The Gospel from Monday of the second week of Advent is taken from Luke 5th, chapter 1726. One day, as Jesus was teaching Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some men brought on a stretcher, a man who was paralyzed. They were trying to bring him in and set him in his presence, but not finding a way to bring him because of the crowd. They went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, as for you, your sins are forgiven. Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, who is this who speaks blasphemy? Who but God alone can forgive sins? Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, reply, what are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise and walk. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
He said to the one who was paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher and go home. He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Then astonishment seized them all, and they glorified God. And struck with awe, they said, we have seen incredible things today. Imagine a room full of lawyers, experts in the law. And when you recognize the fact that the ten Commandments that Jesus gave as the core of all the laws, they had developed it into 613 rules and regulations that guided almost every aspect of their life.
And here was the room filled with those who interpret that law for people. The law. The law. And Jesus comes along and in a way obliterates the obligation of following the law by basically saying, I have come into the world for something new, and what I’m here to do is to free you from shame and guilt when you fail to follow the law. Shame, guilt, separate us from God, make us feel unworthy of him. It is a disease.
It keeps us from becoming who we are. And so this image of someone being dropped down, which you couldn’t avoid seeing this whole thing play out. And there it is. Jesus forgiving a person of all his sins and equating it with a kind of power that he has to free people from all disease, so that sin is like a disease and he is the healer to hide ourselves from. The healer would be like to be sick and hide yourself from a doctor. We need a healer.
We need a doctor and we have that in Jesus. Closing prayer Father, sin can separate us from you, and yet you make it clear that your only response to us when we sin is wanting and longing for us to be free of the burden of that sin. And you are filled with mercy. Fill us with an awareness of this so we never feel separated from you because of our faults. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
