Jesus is speaking to you, from His own Gospel, saying,
“’But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic—‘Rise, pick up your bed
and go home.’”
Last week, we heard that the Greatest Commandment was to
love God and love your neighbor as yourself and what that meant was belief in
Christ. For, belief in Christ fulfills not only loving God, but also loving
your neighbor, because the best you can do for your neighbor is preach the
Gospel to him that he might be saved.
Which is exactly what Jesus is doing today, in His own
visiting of the sick. Jesus is visited by this sick man, preaches forgiveness
of sins to him, and then seems to leave the man in his paralysis. What kind of
loving, neighbor is that?
However, holy Scripture is full of the mandate to visit the
sick and relieve them of their illness. Jesus speaking on the Sheep and the
Goats tells you of those who were sick that you have not visited (Mt. 25). Even
St. James calls for the elders of the Church
to visit, pray over, and anoint them in order that they be restored by the Lord
(Jas. 5:14-15).
The duty of a Christian is to visit the sick. Think of how
you would feel if you were to be sitting alone in a strange bed in a strange
place for hours, with nothing to do except contemplate your own possible death,
in light of your illness.
If you truly love your neighbor as yourself, then more
people than the pastor need to be visiting those who are sick among us. Being a
Christian means being motivated by the Holy Spirit and that motivation reveals
itself in acts of love.
You know where the hospital is, don’t you? You know where
your sick friends live, right? This is not rocket science.
Jesus, likewise knew a neighbor in need when He saw one and
so did St. James. St. James says, “…and the prayer offered in faith will restore
the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed
sins, they will be forgiven him.”
Now that’s funny. Its funny because St. James says that this
prayer will restore the sick person to health, but he also says the Lord will
raise him up. Almost as if it is not the prayer itself, but the one Who is
prayed to. Then he concludes with the forgiveness of sins, which has nothing to
do with illness, according to most.
One of the popular, misleading sayings today is “Preach the Gospel,
if necessary, use words.” Another is like it: we need to stop preaching and do
more. We need to show that we are Christians by the love we can do, instead of
the love that is preached.
Again, very true, condemning words coming from our neighbors
and from God Himself. The Holy Ghost is not idle so neither can a Christian be
idle.
Repent. You are idle. You have more time to complain about
unnecessary things, than you do to visit your neighbors. Or maybe its because
you feel you have nothing to offer and doubt the Word of God in its healing
promises?
This would make more sense seeing as how you haven’t really
seen a miraculous healing and if you were to accomplish one, personally, it
would probably scare you to death. Thus, you leave the sick to the sick,
because it seems like there is nothing you can do.
Dear Christians, this is what St. James and Jesus are
telling you. St. James is not giving you a
magical recipe for healing all disease; it just doesn’t happen. Neither is
Jesus allowing for it to happen that way. Jesus is showing us that even if we
were to speak over a paralyzed man, he would not recover and neither could we
forgive his sins.
But who can?! Jesus can. How does He heal? Through the
cross.
Jesus says that in order that you know the Son of Man has
authority to forgive sins on earth. This means that the healing of the
paralytic was only done so that you could see that Jesus is God and that He is
not only going to suffer and die, but rise again three days later.
Jesus illustrates this by his question to you: which is
easier, to say “your sins are forgiven” or to say “Rise and walk” to a sick
person? In fact, both are impossible. You can say them, but they accomplish
nothing.
Take heart, dear Christians. The Jesus who says, “Rise and
walk” is also the crucified and resurrected Jesus who says “your sins are
forgiven”, to you. If Jesus was making a way to heal everyone we pray for, it
is a broken way. He is not. He is making a way of salvation that transcends
illness and transcends doubt.
Jesus places Himself on the cross and prays for your forgiveness
as He is dying. And it is in His dying that we find both impossible questions
fulfilled. One of the reasons we keep crucifixes in Church, crosses with a body
on it, is because that is where forgiveness and healing comes from; at that
moment.
Thus, the Son of Man has authority to heal and forgive sins
and the authority to lose His life and pick it up again, making all His claims
about Himself, the world, and you truer than true.
Jesus has defeated sin, death, and this diseased world.
Which is why the Church continues to pray for healing in the midst of death:
because Christ is true healing and He is true life. The implication being that
the paralytic could have stayed paralyzed and still have been resurrected to
paradise, with His Lord and Savior.
The same is true for you. You are paralyzed unto death in
your sin and yet all your doubt and neglect has been crucified upon Jesus.
Though we look healthy, we are just as bad off as the terminal wing of the hospitals.
If we don’t have a Savior Who can heal and forgive and rise from the dead, we
die in our sin.
The Good News for the sick that you visit cheerfully and
often is that Christ has conquered their sickness, will guard their faith
through it, and will relive them and heal them perfectly in a death like His.
If God wants to relieve us of our temporal pain and
suffering, He can and maybe He will. But His promise is in His Son who has all
authority in heaven and earth and chooses this way to teach you the way of
salvation. That is through suffering as He Himself suffered for us.
The Good News for the sick is not that you send them good
thoughts and positivity, but that you send them the Word of God, their pastor,
and the sacraments in which we hear of our true savior healing and forgiving in
the only and best way: His Way: through the Gospel of Christ crucified.
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