Introduction:
In 1990 a 32 year old psychiatric patient rushed through the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam until he reached Rembrandt’s famous painting "Nightwatch." Then he took out a Squirt Gun filled with acid and sprayed it all over the masterpiece before he could be stopped.
But what did officials do? Throw it out and forget about it? Absolutely not! Using the best experts, who worked with the utmost care and precision, they made every effort to restore the treasure.
God’s masterpiece was His creation—his crowning achievement was us. By our own misguided actions we have damaged his masterpiece, marred the beautiful image of Himself. But He was not content to throw us out, nor even to leave us damaged, but instead has chosen to reverse the effects of the curse that our sin has brought upon us.
Transition: In the miracle story today, Jesus points directly to the curse of sin and makes it clear that He has the power and the desire to reverse the curse in our lives and to reverse it thoroughly. This morning I’d like to look at this story as an illustration of how Jesus reverses the effects of the curse in every part of our beings
First, notice with me that Jesus reverses the effects of the curse in our…
1. Hearts
v. 2 Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven."
The curse that we speak of is all of the consequences of sin. And more than anything else sin is heart disease. Jesus came as the ultimate cardiologist. If the curse is going to be reversed it has first of all to be dealt with at the heart.
Take heart Jesus says to the man, your sins are forgiven. Take heart or be encouraged because having a heart that is ailing of the disease of sin is nothing if not discouraging.
People may try to hide the pain of their sexual perversion by calling themselves “gay,” they may refer to their battles with substance addiction as “parties,” they may smile as they wander their way through lives of quiet desperation, but when the lights go out as they lie in bed there is nothing but emptiness of heart, worse then just emptiness, there is the haunting pain of unfulfilled longing. Their heart knows that they were meant for something else.
Jesus, looks at the man whose obvious affliction was a crippled body, but He sees that the deeper pain is a crippled heart. Take heart, Jesus says, your sins are forgiven.
Perhaps your heart is crippled this morning. You don’t know what it means to be free of shame. Jesus, says to you also, Take heart, your sins are forgiven, they are paid for.
You see Jesus backed up his promise of forgiveness with His life. He died on the cross to pay for your sins, so that if you reach out to Him, trusting that he has paid your way, you can be free from sin and it’s bondage and it’s penalty. And you are invited to an eternal celebration of that freedom with Him in Heaven. Jesus reverses the curse first in our hearts.
Next jesus reverses the damage the curse has done to our…
2. Minds
vv 3-6 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, "This fellow is blaspheming!" Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ’Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ’Get up and walk’? 6But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home."
Jesus, sees the thoughts of the Pharisees, evil thought he calls it. But you know if it weren’t for our 20/20 hindsight, we probably wouldn’t think of that thought as evil. Seems kind of normal. Why, because our minds too are affected by the fall, and without His healing our minds we fail to notice the danger of failing to recognize His sovereignty.
The curse has broken our relationship with God and the mind affected by the fall fails to relate all things to Him. It is just as evil for us to try to figure out this world and fail to recognize His divine fingerprints. It is just as evil for us to make our plans based on our own desires and fail to recognize His sovereignty.
We need the same reality check that the Pharisees did, we need to Let Jesus be Lord of all and to correctly relate all of our lives to Him.
I’ve mentioned to you before, that often I think even we Christians live as practical atheists, trying to compartmentalize our lives and give God room only on Sundays or when tragedy strikes or we find ourselves out of other options. We fail to recognize Jesus and His plan as the very fabric our lives are woven out of and the spiritual seems somehow out of place in the ordinary of our lives. Like the teachers of the law saying—“who is he to make this a sin thing? Who is he to forgive sins?
We need to invite Jesus to reverse the curse in our minds—to not be conformed to the world’s pattern of thinking but be transformed by His renewing of our minds.
Finally Jesus reverses the curse in our…
3. Bodies
vv. 6b-7…Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home.
Jesus not only demonstrates His mastery over the sickness, He offers that healing power as proof of his mastery of sin. What is the link here? Well sickness was not part of God’s original creative plan for mankind, It’s a brokenness that resulted from the fall.
This is not to say that all of our sickness is a direct result of personal sin, although all of us can think of circumstances in which that is true. But rather, it is simply an understanding that sickness and death are part of the consequences of living as fallen creatures in a fallen world.
Well Jesus came as the one promised to reverse that curse. The promise was given even as God pronounced the curse—that an offspring would come—the one who would come to be known as Messiah, or Christ, who would crush the serpent’s head. Part of reversing the curse is reversing the curse of death and sickness.
Ultimately that reversal is seen in the promise of eternal life—Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in me, though he dies, yet will he live. Jesus reverses the curse of death in our bodies by His resurrection promise. But before that he demonstrates his mastery over sickness and death in healing power.
So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said "Get up, take your mat and go home." He who has power ofver sin has power over sickness. And he has that power today just as he did then.
Now this is a foretaste of the resurrection promise—the promise of eternal life with no sickness, no pain and no tears. It is not universally applied. it wasn’t even in Jesus earthly ministry—several times the gospels tell us Jesus leaves the crowds who had come for healing. Nevertheless, Jesus could and did heal. And He still can and does, for the reasons we’ve talked about—to show his power and because He is compassionate toward us.
And each time He heals it is a demonstration, as it was on that day with the man on his mat, that Jesus has the power to reverse the curse of sin
Conclusion:
Believers dare not come to the Lord’s Table except with a repentant heart. "Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner," as Paul puts it, "drinks judgment to himself." That should be a sobering warning, especially when the apostle adds that because of this offense many have fallen ill or died. Any pastor who takes the Word of God seriously should never administer Communion without adequately warning partakers. Those who are unrepentant should flee the table rather than trivialize the sacred.
And God does not view this sacred act lightly. Pastor Pat Novak, discovered this when he was serving as a hospital chaplain intern just outside of Boston several years ago. Pat was making his rounds one summer morning when he was called to visit a patient admitted with an undiagnosed ailment. John, a man in his sixties, had not responded to any treatment; medical tests showed nothing; psychological tests were inconclusive. Yet he was wasting away; he had not even been able to swallow for two weeks. The nurses tried everything. Finally they called the chaplain’s office.
When Pat walked into the room, John was sitting limply in his bed, strung with IV tubes, staring listlessly at the wall. He was a tall, grandfatherly man, balding a little, but his sallow skin hung loosely on his face, neck, and arms where the weight had dropped from his frame. His eyes were hollow.
Pat was terrified; he had no idea what to do. But John seemed to brighten a bit as soon as he saw Pat’s chaplain badge and invited him to sit down. As they talked, Pat sensed that God was urging him to do something specific: He knew he was to ask John if he wanted to take Communion. Chaplain interns were not encouraged to ask this type of thing in this public hospital, but Pat did.
At that John broke down. "I can’t!" he cried. "I’ve sinned and can’t be forgiven."
Pat paused a moment, knowing he was about to break policy again. Then he told John about 1 Corinthians 11 and Paul’s admonition that whoever takes Communion in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself. And he asked John if he wanted to confess his sin. John nodded gratefully. To this day Pat can’t remember the particular sin John confessed, nor would he say if he did, but he recalls that it did not strike him as particularly egregious. Yet it had been draining the life from this man. John wept as he confessed, and Pat laid hands on him, hugged him, and told John his sins were forgiven.
Then Pat got the second urging from the Holy Spirit: Ask him if he wants to take Communion. He did. Pat gave John a Bible and told him he would be back later. Already John was sitting up straighter, with a flicker of light in his eyes.
Pat visited a few more patients and then ate some lunch in the hospital cafeteria. When he left he wrapped an extra piece of bread in a napkin and borrowed a coffee cup from the cafeteria. He ran out to a shop a few blocks away and bought a container of grape juice. Then he returned to John’s room with the elements and celebrated Communion with him, again reciting 1 Corinthians 11. John took the bread and chewed it slowly. It was the first time in weeks he had been able to take solid food in his mouth. He took the cup and swallowed. He had been set free.
Within three days John walked out of that hospital. The nurses were so amazed they called the newspaper, which later featured the story of John and Pat, appropriately, in its "LIFE" section. Charles W. Colson, The Body,1992, Word Publishing, pp. 139-140.
