July 25, 2021 Sermon

 

July 25, 2021       Sermon                 Rev. Peter Hofstra

          Four men, by what the gospel calls faith, perhaps fueled by desperation, are carrying a fifth man, paralyzed and unable to move on his own, to Jesus.  They are looking for a miracle.  How badly was he paralyzed?  We can only surmise.  If four others were required to carry him on a bed, essentially a stretcher, figure at the least his legs were paralyzed, at least. 

          Faith healing was a part and parcel of the many messianic figures of Jesus’ time.  Such healers are still very much a part of Christendom, although maybe not well-known as they once were.  The need for a miracle, the need for something greater than the power of the natural world, that extends far beyond Christianity.  To this day, you can find psychics out there, whether they are readers of tarot cards or the more classic mediums who commune with the dead, or those who cast astrological charts.  It is usually about looking into the future, but some psychics have been involved in law enforcement cases.  These folks may not be called upon for a miracle, but their powers are invoked in circumstances where there is faith invested in something beyond the boundaries of our natural world. 

          But one thing that many, maybe most…some would say all, of these humans with skills beyond the ordinary, wherever they are credited from coming from, God, the dead, extra sensory perception, is their fraudulence.  They are fake-many of them.  Christian and non-christian.  They prey upon the need and desperation of the broken and down-hearted.  Does not make the need or the desire for help beyond the ordinary any less in our lives.  Our joys and concerns each week put things into the hands of God that are beyond our hands to change or fix.

          Maybe this is the flip side of the coin we call faith.  We have, as humans, a fantastic ability to put our faith in something, to hope, even against hope, to keep an ember of possibility of joy alive even in the most trying circumstances.  And it makes me sick when I hear about those who work to take advantage of that hope, especially in the name of God.  It preys upon people’s faith.

          I wonder if that is why healing services and practices of faith healing are not in the mainstream of the church.  We certainly pray for healing, putting things in God’s hands, but the idea of ‘laying on of hands’, we reserve that for the service of ordination of elders and deacons.  Gathering around a hospital bed with the elders of the church to do something like that…not something I ever learned as an active strategy in Seminary.

 

Faith in divine healing, in the ‘real thing’ being a part of Christian ministry, that finds its basis in Jesus, especially in passages like this one from Matthew 9.  Four friends are recognized by the gospel writer for their faith.  We are not even sure if the paralyzed man was even a willing participant in this enterprise as the faith was identified as that of his friends.  That said, we have no clue if he was unwilling either.  But they get him there, to the Healer, to Jesus, and they set him down.  And then Jesus says something that I bet satisfied no one.

          “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.” 

          The scribes who were gathered, their hackles rose all at once.  Jesus was blaspheming.  The forgiveness of sins was the prerogative of God and this man was ripping off God’s “line”.  And in so doing, Jesus was guilty of a capital offense, insulting God by pretending to be God.  In fact, blasphemy was going to be the charge that they eventually pinned on Jesus in order to have him executed.

          What about the paralyzed man?  And his friends?  I am pretty sure that they didn’t show up to have his sins forgiven.  They wanted a healing miracle, not a moral victory.  In that time and place, there was no such thing as a safety net.  If you were paralyzed, you were either the burden of others who would care for you or you begged-unless you found a miracle.

          I like the way Jesus challenges the scribes, “Why do you have evil in your hearts?”  To me, the implication is that they are out to get Jesus, they were just looking for cause.  But I am willing to wager that it was only those scribes, those religious types, whose disappointment in Jesus was because of his apparent blasphemy.  The rest of the crowd was likely disappointed because Jesus did not perform the expected miracle.  Man is paralyzed.  Jesus fix.  Man can walk.  But this was man is paralyzed, sins are forgiven, man still broken.

          But Jesus has a point to make for both sides of this disappointment.  What is harder, the forgiveness of sins or ‘stand up and walk’?  An earthly miracle or divine renewal?  What is the benefit of faith?  For Jesus to tell the paralytic to rise up, pick up his bed, and go home, that is not simply to heal the man but prove to the scribes that Jesus can forgive sins as well.  The earthly power points to the heavenly power.

          Notice how the gospel writer does not record the reaction of the scribes specifically to this bit of divine chicanery.  But the crowd went wild when they saw it!  They were filled with awe and glorified God at the authority given to human beings.

          But what were they going wild for?  A paralyzed man who got up, took up his bed, and went home?  Or a man whose sins had been forgiven?  And what about those friends of his?  The ones who had the faith to bring this man to Jesus is the first place.

          It is all about faith.  To go to a faith healer (Christian or not) or a psychic or whomever is presuming to have gifts above that of normal humanity, it is all about faith in something more than what we see.  It might be a desperate faith, but faith nonetheless.  Which may be exactly why Jesus’ first was “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven.”

          Because in Jesus, a healing miracle is not just a miracle.  It is not simply the physical demonstration of the power of God.  It is more than the fulfillment of the faith object of the person in need.  The miracle points to the forgiveness of sins, to that greatest miracle.  The bible speaks elsewhere about what good is it to gain the world if you lose your soul?

          The miracles of healing done by Jesus were not ends in themselves.  They were proof that when Jesus claims to forgive sins, the prerogative of God, he is not blaspheming.  Rather, it demonstrates that does, in fact, wield the power of God, a power demonstrated in a miraculous healing.  This is the proof that Jesus can forgive sins too.  But not only that, we may come to Jesus with a specific need, something that we have faith in the power of God to accomplish, and Jesus reminds us our faith leads us for something far greater.

          I would argue this is something that all Jesus’ miracles have in common.  Whether healing or casting out demons or even raising from the dead, or turning water into wine, not one of those miracles was an end unto itself.  Not one of them was to fulfill the faith of those who came to Jesus in the belief that Jesus could make a difference.  Rather, biblical miracles begin a faith journey by pointing to the ultimate miracle that Jesus performed on our behalf by his death on the cross and resurrection.  Because it was not just the power of God to raise one man from the dead, but the power of God to raise everyone from the dead.  That is where our faith ultimately takes us. 

          It might appear that these two points are disconnected from each other.  Come to Jesus for healing, leave with salvation.  But I believe they are intimately connected.  If we come to God for healing or freeing or easing or peacefulness in some aspect of our lives, that is just the beginning.  That is just the start.  That is just the first step in a journey of faith where our entire being is healed, freed, where it truly finds peace.

          When those faithful friends brought the paralyzed man to Jesus, their faith was in one particular heartfelt place, the hope that their friend could be healed.  But in the forgiveness of sins, Jesus began far beyond what they hoped for, not a ‘simple’ healing, but the promise of forgiveness of sins that leads to the healing of eternal life.  And as we listen to Jesus, the physical healing of a paralyzed man pales in comparison to God’s true power among us, that which our faith in God will bring to us. 

          There is an expression from the train station that goes ‘mind the gap’.  Faith brought these men to Jesus with desperate hope for a miracle and they left with the gift of salvation (and the miracle).  The scribes got all bent out of shape because Jesus was, in their opinion, blaspheming.  He was claiming the authority of God for himself.  I have this image of Jesus just standing there for a moment, looking at the scribes with a knowing smile.  Like he wants to clap his hands and say “NOW you’re getting it!”

          Because there is faith and there is Faith.  Faith is something God created in us, the ability to trust, to hope and presume that another will not disappoint us in time of need.  It is an amazing virtue, one that can endure or be rekindled even after the harshest circumstances.  Faith was created as the foundation of our relationship with God.  We know it was broken by sin, but it has been renewed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

          As we were created with a spirit, in the image of God, so with the coming of the Holy Spirit, our human spirit is then focused and brought back into purpose with the Lord.  So it is with faith.  We have it, but in God, that faith is renewed and, by the Holy Spirit, our faith is fueled and deepens our relationship with our God.  Which is exactly what Jesus is talking about.

Human faith can be driven by desperation, searching for the miracle.  It can lead us to consider, trust, and invest in people even though, if we paused to consider what we were doing, we would expect the failures that follow.  But that faith that craves a miracle, that craves relief, that craves love, in coming to our Lord Jesus Christ, it finds its truth, its fulfillment.  I am NOT saying that we will always get the miracle, but we will be sustained in the love and caring of our Lord no matter what.  It was that miracle that carried the faith of those four friends carrying the paralyzed man.

And it was that faith that Jesus expounds upon in our Scripture today.  It is not simply faith that can heal a man, it is faith that can renew the entire world, by the forgiveness of sins.  It is not just a faith that is driven by a desperate hope in our hearts, it is a faith that is fueled and increased by the Holy Spirit, sent by God to indwell us, to continue the work of renewal in our hearts and minds as we walk our journey of faith.  It is faith that not only brings us to the Lord, but, in our relationship with Jesus, will open up the needs and possibilities of the world around us to invite the world to come and see, to come and share, to come and know what faith has given to us.  In Jesus.  Amen.