Through the roof

An extract from last Sunday's sermon from Luke 5.17-26 about the paralysed man who was lowered throught the roof :

'You can imagine the scene.

You can imagine the crowd waiting to hear with baited breath what Jesus would do or say.

I don’t think anyone would have predicted Jesus’s response (VERSE 20): When Jesus saw how much faith they had, he said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven, my friend.”

Isn’t Jesus missing the point? (What about the paralysis?)

Like a good doctor treating a patient he went to the very heart of the problem – to the most serious aspect of their disease – and treated it first.

The skill of the doctor dealing with an accident victim is to deal quickly and effectively with the life threatening conditions first. Other things have to wait till later

This explains the startling response of Jesus to the paralysed man. Jesus said to the man “Your sins are forgiven, my friend.”

Not because the man’s disease was caused by his sin – Jesus scotches that idea elsewhere in the Bible

But because, like an A&E doctor dealing with a road crash victim, he deals with the life threatening, life destroying problem, at the heart of this man’s life first: sin

Paralysis is a horrible condition but sin is worse – it cuts you off from God and separates you from him for eternity

If we had been there we would have seen a sick man; Jesus saw a sinful man, and he knew that that man’s greatness need, as it is mine and as it yours, is forgiveness

Jesus strategy was clear. Deal with sin and then deal with the physical condition after

However, the religious teachers were scandalised by Jesus’s claim to be able to forgive sins.  They said “Who is this man who speaks such blasphemy! God is the only one who can forgive sins!”

They were completely right and they were completely wrong. They were completely right to say only God can forgive sins. If I said to you ‘you’re sins are forgiven’ it would mean nothing. If God says to you ‘your sins are forgiven’ they really are forgiven.

They were completely right to say only God can forgive sins, but they were completely wrong to say Jesus was committing blasphemy in saying it. Why? Because what their blind eyes could not see, was that Jesus, standing there in front of them, was God incarnate, God in the flesh, the Living God, standing there in their presence with the power to forgive sins.  

So to prove that he has authority to forgive sins, Jesus performs a miracle you can see to prove that he has the authority to perform a miracle you can’t see: forgiveness: ²⁴ I will prove to you, then, that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, pick up your bed, and go home

And Luke tells us what happened next: ²⁵ At once the man got up in front of them all, took the bed he had been lying on, and went home, praising God. ²⁶ They were all completely amazed! Full of fear, they praised God, saying, “What marvellous things we have seen today!

What marvellous things they had seen. A paralysed man get up and walk home. A sinful man, cleansed and forgiven, by the Son of God.