Delivered June 12, 2011
“We have seen strange things today!” Luke 5:26
Psalm 103; Luke 5:17-26
This is one of the great stories of the gospels. Yet it has many puzzling elements. No matter how many times I read this story, it still causes me to scratch my head, wondering what is meant by some of the things said here. The story is told by three gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew has an abbreviated form of it – without the whole process of lowering the paralyzed man through the roof. I have chosen to read the longest and most complete version, but I will be drawing on the other accounts as well.
It happened early in Jesus’ ministry; earlier in this chapter Jesus had just called this twelve disciples. But already Jesus’ fame had spread. It says that Pharisees and teachers of the Law “had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem.” (v. 17). This particular day he was in Capernaum, (Luke doesn’t tell us this but Mark does) which was the headquarters of his ministry. On this day a large crowd had gathered. Mark’s gospel describes it this way, “And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. 2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them.” They couldn’t all fit in the house. It was like one of our recent funerals! We could not fit all the people in this Baptist Meetinghouse. All the people who wanted to hear Jesus could not fit in the house where he was preaching.
The story focuses on one particular man who came – a paralyzed man. It appears to be a young man because in Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels Jesus calls him, “son.” Jesus was only thirty years old himself so I see this guy as a teen or in his early twenties; probably all of them – the man and his four friends – are all young guys. Who but a bunch of young men would think of this solution and have the audacity to actually do it? We are not told how this young man became paralyzed or how long he had been paralyzed. He was carried by his four buddies to Jesus hoping for a miracle. When they got to the house, they saw that there was no way they were going to squeeze inside, but they were determined that they were going to get their friend to the feet of Jesus. So they climbed up on the roof and pulled off the roofing tiles and lowered their friend down on a stretcher suspended by ropes.
This process must have taken some time. The people inside the house would have seen, heard and felt the roof coming apart, as debris fell on them. Especially picture the religious leaders sitting in the front row in their clerical robes, getting upset as debris showered down on them. That would have put them in a bad mood, which might explain their attitude later in the story. Jesus would have had to stop preaching. How can you preach when the roof is coming off? No one would be paying any attention to what he was saying any way, no matter how good a preacher he was. So picture the service stopping for a while until the roof is peeled away and a guy is let down on a stretcher in front of Jesus. This whole scene is strange enough, but it is only after the man makes it all the way to the floor that the really strange stuff happens.
I. First is a strange forgiveness. Verse 20 “When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” Forgiveness of sins itself is not so strange. We are used to it, especially in the Christian tradition. And forgiveness of sins was a very important – I would say the central part – of Jewish religion at that time. The strange thing about forgiveness in this story is how it suddenly comes out of nowhere. There was no mention of sin by the paralyzed man or his friends. Maybe Jesus was teaching about it before this man came crashing through the ceiling; but if he was preaching on the subject here, we have no knowledge of it and cannot presume it. In fact, if Jesus had been teaching on the subject in the house I would imagine the gospel writers would have mentioned it, but not one of them does. So we have to assume that Jesus introduces it here suddenly and unexpectedly.
This is strange because we are used to hearing and thinking about forgiveness in the context of confession, repentance, sacrifices, atonement, restitution and things like that. But there is no mention of any of these here. The paralyzed man came for healing – physical healing. He – and his friends – expected Jesus to lay his hands on him or perhaps just speak some words to him and fix him so he could walk again. But instead the man hears Jesus say the words, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” He came for physical healing and what he got was spiritual healing.
I have spent a lot of time in hospitals. In my last church in Pennsylvania my church was only a few miles from the largest hospital in the county. I used to go at least every other day and some weeks I went every day. When I visit a patient in the hospital what is mostly on their minds is physical healing. There are emotional and spiritual issues raised by the illness, but mostly people are looking for physical healing. As a pastor I can’t offer that. I can pray for their healing, and I do. But I have never had anyone I prayed for suddenly jump up from their hospital bed instantly cured. I am a Doctor of Ministry not a Doctor of Medicine. One of my pastor friends with a Ph.D. told me how on one occasion he was introduced by a member of his church as “Dr. So-and-So” but she added, “But he is not a real doctor.” I guess a Doctor of Ministry would be considered even less a “real doctor.” I don’t heal people, but Jesus did.
This paralyzed man wanted a real physician. That was why he came to Jesus and why his friends took the dramatic action they did to get him to Jesus. But what Jesus offered was spiritual healing. “Son, your sins are forgiven you.” Jesus offered this man forgiveness without being asked for it, without any confession of sins from the man, without any repentance, without any sacrifices as atonement for sins being offered at the temple. Why did Jesus say this?
I think he saw into this man’s heart and saw his deepest need. There is evidence for this in the text. It says in the story that Jesus could look into the hearts of men, specifically the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees present. Verse 22 says, “But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts?” I can’t read minds or hearts. Some people seem to think I can. Some people expect me to know when someone is in the hospital without telling me. “Why didn’t you visit my wife or husband? He was in the hospital for a week!” The answer is, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know!” I was absent on the day they taught mind-minding in seminary. I cannot know things unless people tell me. I can’t tell when someone’s feelings are hurt or they are upset about something unless they tell me. But apparently Jesus could know what was in people’s hearts and minds. At least that is what it says. I think he could tell that the real issue of this young paralyzed man was guilt.
It is amazing how often guilt comes up in relation to illness. People blame themselves for their own illness or their loved one’s illness. If only they had called the doctor sooner…. If only they had taken the symptoms more seriously… If only they had noticed the signs of depression earlier…. If only they had been paying closer attention…. If only they had not done this or that. If only they had done this or that … then he or she would not be so seriously ill. I think this paralyzed man was filled with guilt. I think Jesus could see it on his face. And that is why he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
Again notice that there were no conditions this man had to fulfill before Jesus forgave him. No confession or repentance. Nothing he had to believe or do. This was unasked for unconditional forgiveness. Unless you count the faith of the friends as a condition. All three accounts point out the faith of the friends. Verse 20 “When He saw their faith, He said to him, ‘Man, your sins are forgiven you.’” Since when can our sins be forgiven because of the faith of our friends? This just makes the whole story stranger. I wish I had an explanation for this. But the only answer I have is that it seems to be the grace of God. This is not the normal way we think about forgiveness, and yet it happened. I chalk it up to the inscrutable unpredictable grace of God in Jesus Christ.
II. I want to move on to another strange thing here in this passage. That is the strange orthodoxy of the religious leaders present at this healing. Jesus tells the man his sins are forgiven, and there is instant opposition from the religious leaders present. Verse 21 says, “And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” What Jesus was saying and doing did not fit their understanding of how God worked. It did not fit into their theological scheme of things. Just like it doesn’t fit into ours. It was unorthodox. It was heretical. It was blasphemous.
The word orthodox literally means "correct thinking " or "right doctrine " or “correct worship." It means thinking and doing things the right way. And we all have our opinions when it comes to what is right and wrong in religion. It doesn’t matter if we are conservative or liberal, we have our opinion on what is correct and what is not, whether it has to do with the correct type of music and style of worship or holding the right position on the hot-button social issues of the day. We are right and “they” whoever “they” are, are most definitely wrong. Right? So when we are reading this story let’s not stigmatize these religious leaders too quickly. They are us. Even if you consider yourself the most tolerant unjudgmental person in the county, you are intolerant of intolerant people and judgmental of judgmental people. And you know exactly who those intolerant and judgmental people are and what groups they belong to. We are more like these scribes and Pharisees than we want to admit.
Like radio preacher Harold Camping who predicted Judgment Day and the Rapture to be May 21. We think ... and sometimes we say, “What a nut!” In my blog I called him a crazy old man. That was not a very nice thing for me to say. It was judgmental of me. But we have our view on this matter, don’t we? And we think we are right and he is wrong. Right? It just so happens that our views are just not so easily and publicly disprovable as his were. And he will again be proven wrong when his new date of October 21 comes and goes with no rapture. Most of us are careful not to have our opinions so easily revealed as wrong. But that doesn’t mean our opinions are any more correct. We think we have “right thinking” on this matter. We are more like these scribes and Pharisees than we want to admit. “And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
III. Then we have Jesus’ strange response. “22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? 24 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.” 25 Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.”
Jesus said, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?” This has always puzzled me. It is seems to me that it is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven you” than to say, “Rise up and walk.” I assure people their sins are forgiven, but I have never said to a paralyzed man, “Rise up and walk.” But Jesus seems to be saying just the opposite - that it is easier to tell a paralyzed man to walk than tell a guilty man that he is forgiven. This seems strange to me.
As I struggle with the strangeness of this statement, I think it must have to do with the fact that I do not really comprehend what a tremendous thing it is to be forgiven of sins. We take this far too lightly. It is no big deal for us. We think that God should forgive automatically… because he is God. That is who he is; he is in the forgiveness business, right? After all God is love; how could he not forgive. Therefore we take forgiveness for granted. We in the secular post-Christian West especially take it for granted. That is why we really don’t understand the Cross. We just don’t get it; we don’t see the need for the Cross. We don’t understand the gospel. We don’t understand Jesus. But the whole purpose of the Cross is to communicate how serious sin is and how costly forgiveness of sin is. But we still don’t get it. This whole bloody mess of the Cross sounds almost blasphemous (if we would even use such a word) to our spiritually sophisticated minds. We are much more like these scribes and Pharisees than we think. They didn’t get it either.
What they didn’t get was that this guy Jesus was God, and that is why he had the authority to forgive sins. How can a man be God? That just did not compute in their minds. And neither does it for us. We tend to go to either one extreme or the other – to say he was just human like us – or to say that we all are divine like him – all sons and daughters of God. But both of those solutions are just ways to avoid the uniqueness of Christ. When the scribes and Pharisees said the words, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They were right; they just didn’t understand that God incarnate was standing there before them forgiving sins. And he is still here. Not in the flesh but in the Spirit, but it is still Christ. And he still forgives sins in the most strange and remarkable ways. And he still points us to faith.
Our story ends with the words, “And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today!” I hope you are amazed by these strange things we have seen in this story today. If you aren’t, then I haven’t told the story well enough, for this is a most amazing tale – and the healing is not the most amazing part of it. The most amazing part is that Jesus has the power on earth to forgive sins. The people who saw what happened that day were filled with awe (which is a better translation than fear) and they glorified God for the strange things they saw. May we glorify God for the amazing forgiveness of sins and inner healing he does through Jesus Christ.
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