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Sunday, March 26, 2017

Friend, Your Sins Are Forgiven

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Luke 5:17-26.

            We’ve been doing a sermon series about the life of Jesus, and we’ve reached the point now in Jesus’ life where the sequence of events is not very clear.  Even when the gospels tell us the same things about Jesus’ life, they are not always consistent about the order in which those things took place.  And that’s okay.  It’s interesting to try to place the events of Jesus’ life in chronological order, but it’s not essential to understanding who Jesus is.  A lot of the time, what’s important is simply the fact that these events happened.  The order in which they happened really does not matter a whole lot.
            But most people, even many non-Christians, know that one of the things Jesus did while he was on earth is heal people.  Today, we’re looking at one of these stories, a story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man.
            As we just read, Jesus is in a house, teaching.  We’re not told anything about what he said.  I’d sure like to know that, wouldn’t you?  There’s a huge crowd around.  People had come from “every village of Galilee”, and also from Judea and Jerusalem, just to hear Jesus.  Either the paralyzed man or his friends knew about Jesus and his ability to heal people.  So, the paralyzed man’s friends want to take him in to be healed by Jesus.  But they cannot get in.  The crowd’s too big.  So, they carry the man up to the roof, make a hole in the roof, and lower the man down so he’s right there, right in front of Jesus.
            As I was thinking about this story and what I might say about it today, something remarkable about it popped out at me.  It’s something I’d never really thought about before.  I’d noticed it.  I’m sure that, if you’ve heard this story before and thought about it, you’ve noticed it, too.  But I don’t think I’d ever really thought about the significance of it before.
            Jesus sees what’s happened.  He sees that this paralyzed man’s friends have lowered him from the roof so he’d be right in front of Jesus.
            He has to know what the man and his friends want, right?  He has to know they want him to heal this man.  Jesus was the divine Son of God, of course, but he did not need to use any of his divine powers to figure this one out.  I would think every person in the place knew what was going on when this paralyzed man was lowered from the roof.  They knew this was a plea for Jesus to heal this man.
            And here’s the remarkable thing.  What does Jesus say?  He does not say “Pick up your mat and walk.”  He does eventually, but not at first.  He does not reach out to touch the man and heal him.  He does not even address the man’s physical problem.  What does Jesus say?  He says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
            We’re not told how the man or his friend reacted to that.  We’re told how the Pharisees and the teachers of the law reacted, and we’ll get to that, but what do you suppose the paralyzed man thought?  This was not what he wanted.  He did not come to Jesus to have his sins forgiven.  He came to have Jesus cure his paralysis.  He came to be able to walk again.  And all Jesus has to say to him is “Friend, your sins are forgiven”?  What’s up with that?
            That’s probably how you and I would react anyway.  Think about this:  every Sunday in worship, we have our time for praises and concerns.  We just had it a little while ago.  When we raise concerns, what do we talk about?  Almost all of them are for physical healing, right?  We pray for people who are in the hospital.  We pray for people who are dealing with serious injuries.  We pray for people who are recovering from illnesses.  We do, sometimes, pray for emotional healing, especially for God’s comfort and peace for people who’ve lost loved ones recently.  There are exceptions, but those are the things that make up the vast majority of the concerns we pray for.
            Now, that’s not wrong.  It’s fine to pray for those things.  In fact, it’s more than fine, it’s a good thing to do.  It’s the right thing to do.  God wants us to pray for those things.  Physical health is very important to us as human beings.  My point here is not to criticize anyone.  We should pray this way.  I want us to keep praying this way.
            But as important as physical healing is--and again, it is very important--it is not the most important thing.  It was not the most important thing to Jesus.  If it was, he would’ve given physical healing to the paralyzed man as soon as he was lowered down in front of Jesus.  Physical healing is important, but it is not the most important thing to Jesus.  It was not the thing this man needed most.  Jesus started with the most important thing, the thing the man needed most.  Jesus started by saying, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
            We don’t pray that way during our praises and concerns time.  We do it in the Lord’s Prayer:  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  And maybe you do it at home during your private prayers.  But we don’t do it during our praises and concerns, and we don’t do it much at other times during church, either.  We don’t pray for the forgiveness of sins.
            Now, that’s obviously partly my fault.  After all, I’m the one who’s up here and who’s leading the prayer time.  But at the same time, I don’t remember anyone ever coming up to me and saying, “How come we never pray for our sins to be forgiven during the praises and concerns?  How come we only focus on physical healing and never on spiritual healing?  How come we don’t pray more for the forgiveness of sins?”
            This physical body is very important to us.  And it should be.  But it’s not as important as our soul.  Physical healing is important to us.  And it should be.  But it’s not as important as having our sins forgiven and being able to lead a new life in Christ.
            Letting people know their sins were forgiven was much more important to Jesus than healing them physically.  The physical healing is the part we tend to remember.  In fact, we tend to think of this as the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man.  But as we actually read the story, the physical healing looks like it was kind of an afterthought for Jesus.
            The story tells us that Jesus said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”  Then, we’re told that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were upset.  They apparently did not say anything, but they were thinking, who does this guy think he is, anyway?  “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
            Jesus, being Jesus, knew what they were thinking.  And he says this:  “Which is easier to say?  ‘Your sins are forgiven’?  Or ‘Get up and walk’?  But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”  It was only then that he told the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”  Which, of course, the man did.
The physical healing was secondary to Jesus.  The way this reads, Jesus only healed the guy physically so people would understand who Jesus is.  He only healed the guy physically so people would understand that Jesus does, in fact, have the power to forgive sins.  
I know that some of us are dealing with physical problems and that they’re serious.  Others of us have family or members or friends who are dealing with serious physical problems.  I’m not trying to minimize the importance of them.  Again, I want you to keep praying for physical healing.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  In fact, it’s a very good and important thing for us to do.
But spiritual health is even more important than physical health.  Our physical bodies, as important as they are to us, are only temporary.  They only last for a little while.  As the psalm says, our days are like grass.  Even if we live to be a hundred or more, it’s still a very short time compared to eternity.
Our spiritual healing, which comes through God’s forgiveness, is eternal.  It comes because of God’s love and grace and mercy, but it also comes through our faith in Jesus as our Savior.  Listen again to what Jesus says in verse twenty.  “When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’”
It’s important to pray for physical healing.  But as important as that is, let’s make sure we also pray for something even more important.  Let’s make sure we pray for spiritual healing.  Let’s make sure we pray for God’s forgiveness of our sins.  And when we pray for others, let’s make sure we pray for them to have faith and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.  Let’s make sure we pray for the forgiveness of their sins.
For all of us, the time will come when our physical bodies will no longer be healed.  But if we’ve been healed spiritually, that’s okay.  If we’ve accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, it’s okay.  Because Jesus will see our faith.  And he will say, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”  And when the time comes for us to leave our physical bodies, we’ll be ready for our spiritual bodies with the Lord in heaven.


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