TITLE: “Jesus’ Power of Forgiveness”

 

In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.  Our text for this Sunday is the Gospel lesson just read, with particular emphasis on the words, When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Talk about persistence!  Have you ever gotten something into your head that you just couldn’t be rid of?  Have you ever had some task that was dogging you, that just kept coming back to you time and time again.  You know what I mean.  Sometimes we can be obsessed by a task, so that you just can’t seem to rest until it’s finished.

It seems that the paralytic in our Gospel this morning had just such friends.  Imagine their dismay at coming to this house.  They had come to see Jesus, because these men’s friends had heard that Jesus’ word could heal.  So they go to the house to have their friend healed of his paralysis.

But when then got there, what happened?  It was so packed that they didn’t know what to do.  It was so full of people, crowds clamoring to hear Jesus preach to them.  But would they give up on their friend?  Would they give up on getting him to hear the one man, the chosen one of God who could heal his infirmity?  No.  They didn’t give up.  In fact, they were so persistent, that they went on top of the roof, cut a hole in the roof and let him down.  These guys are crazy!  What could be so important that it was worth destroying property over?  What could be so critical to their friend that it was worth all this trouble?

These men give us a picture of faith.  Faith that will not be moved.  Faith that will not give up on a God who promises to heal and forgive.  They would not be turned aside, they would not be deterred from their goal: get the man to Jesus.  Let Jesus take care of him, because that’s what he does.

We, on the other hand, are not by nature so persistent, are we?  Have you ever had a friend who needed to hear Jesus?  What lengths would you go to in order to get them to church?  What kind of holy persistence do you have when it comes to getting people to hear Christ and be saved?  Not much, I would venture to guess.  By nature, we are much more like the paralytic than the faithful friends.  Sin does that to you.  Sin traps you and grips you with cords of death, so that you can’t move.  You don’t want your sin uncovered, and so you hide.  You run from church, you run from God.  But God’s Law has a way of getting to you, doesn’t it?  That’s the Law.  It crushes you and shows you who you really are: paralyzed by sin and shame.  That’s the Law.

Imagine their surprise, then, when Jesus saw their faith, and said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven you.  What?  They came for a healing service, and all the sudden they ended up at the beginning of a Lutheran Church service!  Why would they bring this paralytic to be healed, and then have Jesus forgive the man’s sins?  It doesn’t make sense.

But of course it makes sense.  The paralytic’s real illness had nothing to do with his body.  It had to do with his heart.  Remember that the word forgive used here has the sense of release or let loose.  When Jesus forgave this man’s sins, he was releasing him from the cords of death that paralyzed his soul.  When Jesus forgives you, you are released.  You are let loose of all of the guilt and shame that hold you down.

Now the scribes, the keepers of the Law, they didn’t like this move on Jesus’ part.  They didn’t like it at all.  Some of them thought to themselves, “who is this guy?  Does he think he’s God, to go around forgiving sins?”

Their thoughts echo our own.  How many of us wonder every Sunday at the words of the beginning of the Divine Service, “in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.”  Who is this guy, who is this pastor who stands up there and forgives sins?  What right does He have to do that?

Jesus, however, knows the thoughts of their hearts.  They questioned His authority to forgive sins.  In one sense, of course, they were right.  Only God can forgive sins.  But they didn’t understand whom they were dealing with.  Jesus wasn’t just another Rabbi with a message.  No, He was God Himself, the Son of God, in the image of the Father, who came down to earth to forgive sins and restore all of this fallen creation.  They didn’t get who Jesus is.

Yes, Jesus knew their thoughts, and so to prove His point, and to demonstrate His deity, Jesus said to them, Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? 9 “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? 10 “But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins…  And then what did Jesus do?  He commanded the man to rise up and walk.  Jesus confirmed His authority to forgive sins by proving that He was the creator of all things.  But notice, what is the greater gift to the man?  The greater gift was not the healing of his body.  The greater gift was the healing of his soul through forgiveness.  The bodily healing was there to demonstrate that His forgiveness was real.  The forgiveness, now that is at the heart of the matter.

And so it is with us today.  Martin Luther once wrote in the Large Catechism the following:

“Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered to the end that we shall daily obtain there nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here” (Triglotta, Large Catechism, The Creed, Art. III, p. 693). 

In Bible class we’ve been talking recently about God’s delivery system.  Jesus died on the cross for you.  It is true.  But how does that work of 2000 years ago get to you, today?  It gets to you here, in Church.  Jesus delivers His forgiveness and healing through the Word, read, sung, and preached, and through signs, that is, through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and Absolution.  That’s how Jesus comes to you today.  That’s the Gospel.

Is that a big deal?  Yes!  That’s the whole deal.  The whole point of the Church is to forgive sins.  And God has given very special means, or ways to do that.  Today we saw Satan overthrown in the baptism of Johnathan Grissom.  Like the friends who brought the paralytic to Jesus, Johnathan’s parents and sponsors brought him to Jesus, to have his sins forgiven and his life made new.  Is that a big deal?  That’s the whole deal.  In many ways, your baptismal birthday is much more important to you than your physical birthday.  For it is at your baptism that you were made new and whole.  That’s why we make the sign of the cross every Sunday.  We’re teaching the Sunday School children how to make the sign of the cross, to help them remember that they belong to Jesus, just like little Johnathan.

In a way, to put forgiveness at the center of the Church’s life is counter-cultural.  Our culture, and many of the churches around us, would put forgiveness as one of the things that churches exist to provide.  God, rather, puts this at the center.  That is why we put the Lord’s Supper at the heart of our piety as Lutherans.  Take eat, for the forgiveness of sins; take drink, for the forgiveness of sins.  God comes down to earth today in the Divine Service with one purpose: to forgive your sins.  He comes to wipe away the tears from you eyes.  He comes to bring healing, and to restore your life to the way God wanted it to be.  So when I as your pastor say, “I forgive your sins,” it has nothing to do with me at all.  For those are the words of Jesus to you.  Jesus comes into the flesh to forgive your sins.

That, my friends in Christ, is what it means to be a Christian.  You have this faith, because God gave it to you.  Come then, to the Lord’s Table, for Jesus loves you and wishes only the best for you.  So it is that we can sing with the hymn, O Love, How Deep, How Strong, How wide.  Believe it, for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Epiphany 7B (Feb. 20, 2000)

Mark 2: 1-12

 

 

 

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Last Revised: February 21, 2000