an acceptance of forgiveness. Jesus leaves little doubt that regenerating nerve cells in paralyzed bodies is nothing compared to what he’s up against when it comes to sin. So, ff it is true, really and truly true, that forgiveness is realized in Jesus Christ, then hope isn’t wishful thinking it is reality, it is our reality, it the reality of all things being possible with God.
And yet it is also reality to say that it is sin that keeps us from living into hope. I mean, what better symbol for sin is there than paralysis? Is not sin a freezing of the will that keeps us from doing the good that we know God wants? Is not sin the freezing of time, the freezing of reality, that prevents us from moving beyond a certain point?
So who is it in our story that has the authority to both forgive sins and take paralysis away? Who is that has the authority to re-shape, re-form, re-configure reality? The good news is that God has acted in Jesus Christ to not only forgive our sins but also to relieve us of the paralysis that keeps us frozen in our sin.
Only as we come to embody forgiveness in our paralyzed bodies will we know God’s gift of a new reality; only as come to sincerely receive God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ will we be able to genuinely forgive ourselves and others.
So when we sit at the bedside of a loved one and the doctor tells us that it’s a hopeless situation, we know better. It is not delusional to believe that miracles can and do happen. But the greater good news is that the hope we have in Jesus Christ is not limited to physical healings. There are plenty of people out there whose lives have been transformed, whose world has been re-ordered, not because their cancer disappeared overnight, but because they came to know the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ. The truth be known, sin is a far greater epidemic than any disease we’ve ever known. Jesus knew that. Which is why we live into a hope that focuses on the reality of our forgiveness in Jesus Christ, our having been delivered from that which kills not only the body but also the soul.
And so on this day of days we rejoice that in an act of intercessory vandalism God has acted to rip open not our limited little roofs of reality, but heaven itself that forgiveness in Jesus Christ might reign/rain down upon all of us. Stand up, O children of God! Stand up and pick up your new lives and walk into a new day of hope.
Amen.
Copyright 2006 Jeffrey K. London. Used by permission.