Ephesians 4.22-28 + Matthew 9.1-8
19th Sunday after Trinity
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus enters Capernaum, His own city, and is confronted by several men carrying a paralytic on his bed. St. Mark gives us more details. Mark records that Jesus was in a house, and “Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door” (Mark 2:2). Jesus preaches repentance and God’s mercy to the packed house. Undeterred by the number of people, the paralytic’s friends climb onto roof and haul their friend in the bed up their too. The Israelites built their houses to have flat roofs, which is why these friends can then dig a bed-sized hole in the roof. Once “they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying” (Mark 2:4). These men believed that Jesus was able to help their friend and heal him. The paralytic believed this too, otherwise he would not have let his friends hoist him up onto the roof and lower him down through the man-sized whole the roof. Jesus stopped preaching at that moment, sees the faith of these men, paralytic included, and says, “Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you.” Jesus rewards their faith. He gives the man what truly needs first, for he has two afflictions, the most obvious is his broken body. But the paralytic’s other affliction is far more dire and deadly. He is a sinner who has come to Jesus looking for mercy. Through the legs of his friends, he has fled to the throne of grace. And those who seek mercy for their sins from Jesus will always find it.
“Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you.” Those words are far better than any physical healing because these words revive the soul wearied by sin. Those words are salve to the conscience troubled by its transgressions against God. The absolution of Jesus rejoices the heart that is burdened with guilt and regret over what it has done and what it has left undone. These are the most blessed words a penitent sinner can hear. He calls him “Son” because the conscience vexed by guilt cries out to God in the words of the prodigal son, “I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21). Sin removes us from the kingdom and family of God the heavenly Father and brings us back to the kingdom of the devil. But Christ recalls the paralytic from the agony of having lost his sonship. By this we also see that the paralytic had faith that Christ would be merciful to him, because faith is what makes us children of God as St. Paul says in Galatians 3:26, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” Christ tells the paralytic, “Be of good cheer,” because the conscience weighed down with knowledge of its sinfulness cannot rejoice since it only feels God’s wrath. Christ calls the paralytic away from dwelling on his sins because those sins are removed, and they are no more. It is as David sings in Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Godly sorrow leads the sinner to repent of sin and flee to Jesus for mercy, and Godly sorrow always leads to forgiveness, and forgiveness, to joy and thanksgiving.
The sinful flesh, however, does not desire this gift and works to undermine and destroy it. This is what leads the scribes to say within themselves, “These man blasphemes.” Only God can forgive sins. He says as much in Isaiah 43:25 when He proclaims: “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.” Since the scribes imagine that Christ is just a man like any other, they fail to see that Christ is also true God, that “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9). The man Jesus is God in human flesh, and in this way “God had given such power to men.” By uniting with the human nature in the incarnation, God the Son has bestowed upon human flesh the ability to forgive sins. To prove that He has the authority which only God can possess He says to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house. As I have given you new spiritual life by forgiving all your sins and giving you a cheerful conscience, so I give you a new physical life. “For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’?” It is much easier to say someone’s sins are forgiven because you can’t see if it’s really happened. It is much more difficult to fix the broken body and straighten the crooked spine with just a word. Christ does the more difficult to prove He has divine authority to forgive sins and raise sinners to new life. The crowd marvels and glorifies God as it opens to let the former paralytic leave, bed in hand. The crowd marvels and glorifies God for the greater gift: that God in Christ forgives penitent sinners. For God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19).
Christ still gives such power to men. It is still true that only God can forgive sins, so before Christ ascended to sit on the right hand of the Father He gave this power to His apostles. On the evening of His resurrection, on that first day of the week, Christ appeared to the ten apostles. Ten, because Thomas was absent and Judas hand hanged himself because he was swallowed by worldly regret and despaired of God’s mercy, imagining himself beyond the pale of Christ’s forgiveness. On that evening Christ appears to the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). Though Christ ascended and no longer walks the earth, forgiving sins, He gave the apostles and their heirs the ministry of reconciliation, the ministry which pleads with sinners, “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20) by repenting and believing the gospel. This is how God in Christ continues to reconcile sinners to Himself until the day He returns to judge the quick and the dead. For He tells His apostles in Luke 10:16—and those who were appointed after them, even to this day—“He who hears you hears me.”
And because that word is Jesus’ word, it gives you what it says. That word forgives your sins. That word absolves you so that your sins are removed “as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). The minister is God’s instrument, so that when you hear the absolution it is word of the One who says to Isaiah, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins” (Is 43:25). When you hear that word spoken into your ear, it is the Lord who says to Isaiah, “I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins” (Is 44:22). Since the word of the Pastor is God’s Word, it should be received as God’s Word. Not with doubt or ambivalence, but in faith, for faith alone is how the promise of the forgiveness of sins is received. As the paralytic, through his friends, approached Christ is faith, trusting in His mercy, so we to ought to approach God with a true and lively faith. When sins oppress your conscience and you know in your heart that you are no longer worthy to be called a son of God, remember Christ’s words to the paralytic, words which He still speaks to you through His called servant, “Son, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven you.”
And where there is forgiveness there is life. He told the paralytic to arise, take up his bed and go home. He says to those He absolves: “Arise from your sins. Leave them behind and remain in them no longer. Strive against temptation by the power of My Word and faith in the promise that your former sins have been forgiven.” This is why St. Paul tells us to “put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts” in today’s Epistle lesson. Christ raises us to a new life in which we walk, not in our former sins and the lusts that deceive us and lead us back into those sins, but according to a renewed spirit of the mind. Paul exhorts us to “continually put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” The new man fights sign in his body. The new man lives in righteousness and purity towards others and oneself. Having raised the new man in you in Holy Baptism, Christ absolves you again and says, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house,” so He says to you, “Arise, take up the New Man you put on in Holy Baptism, and go to your house and live in your callings righteously.” As you to your house and your callings, take courage and live as one whom God has called “Son” through baptism and faith. Live as one whose sins God has graciously forgiven for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
