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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