February 20, 2000
Seventh Sunday of Epiphany
Year B
Theme: More than even physical healing, we have a powerful need for
the inner healing that God’s forgiveness brings.
The story that we have before us from the Gospel of Mark is an unusual
one, a story that at times seems confusing, a story that brings up the
whole question of whether sin and sickness are somehow connected, a
story that is dramatic and moving. It is an incredible story, this story of a
man who was so disabled that his friends had to carry him to the house
that Jesus was staying at. The crowds, even this early part of Jesus’
ministry, are tremendous, and they swarm around the house, almost like
something we would see when a famous movie star makes a public
appearance, or when a recording star does an autographing session at
a Hastings. The area around the house is packed and the doors are just
simply unapproachable—I mean, who wants to miss out on the chance to
see this rabbi who has been know to heal? Perhaps they will be able to
hear him teach, perhaps they will be able to see him heal; perhaps they
are in need of healing themselves. Moving aside for this paralyzed man
will only jeopardize the great spot they already have.
But the friends of this paralyzed man are relentless; they won’t give up,
even when the crowds cruelly won’t let them through. So, they go to the
roof, they literally dismantle the roof so that they can lower their friend
through the ceiling!
An amazing sight! Can you imagine it?! You’re sitting there, and you
hear noise and then you see daylight streaming down at you! But my
assumption here, which I suspect I probably share with most people, is
that this man desperately wanted to be healed of his paralysis—he
wanted to walk again and his friends wanted him to walk again. But what
Jesus does is incredible—he looks around the room at the people who
have lowered their friend into the room and themselves through the roof,
and he sees the faith that has brought them to this moment, and then he
says the oddest thing to the paralyzed man—he says to him, “Son, your
sins are forgiven.” And nothing happens, NOTHING HAPPENS!
He doesn’t get up, he doesn’t move around. I assumed that what this
man wanted desperately was to be healed physically, but it looks like, it
looks like, as least by what Jesus does, that this man was wanting was
something more than the healing of his body, he wanted something more
than the ability to move around—his friends brought him to Jesus for
something else, something very unexpected, at least to me—he wanted
forgiveness, he wanted God’s forgiveness, he wanted to be met by God
again and he wanted to be made spiritually whole, he wanted to be
reminded of God’s love, that whatever he had done was simply forgotten
by God. I thought this story was about a physical healing, but in the end,
this story is about the healing we all need, the healing of our hearts, the
healing of our souls, the healing of our relationship with God and with
each other. This man came to Jesus because he wanted peace—he
wanted to know that God loved him, even in those moments when he was
less than kind, less than gentle, less than loving, less than who he was
made to be. And that is what he got—how surprising! My assumption
was that the healing he sought was for his body, but, surprisingly, Jesus
sees that it was his heart that he was asking to be healed. But of
course, the story doesn’t end there…for some in the crowd, physical
healing is OK, but when you start thinking that you have the right to
forgive what only God can forgive—that is too much for them.
So the story continues, with the focus on the scribes—the professional
notetakers of the day, the professional clerks of the day, who, in this
case, were concerned with the correction interpretation of the Jewish
Law. And what Jesus did by uttering the words, “Son, your sins are
forgiven,” was simply too much for these men. They mutter these words
among themselves: “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is
blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And indeed, Jesus
was forgiving, Jesus was restoring wholeness, deep inner wholeness to
this man who lay on a mat, unable to move his body, but whose spirit was
soaring at that moment. But Jesus senses all the muttering going on and
he confronts the scribes right on and he ask them this question: “Why do
you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the
paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘Stand up and take your mat
and walk’?” “Which one is easier to recognize,” he asks them? “You can’
t see the inner healing, and so I will give you a physical healing you can
easily recognize, something that will prove to you that I have every right
to offer forgiveness.”
They could handle a healing they could see—but that Jesus was doing a
healing that was more wonderful than even a physical healing, an inner
healing, a healing that comes from receiving God’s forgiveness—that
was too much for these scribes. And so Jesus, in his effort to prove to
them that what the paralyzed man came for he received—God’s
forgiveness—he does a second healing, a second healing that can only
hint at the real healing that Jesus can do and is doing—he says to the
man that he has just healed in the most powerful way possible, he says
to him words that speak of another type of healing, a healing that the
man on the cot wasn’t expecting—“I say to you, stand up, take your mat
and go to your home.” He had already gotten what he had come for—
the inner peace, the inner healing he was searching for—and now a
second gift was being given him—the healing of his body. The second
gift of healing, the healing of his body, was only to prove that Jesus had
every right to do what he did—to forgive this man’s sins, to forgive him of
that which had caged his soul, to give him peace of mind. And anybody,
anybody, who has ever known what it means to live under the
oppression of sin, the oppression of living under the weight of a hateful
word that should not have been spoken, a fist that should have never
been raised, a desire that should have never been fulfilled, knows the
power of what Jesus did in his first healing in this story. To be forgiven
by God, to know that what one has done is simply no more in God’s
eyes—this is the real miracle in this story. You know, some of us are in
need of physical healing, some of us need our bones healed, our hearts
strengthened, our backs straightened, but all of us, all of us in this place,
need what the paralyzed man came for—to be healed in the most
profound way possible. To know that one is forgiven, to know that God’s
love meets you even in those awful moments that you spend a lifetime
regretting, those moments that you know you cannot take back, that is
the real healing.
We’ve all had those moments when we made wrong choices, when we
failed to live into the grace that God had given us. The wonder of this
inner healing, this forgiveness that God offers to us, to the world, is that
its already present in the grace that surrounds us. Sometimes, though,
we need to hear it, we need to hear it like this paralyzed man needed to
hear it. I know that I need to hear it,sometimes, I need to be reminded
that I am forgiven, even when I don’t feel forgiven, even when I have a
harder time forgiving myself. But the truth is that you and I, we are
forgiven, that is one of the great miracles of this moment, that what we
have done, what we haven’t done, is of no matter to God…we are loved,
we are met, we are healed, and, afterwards, after we have shed our
tears of gratitude and wonderment, we are told to stand up, and to take
up our mat, and to go home. Amen and amen.
