Good MORNING. Today, we saw one of the most fun miracles in the Gospels, one just about every Jesus movie likes to include, the healing of a paralyzed man who gets dramatically lowered by ropes into Peter’s house through his roof.
For context, Jesus had just returned from Gadara, a Gentile town across the Sea of Galilee. While there, He cast a legion of demons out of two men. You would think that this would be cause for celebration, as these men had constantly blocked a route out of town with their violent behavior.
Jesus sent the demons into a herd of pigs, which promptly ran off a cliff into the sea, but the people of that town didn’t celebrate. They didn’t shout for joy or thank God for delivering the demon possessed men. Instead, they begged Jesus to go away. When they saw God’s power, they chose fear, and the lives of pigs over the freed lives of their neighbors.
People don’t always rejoice when God’s power is revealed, often they are terrified. Like a Superhero movie when someone’s best friend suddenly reveals they have super strength, to save their friends life, and their friend, instead of being grateful, flips out.
Jesus leaves Gadara and sails across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum. And as soon as word gets out that He’s back, the crowds swarm Him. People had seen His miracles before and wanted more. They wanted the healer, not the Gospel Preacher. So Jesus turns the healing into a lesson on what the Gospel is!
Among the crowd was a group walking with a paralyzed man on a stretcher.
There was no way in through the doors with the stretcher, but they were determined to get him to Jesus. Mark and Luke’s account include the part where they climb up on the roof, pull apart the tiles, and lower their friend right down in front of Jesus.
Now here’s the catch for this morning. When Jesus looks at the man on the mat, He sees a deeper problem. Something much more important than paralysis! The man’s greatest need (surprisingly to everyone watching) isn’t to walk again, but forgiveness.
Jesus says to him, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.”
Now that doesn’t seem like an exciting statement at first glance. No one gasps. No one cheers. I’m sure many in the crowd are likely confused.
The scribes sitting nearby, are horrified. They don’t say it out loud, but they’re thinking, “This man blasphemes,” knowing only God can forgive sins. In other words, the situation is a double whammy, because everyone is confused. Most are confused that, instead of healing the man, Jesus pronounced that his sins were forgiven, and seemed to be done with him, and seems to go on.
The scribes who had gathered to see what was going on, now hear Jesus make a claim that only God can make. If Jesus had said, “May God forgive your sins,” no one would have objected. But He simply declares, “Your sins are forgiven.” That is not a prayer. It’s a proclamation. It’s the voice of authority—God’s authority—speaking forgiveness only God has the authority to speak.
While the scribes are silently fuming, Jesus reads their minds. He looks straight at them and asks, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”
That’s an interesting question. It’s easy to say “your sins are forgiven,” because there’s no visible proof. No one can see forgiveness happen. But to say, “Rise and walk” to a paralyzed man—that’s a claim you can test immediately. If the man stays on the mat, Jesus’ words mean nothing. But if he stands up, then Jesus’ authority is confirmed for everyone to see.
So, to prove His authority to forgive sins, Jesus says to the man, “Rise, take up your bed, and go home.” And instantly, the man gets up, rolls up his mat, and walks out the door. Imagine that moment. The crowd parts, mouths open, and the man who came in on a stretcher walks home on his own two feet.
Matthew tells us, When the crowds saw it, they were afraid. Here is that fear again. But they also glorified God.
They finally rejoiced, but what did it take? They only rejoiced when they saw a body healed, not when they heard a soul forgiven. Jesus had to heal the man’s body to make them begin to believe the important part, what He had done for his soul. It’s an easy trap to fall into.
We celebrate the visible blessings—the job we wanted, the recovery from sickness, the answered prayer—but we sometimes overlook the invisible ones, like the forgiveness of our sins and healing from spiritual sickness.
That’s why Jesus begins His words to the paralyzed man with, “Be of good cheer.” It’s not because he’s about to walk; it’s because he’s forgiven. This lesson points to the fact that we need to be told to rejoice that our sins are forgiven, because so often we don’t realize how thankful we should be, and how great it is that they are. We don’t take them seriously. We treat forgiveness as an ordinary, everyday thing, when it is actually the most extraordinary thing in the world.
Think about it. If this man had gone home still on his stretcher, but if he was forgiven, he would have had everything that matters for eternity.
But I doubt the crowd would have marveled. They wouldn’t have shouted, “Praise God, his sins are forgiven!” They would have been disappointed. That’s because we are far more impressed by temporary blessings than by eternal ones.
It’s not that health, or jobs, or answered prayer don’t matter, but they aren’t the ultimate measure of God’s love. The truest sign of God’s love is the cross, where Jesus took our sins and gave us His righteousness
The enemy, of course, hates that fact. So, he works to make us forget how precious forgiveness is. He tempts us to focus on what we can see, our immediate success, or pain, or health, or reputation, and ignore the deeper miracle happening in our souls.
Matthew’s lesson pushes us to ask, what do we value most? Do we measure God’s goodness by how smooth my life is going, or by the unshakable promise that your sins are forgiven and my eternal life is in God’s Hands? When we learn to find our cheer in that, we gain a peace that no storm, sickness, or struggle can take away.
Jesus says to every believer, “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you,” because that is the most important thing we could rejoice in.
