|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Isaiah 43:18–25 |
Psalm 41 |
2 Corinthians 1:18–22 |
Mark 2:1-12 |
Whether we read the stories of Jesus and the early disciples or the stories of Israel’s ancestors, people never ended where they had begun. As a young couple, Sarah and Abraham were called to leave their homeland and to venture forth to a new land with the purpose of founding a new nation through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. All their lives they swam in the strong current of Biblical history. How different Abraham and Sarah were as they advanced into old age, finally having a son, nearly losing him, and then, at the end of their lives, seeing their descendants both prosper and struggle. Isaac and Rebecca, Moses, David and Bathsheba, the prophets all were profoundly changed, some in wise and upright ways, others in foolish and corrupt ways.
The Bible is written in metaphoric language, completely different than the empirical language of modern science. Yet in a strange way they do sometimes seem to touch. The Bible, after all, is thoroughly evolutionary. God’s revelation to the people of earth is continually expanded, developed and reworked according to historical circumstances. Sometimes the change happens in dramatic fashion, like Moses and the burning bush or the exodus, or the coming of Cyrus the Great who let Israel return to Jerusalem. Other times, the change is more gradual, even imperceptible.
The past couple of weeks we have been reading from the Gospel of Mark, considered the first of the Gospels to be compiled. We have read of Jesus recruiting his first disciples and the initial preaching, teaching and healing in the towns around the Lake of Galilee. It wasn’t long before Jesus realized that if he just did dramatic healings, people would not hear his larger message. He shifted his focus and tried to avoid crowds. I suspect he knew that he would only be partially successful. His popularity still continued to rise and people still came to see and crowd around him.
Nonetheless in today’s Gospel, among the crowd, we can perceive a definite change. There is the open presence of suspicion and hostility. Jesus is in a private home, not the local synagogue or public square and people are closely packed together. Suddenly a hole in the thatched roof becomes noticeable as it is made larger and larger. Then everyone can make out several people on top lowering a make-shift stretcher with a sickly man right before Jesus.
Before this incident, those who wished to be healed had met Jesus face to face. They knew what they wanted and had not been reticent to ask. Usually they had neither an entourage of friends nor family to support them as they made their bold initiative. In this instance however, Jesus realized what a physical feat it had been to hoist the man and stretcher over a wall, up to a roof, take off the thatch and then lower him down. Few would have shown such courage and determination.
Jesus knew that the moment had come to demonstrate that reconciliation and healing occur when two, three or more are gathered together in a loving community. Jesus directed his gaze not at the sick man on the pallet, but towards those who had carried him up to the roof and gently lowered him down, under considerable strain and danger to themselves. After a poignant pause, Jesus said, “Son, your sins are absolved. You are now given a new life to begin again.” Of course Jesus’ opponents latched on to arguing whether Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, and missed the point of Jesus’ pause entirely. Fortunately others didn’t, and that is why it is plainly recorded for all time, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven.’” It was obvious to those who wanted to perceive it, those whose behavior nurtured forgiveness and those whose behavior inhibited it.
That is why we can surmise that when the paralytic picked up his mat and went outside the house, he was met by his friends. They embraced, passed the peace of God with joy, and together they went home. Sometime in the future, when in their synagogue, the great passage from Isaiah was read (Is. 43:18–19,25):
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
And they knew that on a certain evening within a crowded house, Isaiah’s words had been fulfilled.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
