Arise, And Walk
THE NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
On this nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, we encounter in the Gospel, yet another miracle story. Now, we find the healing of the paralytic at Capernaum recorded in all three of the synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. However, each gospeller tells it from a particular perspective. The details are different, but the sense of the story is the same in each of them. St. Mark and St. Luke's accounts are filled with all kinds of colorful details where St. Matthew's account, which we have read today, supplies the essential information in about half the size of Mark's telling; Matthew successfully sharpens the narrative.
Yet, we're probably more familiar with Mark and Luke's telling of the story because both recounts how four friends took the man lying on his little mat up on the roof of the house, opened the hole in the roof and lowered him with ropes in front of Jesus who then healed him. Which would have been easier than you might imagine because roofs found on Palestinian homes at that time would have been made of thatch and mud. Luke, who was not too familiar with the architecture of buildings in that part of the world, had the four men up on the roof tearing off tiles. That would have been quite a project! Together, Mark, Luke, and Matthew create a colorful and catechetical portrait of the Lord and how he works in this particular miracle.
Now we've already encountered many of Jesus' miracles throughout Trinity-tide: the healing of the man with dropsy; remember how Jesus brought the widow's only son back from the dead; and the healing of the ten lepers. In each of these miracles, sickness and death were reversed through the healing touch of Jesus Christ.
Matthew begins by telling us that our Lord has just returned to Capernaum from the country of the Gergesenes where he cast devils from two possessed men into a herd of swine, who then, "ran violently down a steep lace into the sea, and perished in the waters" (Mt 8:32). "And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee" (9:2). Now, if we only had Matthew's account, we would have never known that the people who brought the paralytic had been so eager to get their friend into Jesus' presence that they literally tore off the roof (Mk 2:4).
All that Matthew tells us is that Jesus "saw their faith." Matthew wants our attention to center on authority: upon Jesus Christ. He is more interested in what Jesus does than what the people do. But think of how much is lost if we don't have Mark's account. For St. Mark shows that faith is bold, insistent, opportunistic, and sometimes indifferent to societal boundaries (they tore off the roof for heavens-sake!). You see, saving faith lives under one great compulsion: to get into the presence of Jesus.
Matthew writes, "And Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." Curious how the text says, "he saw their faith." Somehow the faith of those who had lowered the paralytic to the feet of Christ was effectual. And, we've seen this before. Recall the Centurion of Matthew chapter eight, whose servant is healed on account of the Centurions confession of faith, a confession so profound that Jesus remarks, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel" (Mt 8:10). And without even going to the servant, the man is healed within the hour (v.13).
The faith of others on behalf of any needy person counts with Jesus. St. Ambrose, the fourth-century bishop of Milan, writes, "Great is the Lord, Who pardons some because of the merits of others, and while subjecting some to trials, He forgives others their sins. Why should not the prayer of your fellow-man avail with you, when a servant had both the merit of pleading for another before God and the privilege of obtaining what he prayed for? Learn you who judge, to forgive. Learn you who are sick, to gain health through prayer. Should you be diffident because of your grave sins, seek the prayers of others, call upon the Church to pray for you, and in His regard for her, the Lord will give what He could refuse to you." (1)
You see, Jesus does not refuse to help the faith of another so that by grace alone, he may confer the proper cure in line with his divine will. St. Ambrose certainly didn't discount Monica's tears, shed daily for the salvation of her lost son. And neither did the Lord, for her son would not only come to love Christ but serve his church as Bishop of Hippo. St. Augustine, who was forever indebted to a mother's tearful intercession.
Along with many dependable doctors of the church who have studied the scriptures, we too should include the paralytic's faith as well. But there is such a thing as recorded in the Gospel's called "intercessory faith." Prayer is our work, the labor of the church, whereby we carry all who are paralyzed by whatever it may be into the merciful presence of Christ. We pray for the lost. We pray for sick. We pray for the downtrodden: we pray. In fact, we should pray with courage and with such audacious faith, that we are willing to crash into someone else's home so that we might crash into the presence of the Lord. Because we know that in him is healing.
Now, let's turn from the faith of others to Jesus, the object of their faith. "And Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." Now I want to note two things. First, Jesus, the Giver of all good things gives before we ask, and two, he gives better than we ask. The poor paralytic hasn't yet requested anything except in somehow communicating to his friends that he wants to come near to the Lord; all he and his friends and bearers were seeking was that he might be healed of his palsy. But Jesus surprises us. He preempts their requests and says, "Thy sins are forgiven." You see, the Lord knows what this man truly needs. He mysteriously knows how this poor soul stands with God. And so the Great Physician reverses the judgment: "your sins are forgiven." Past tense. Done. The goodness of God comes to us even before we ask.
We are surprised again when Jesus chooses to handle the man's paralysis by forgiveness. It would have made more sense if he had said: "Son, be of good cheer; take up thy mat and walk!" But no, the Lord knows that Divine surgery is needed. So Jesus compassionately reaches down beyond physical paralysis into the guilt, within the heart, and removing the stain of a soiled conscience, cures the root of his affliction. "Thy sins are forgiven."
What Jesus does in this miracle is to claim to be the one earth who can mediate the relation between sinners like us and God the Father. Only Jesus can forgive sins because Jesus is God. All the miracles found in chapter eight of Matthew's gospel- the cleansing of leprosy, healing of the Centurion's servant, calming the storm, and casting demons into swine- as great as each of these are, cannot in any way compete with the forgiveness of sins. And here, in this miracle, we find the great depth of power and love of the Good News: a man being wholly made right with God, not by any merit or virtue, or by keeping Laws or promising to hold to Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Neither is divine healing granted based upon some prior repentance. No. He is put right simply based on the faith of his little company of friends. Salvation is mediated to the man by grace by the divine initiative of Christ through faith.
And as you'd expect, the religious get uneasy. Matthew writes, "And, behold, certain of the Scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth." Now, they aren't wrong. What Jesus has said would be blasphemy if any other man would have uttered the words for they knew the scriptures, which means God alone remits sins. "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for own mine sake, and will not remember thy sins," says the Lord God in Isaiah chapter forty-three verse twenty-five. You see, here's the rub; Jesus isn't acting as the channel of forgiveness but as the source: this is the problem.
So, Jesus decides to give them a sign to not only prove that the man's sins are truly forgiven but to reveal his divine identity as well, asking this central question: "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." The more natural thing to say is forgiveness because no visible proof is needed. But Jesus is determined to meet the accusation of blasphemy head-on by a visible demonstration of his authority.
Exousia, authority, is what the Lord is claiming. Power over nature, over demons, over the physical body, but most importantly, over sin and death. He claims the authority of heaven on earth, and to prove his authority to forgive sins, he says to the man, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And [the man] arose, and departed to his house." Jesus is vindicated before God and men. He who was paralyzed by sin and guilt arose from the earth and returned home. And in this beautiful picture, we are reminded: When Jesus deals with sin, resurrection isn't far behind.
Those forgiven in Christ are free, given newfound liberty. We are unleashed from the shackles of sin and strengthened by the Holy Spirit; we walk again. Like the Israelites in today's reading, we have been brought forth out of the land of Egypt, which to us, is a type of sin and death. Through baptism and faith in Jesus Christ, we have been cleansed from sin and liberated from the enemies of sin, Satan, the law, and death. To all who are baptized and believe, you are free. And Jesus assures us, saying, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (Jn 8:32).
And the Apostle Paul writes, "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death" (Rom 8:2). Yes, the healing of the Paralytic shows that the first and seminal freedom of the Gospel is the forgiveness of sin. But having been set free, we must forsake sin. St. Paul exhorted the Galatians in this very thing, writing, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1).
In keeping with the Lord, the Apostle sets limits to Christian freedom. You see, Christian freedom isn't permission to do whatever we like. No, quite the opposite. Christian liberty is the freedom to do what God wants and to put the needs and feelings of others before our own. The forgiveness of sins must result in the forsaking of sins. "Henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind," writes St. Paul, "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" (Eph 4:17). My friends, you've picked up your mat, now walk according to the forgiveness you have received!
Put on the new man, the resurrected life in Christ. No longer enslaved to sin, but as slaves to righteousness. You are Christ's slave to do his good and perfect will. Therefore, Be angry but without sin. Never let wrath accompany your sleep, for it gives a placeholder for the Devil. Those who steal, steal no more. Stop with the corrupt conversation that proceeds out of your mouth. Instead, let words of peace and life flow from your mouth, to edify and minister grace to another. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice." Stop grieving the Holy Spirit.
To walk according to the forgiveness received in Christ is to be like him, who healed our great infirmity. "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Kindness, tenderheartedness, understanding, forgiveness, and love. That which healed a man with palsy still heals the paralysis of others and is the only safeguard against the paralysis of our own hearts. Love God and love others.
By this, you fulfill the Divine law and fulfill the purpose for which Christ has raised you from the death-mat of sin. This is the way of all who have so learned Christ. If you have heard him and have been taught by him, then beloved, be like him. And, as on the day in which the Lord performed this great miracle, may the multitudes see it, marvel and glorify God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is he who heals all thy sickness. Amen+
(1) (PL 15, col. 1638, Expos. Evang. sec. Lucam., V, 10-15).
