Matthew 18:9:1-8; Ephesians 4:22-28; Genesis 28:10-17
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the
Holy Spirit.
“The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive
sins.” Those having the God-given eyes of faith to see this fact are not scandalized
or offended by Jesus, but those who do not believe accuse Him of blasphemy.
Therefore, when Jesus saw the faith of the friends of a paralyzed man, He
dispensed with unnecessary words but plainly stated, “Take heart, my son; your
sins are forgiven.” In other words, He didn’t heal the man’s paralysis,
immediately. Yet, there is no mention that the friends of the paralyzed man were
scandalized or offended in any way. However, the scribes who were standing
nearby were offended. They said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”
Knowing their hearts, Jesus said to them, “Why do you
think evil in your hearts?” Notice that He did not say, “Why are you so
insensitive, callous, or mean,” but He intentionally called their thoughts evil. But, why were their thoughts evil?
Their thoughts were evil because they called good evil and evil good. The
scribes called God’s forgiveness spoken by Jesus, the Son of God, evil. This is
nothing other than to call Jesus evil and His Father evil. Therefore, I ask
you, who was doing the blaspheming?
Still, consider the compassion and the mercy, even the
love our Lord still had for His accusers, the scribes. Though they did not
believe in Him and they accused Him of sin and blasphemy for speaking the
Truth, Jesus mildly rebuked them and lovingly taught them, inviting them to
believe and understand. He said, “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 then said to the paralytic –
“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” Jesus did this for them, the scribes,
because He loved them, so that they would believe.
But, why did He not heal the paralyzed man at first? Before
the faithful, Jesus addressed the man’s greatest and underlying sickness, sin. Among
you, the faithful, though you pray, though we all pray, the sicknesses you and
your loved ones suffer are not always healed. And yet, there is not doubt that
our sin-sickness unto death is healed and taken away. Blessed are those who
love not their lives even unto death. You must learn that the true sickness
that leads to death and eternal separation from the grace and mercy of God the
Father is your sin. If nothing else you suffer were healed, but you were
forgiven your sins, certainly you must rejoice and be glad! To not hold this
belief and perspective on your life both temporal and eternal is to expose your
secret idols and false gods. The proper and godly belief and perspective
confesses that all that you have and all that you are, even your life itself,
belongs to the LORD, and that you are the recipient of His gracious and loving
gifts to steward and manage in service of others and to His glory.
Such a perspective is neither miserable and depressing
nor prudish, and neither is it a morbid deathwish, but, rather, it is true Christian
freedom and life, beholden to no one and no thing by your God, Creator, LORD
and giver of your life. Those who freely have received must freely give without
resentment or begrudgingly to the glory of God. “The LORD giveth and the LORD
taketh away; blessed be the Name of the LORD.” While this is never an easy
faith and perspective to hold because of your sinful flesh and fallen mind and
will, it is the faith and perspective of the new spiritual man within you born
of water and the Word in Holy Baptism, who both desires to do the LORD’s will
and is capable of doing it, not for merit to justification, but in response to
grace, mercy, and love you have received from God the Father through Jesus
Christ in His suffering, death, and resurrection.
However, you should believe and know and take comfort
in this important fact and Truth: Your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ “has
authority on earth to forgive sins.” More than that, in His incarnation, He
took on your flesh so that He might suffer the temptations and sorrows,
sufferings, and even death that you suffer, all while being perfectly faithful,
obedient, innocent, and righteous, as a human man, for you. Therefore, “we do
not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one
who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
In His incarnation, Jesus became the bridge between
heaven and earth. Since, in your sin, you cannot ascend to heaven, God has
descended to earth in the God-Man Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God became what you
are – sinful and unclean – so that you may become what He is – the very
holiness and righteousness of God. “He, who knew no sin, was made to be sin for
us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” This fact and Truth was
prefigured in Jacob’s dream of a ladder set up on earth, with its top reaching
into heaven. Upon the ladder were angels ascending and descending. At the top
of the ladder was the LORD God speaking, once again, His covenant promise that
He had made to Jacob’s Father Isaac and Grandfather Abraham: “I am the LORD,
the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie
I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust
of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to
the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the
families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you
wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you
until I have done what I have promised you.” Jacob recognized and confessed the
significance of this saying, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not
know it. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God,
and this is the gate of heaven.”
Jacob called the place Bethel, which means “House of
God,” for he understood that the holy LORD God had reached out and touched
earth through His ministering angels by means of the ladder that had its feet
upon the earth and its top in heaven. That ladder prefigured Jesus Christ,
Emmanuel, God with us. For, in Jesus, God has visited His people, not only by
ministering angels, but personally as our brother and friend. And, where God
is, so there are “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.” That is
why Jesus “has authority on earth to forgive sins,” for, only God can forgive
sins, and Jesus is God in human flesh as a man. Thus, for Jesus, it truly is
easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” than it is to say, “Rise and walk.”
Likewise, blessed are those who have been given the eyes and ears of faith to
believe that, in Jesus, God has kept His covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, for Jesus is the promised offspring of the patriarchs in whom all
the families of the earth have been blessed.
You have received so much more than the mere healing
of your bodies’ illnesses, you have received the forgiveness of your sins which
brings eternal life and salvation. Since you are Jesus’ friends, even His
brothers and sisters, you must not be scandalized or offended that the primary
healing your Lord chooses to give you is the forgiveness of your sins, for you
must know that this is the one thing needful for us all. Truly, this gift that
you see you have is your encouragement and strength of faith to persevere
through all trials, temptations, and tribulations, knowing that the Lord has
secured for you life and salvation in His sacrificial death and resurrection
and that He is the ladder and bridge between heaven and earth, and the very Way
and Gate into the Father’s kingdom.
The crowds were astonished when Jesus healed the
paralyzed man. They were afraid, and they glorified God. But, the great Truth that
they walked away with that day was the Gospel, the Good News, that God had
visited His people in forgiveness and mercy and they did not perish, and, that
God had given this authority to forgive sins to the man Jesus Christ.
But, to give such authority to Jesus is to give it to
all men, for Jesus is not simply a man unto Himself, but He is all
flesh, He is all men. He is the New and Greater Adam, the Father of us
all, David’s Lord; and He is our brother and our neighbor, David’s Son – Son of
God and Son of Man. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And, He has come to grant us
forgiveness, release from the paralysis of sin and death. He has come to bring
us spiritual healing now and physical healing now in accordance with His will,
but perfect healing and life in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.
Christ has come to you this day and has raised up your
New Man once again in the forgiveness of your sins; and, your forgiveness is as
certain on earth as it is in heaven. Now your Lord says to you, “Come, eat
my flesh and drink my blood, and live; for, whoever feeds on my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day.”
This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven! For,
the Incarnate Son of God Himself is present in Word, Water, Body, and Blood;
and, where Christ is there is forgiveness; and where there is forgiveness,
there is eternal life and salvation.
In the + Name
of Jesus. Amen.
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