Your Sins Are Forgiven

Mark 2:1-12

The most wonderful moment in this story is also the one that causes the most confusion, not only, perhaps, for us, but for the original witnesses to what happened. That moment comes when Jesus tells the paralytic, “Get up! Your sins are forgiven!”

Does that mean the paralytic was morally reprobate, hence judged through paralysis? Does that mean there is a moral component to physical suffering? Do bad things mean bad people? 

Let’s deal with that issue first. If the Bible is clear on anything, it is that there is no direct cause and effect between suffering and bad behavior. Bad things happen to good people (e.g., Job), while truly evil human beings seem to prosper (a complaint registered in too many Psalms to note). Yes, there are moments when God’s judgment is to allow someone who chooses to live apart from God’s love to feel the consequences of such an action (choose any of the prophets to see how this move works); but most suffering is innocent suffering--people break, minds dissolve, and corruption hurts the regular people. And then some things just happen (e.g., a tower falls on a group pilgrims [Lk. 13:1-9]). So, when Jesus tells the paralytic that his sins are forgiven, he is NOT labeling the man a reprobate enduring the just judgment for his terrible life. 

So what does Jesus mean?

Sin is a lot bigger and broader than we want to define it. Wrong words, wrong actions, and wrong thoughts are sin, but just a part of all that is sin. The rest is made up of anything--i.e., ANYTHING--that separates us from God or from one another. To be separated from God is to separated from love that heals, redeems, and sustains. To be cut off from the world is live in isolation, alienation, and hopelessness. To exist in such a state is to hurt, deeply and profoundly. It means one is not living in the way that God ordained in bringing us into being. God is love. God created us in love and for love. God created us as connectional beings--we were made to relate to others and to God. Now consider all that might keep us from fully experiencing this way of being. The list quickly grows beyond simple moralism. When someone is sick, they cannot be in full communion with others and may well feel abandoned by God. The same is true for dark emotional states, as it is in a state of want of any sort. Moreover, even success and well-being, ironically, can also lead us away from others and from God. Feeling good, we assume we are masters of our universe, taking God for granted. We may even fall into feeling resentment for those who suffer around us, believing them to be trying to take our good state from us. A bounty of any sort can breed defensiveness as easily as contentment. So, we quickly see that sin is a lot bigger than we thought. The paralytic cannot fully participate in life. He is broken. He cannot live among others in full communion. He probably does have more than a few questions concerning God’s beneficence. Jesus acknowledges and affirms his suffering. He is trapped by sin, cut off from God and others.

So, he forgives him.

Following suit, forgiveness is also bigger and broader than we thought. Forgiveness is grace. Grace is the end of last chances. Grace gives us the opportunity to keep working, to keep trying, and to hold onto hope that all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. There are no last chances, only next ones. Forgiveness is God’s self-expression of other-centered, self-emptying love. It means that God is forever and always with us, ordering the chaos of our lives so we might find God’s peace, shalom, here and now. In the simplest of terms, forgiveness is mending. Sin breaks us; God mends us. The paralytic needs mending, inside and out, so Christ forgives him. The man walks.

If forgiveness is mending in all of its forms, then we need to rethink what it means for us. First, we all need mending. We all struggle in our relationships to God, to others, and with ourselves. We all deal with sin. Second, God is with us. As we breathe, God breathes through us--if we live, we are with God. Third, God mends us. God leads us to the places, circumstances, and people who can make us well. God fired the imaginations of a few burly men who hefted the paralytic to Jesus. So God fires the imaginations of those around us. To find these open hearts, we need to do something that our culture, time, and place devoutly ridicule--ask for help. The paralytic cannot escape or deny his need for help, so he asks. We can and do deny and pretend we need no help to our demise. We find ourselves with the Elder Brother of the Prodigal--standing outside, complaining nobody knows us, understands, or listens to us. Yet, the Father waits. “Come inside.” Find forgiveness, find mending.

So why did so many miss the point?

They were blinded by limited vision. They simplified things to the point that they lost sight of God. 

Open your eyes--not just the ones on your face, but the ones within your heart, too. See God before us. I am sure that as each of us thinks about it, considers where we are and how we are, we will all find something in need of mending--that is to be human. Admit them--it is not weakness to do so, but strength--”I need help.” God is there. God is present. 

Breathe.

Breathe freely and deeply.

Your sins are forgiven.