Title: Sickness or sin; let Jesus decide
Word count: 1791
This sermon was delivered to the congregation in St Oswald’s,
in Maybole, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 5th February 2012.
(A Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
Is 43.18-25 Psalm 41 2 Cor 1.18-22 Mark 2.1-12
Prayer: May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight. Amen.
Summary: The people of Capernaum wanted to see the physical manifestations of Jesus miracles, yet spoke of salvation. Are the two related?
Introduction.
This is a very familiar passage where Jesus healed the paralysed man who was dropped through a roof; yet there are many gems in this passage to be shared.
First of all, did you notice the city was called Capernaum; the very town Jesus began His public ministry. Did you notice the words, “he had come home”?
The first time Jesus came to Capernaum, he demonstrated His great power. He cast out demons and healed diseases of every kind; and probably healed nearly every sick person in that city. Basically His miracles eclipsed His message, the message where he first publically claimed he was the Messiah.
Jesus had returned
Now Jesus had returned to Capernaum; but the city now valued his miracles more than his message. They wanted the spectacular and rejected his offer of salvation, and as a result we read in Luke 10 that Jesus later pronounced a curse upon the city.
Jesus had returned to Capernaum, and entered into a house where he started preaching; (possibly to escape the crowd who wanted to see miracles.
Now we can relate to this crowd who wanted to see Him do the extraordinary, so imagine their surprise and disappointment when Jesus began to preach; and from inside of a house at that.
Jesus had decided that the message was far more important that the miracles.
We do not know what he preached that day, but I think it is safe to say that he preached on salvation, and the forgiveness of sins; as that is the conclusion to this story which has a sort of dramatic finale; where four men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus through the roof right in the middle of his sermon.
These men obviously believed that if they could only get this poor man to Jesus, then Jesus would heal him. Now that is faith.
The man is dropped through the roof.
I also think this was probably a humorous scene for Jesus; because in the middle of his sermon he would hear the men climbing onto the roof; and once there, they begin to dig through the ceiling, with all the plaster and branches and stuff falling onto those assembled below; then looking up they would see blue sky with four wee heads looking down as they make an opening large enough to lower their friend into the house.
I imagine there is a smile on the face of Jesus as He realizes what is happening; and then thinking, “this is just what I need to conclude my sermon”.
And so Jesus basically analyses the condition of this paralysed man, and diagnosed that this man’s problem lay in his sin; because he Jesus quickly and easily spoke the cure by saying these amazing words “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”
This man was brought to Jesus for physical healing but Jesus treated his psychological condition by dealing with his sin, sin which was obviously bothering him; well obvious to Jesus.
We today are exactly the same, sin is our greatest problem although we tend to focus on the physical instead of the spiritual; and we rarely stop to think about where we stand in the eyes of the Lord; the only place where we can find true help.
Your sins are forgiven
Jesus said “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” and that man (nor us), probably did not realize the full impact of what Jesus was saying. These are probably the most powerful words we will ever hear, “Your sins have been forgiven”; and I can’t think of any words more powerful.
And by the way, the word “son” is translated as “child”, so it covers both genders. It is a word of tenderness, a word spoken to a son or a daughter; a word that speaks of belonging to a family. That is what happens when a lost sinner meets the Lord, he or she is treated like a son or daughter, and when we break the bread, we are saying we are part of that family.
1 John 1:3 says “You are His child now”!
It is sin in all of its ugliness and horror that stands between us and God, but, when a lost person comes to Jesus for salvation, all their sins are instantly and eternally forgiven.
Ask yourself this question, if God does not forgive our sins, “What use are we too him or anybody else”. If God does not forgive our sins, are we to do his work afraid of others, covered in guilt and shame, feeling sorry for ourselves and full of self pity, trying to excuse our past mistakes.
The first thing God does with us is to forgive our sins, that way, we can be useful, and 1 John 1:7 tell us that we can then be “brought into perfect fellowship with the Heavenly Father”. What a truth, what a blessing, “perfect fellowship”.
We can therefore thank God that our Saviour has the power to forgive our sin, erase our past and do away with our guilt.
To move on, Jesus had just given this man the greatest gift the world has ever known: complete forgiveness and acceptance. Question, do you think those watching realised this?
Well, I don’t think so, because if you think about it, these were only words, nothing physical had changed; and it is the same with us, all these good words do nothing unless we are tested, in the time of trial.
The voices of disapproval, the Scribes and the Pharisees
And that is what happened to Jesus here, because along came the Scribes and the Pharisees to spoil things with their great knowledge of scripture and doctrine.
And when these religious men heard Jesus forgive the man’s sins, they could not believe their ears; because they knew exactly what Jesus was saying; because they knew that only God could forgive sins; and they were bothered because Jesus was blatantly saying “I am God”.
Can you see how this enraged them; and understand why they accused Him of blasphemy.
But Jesus, being God, knew what they were thinking in their hearts and immediately offered them a way out, a challenge so to speak, saying “Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?”
Either of those statements is easy to make, but only one can be easily proved.
Anyone can say, “Thy sins be forgiven thee” but the real proof for the Pharisees was to see the crippled man “Rising up and walking” which he did; proving that Jesus was the Messiah as only a God could heal this man, to them, the more difficult of the two tasks.
Jesus uses the physical to prove spiritual. So in these verses, Jesus uses the physical to prove the spiritual; although he dealt with the spiritual first and then the physical. Are you with me, forgiveness of sin cannot be easily proven, but the type of life lived there after, can.
The man was healed both in his heart and in his body. When the Lord forgives a person’s sins, that person becomes a “new creature”; And 2 Cor. 5:17 says “Our insides are the things that are changed so that our walk can be completely different”.
It is like a ship sailing through the ocean, you cannot see where you are going nor measure your speed, but if you look behind, you can you see where you have been; and where you could have went was it not for the Lord being in charge of your life.
And finally, we come to the best part of this story, because at the end Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "stand up, take your bed, and go home. Immediately the paralyzed man stood up, took his mat, and walked out while everyone was watching him”.
Why is this so good, well because this man had been free from a bad sin? Think about it, he had committed a sin so bad that he was left paralysed; possibly murder or something as serious. … Or if it was not as serious, it was certainly serious to him, so much so that it played on his mind so much that it left him paralysed for life. And here Jesus is saying this sin has been forgiven.
You have been judged through me, and you are found not guilty. Stand up and walk home. You have nothing to explain to anyone, you have nothing to apologise for. You are completely free from your sin; and free to live a good life.
Salvation begins on this earth and we need our sins to be forgiven now, and as they happen, that way we too can lead a life fit to serve or Lord.
Conclusion
And it gets better, as when our sins are forgiven, Revelation 20: 15 tells us that we can enter heaven with our names written on the lamb’s book of life.
I don’t know about you, but I what to live a life that will bring honour to the Lord, and I also I want my name written in that book of life; and that is one reason that I drink from the cup of salvation; and I invite you to do the same.
Amen.
Let us pray,
Father we thanks you for Jesus. We thank you that he died on that cross to free us from our sin.
We know that you want us free from our sin, free us from ourselves, free us from our own guilt and free from all condemnation but some how we do not feel it, nor believe it or want to believe it.
Father we tell you again that we are sorry for our sin and we are ashamed of them; so like that paralysed man, speak into our hearts your words of forgiveness; and give us this day a revelation that we are free from our sins, and free to life a life that will bring honour to you.
We ask in Jesus name,
Amen.
