You are welcome to reflect on this message
From the First Baptist Church of America pulpit
Epiphany – February 11, 2007
"Beyond Paralysis"
Mark 2:1‑12
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

Jesus made his home in Capernaum. Because you remember, they ran him out of Nazareth! But you can be sure that anytime Jesus is “at home,” a crowd’s going to gather outside. So Mark reminds us that "they came." And “They came” for the same reasons we come: because we believe Jesus can make life better.

You have to be impressed with “four” who came. The story focuses on a man who couldn't move. But his friends could. With stubborn compassion, they took it upon themselves to take a paralytic to Jesus. But when they got there, it was "standing room only" in Capernaum that day. They meant well; meant to get him well, but as it is with most healings, they faced an obstacle: too many people in line. But these guys not only had great faith, they were creative cusses too. They knew how to think outside the box. Or in this case, outside the house! They’d come this far and would not be denied. So they found an unconventional, unorthodox, but stunningly successful way to get their guy to Jesus. They hauled their buddy up the outside stairs and onto the roof, punched a hole in it; and dug with their hands until the breach was big enough to lower the paralyzed man on his mat down to where Jesus was. That's some trouble to go through for the sake of a friend. These four nameless guys have been immortalized for twenty centuries because of twenty minutes of kindness, abetted by some imagination and sweat. Because they wouldn’t give up their efforts to bring a man to Jesus, it changed his life and amazed everybody there that day who saw it.

Now look at Jesus. Most folks would have been incensed over a hole in their roof. But not Jesus. He was so interruptible. Once he realized what’s happening, he stopped what he was doing, and focused on the man on the mat who couldn't move. Then I'm guessing he glanced up to the ceiling and winked at his 4 pals. But he doesn't heal the man. Not yet anyway. That comes at the end of the story, almost as an afterthought. Jesus shocks everybody in the house by what comes next. He got real quiet, almost like he was praying. Suddenly he turned to the man on the pallet and said, "My son, your sins are forgiven!" Only six words, but their impact was baffling. So what's sin got to do with it? Good question. Can you imagine anything more useless for a paraplegic, than to have his sins forgiven? Sin was the farthest thing from his mind. It wasn't what his allies brought him there for. He didn't seek forgiveness of his sins; nor did he offer confession for his sins. He's not concerned at all about sin. Nor is anybody else…except Jesus.

This guy is too busy just trying to survive, to think much about his sins. How much sinning can somebody struck with paralysis do? I don't imagine he had a very hot night life, do you? If you can't move, that sure lowers the opportunity to do much of anything, good or bad. In his day, being paralyzed meant he was a beggar. So what he needed was money. Yet here's Jesus with a paralyzed man in his living room, the roof torn open, sun shining through, dust all over everybody, and he says, "Son, your sins are forgiven!" Blasphemy!” said those who live by the book. And always get upset when somebody colors outside the lines. You know the orthodox have a prescribed formula, proper protocol for obtaining forgiveness. When it’s not followed to the "T," there'll be hell to pay. They won't even forgive the high and mighty, much less a beggar without impeachment hearings! Not that the Pharisees have anything against forgiveness, mind you. They just want everybody to know what their sins are. In case they don’t already. That way the sinner can be properly humbled, you see. And better appreciate the grace of God.

Healing is one thing, but forgiveness is something else. To obtain forgiveness, there is an established formula. Certain transactions had to happen 1st. Rules are there to be followed. But Jesus jettisoned their rules! Because to him, forgiveness is giving permission to get on with your life. From being immobilized, doing nothing, so you can start moving about, doing good. When people created in God’s image do nothing productive, for whatever reason, that's what bothers Jesus.

Anybody who's had a charlie‑horse knows what it's like to be locked up to where you can't move. Muscles locked up in knots. With a charlie‑horse, it's only for awhile. Think of what it would be like to cramp-up for a lifetime! Or to be stuck in a job or relationship and not be able to get out of it. Getting knotted-up in the middle of “a rock and a hard place.” When you’re paralyzed there’s not a lot you can do. But apparently he got tired of it. Mark implies he’s helpless, giving-in to, underliving. Settling for so much less, than living a life that blesses somebody. Is that not the counterpart to the sin of overachieving? 

But this poor guy's problem is with his body. He can't move. Ok, so what's sin got to do with it? Jesus commands a man who can’t walk, to "get up and walk." He mentioned his pallet, but he's really talking about his soul. Get a life, is more like it! Jesus gave him permission to take back his life in-spite-of the physical inadequacies, and get on with living. No excuses, exceptions or alibis in Jesus' mind could take the place of living.

Important point. Mark doesn’t say Jesus cured the man. Nowhere does it say his legs were straightened or strengthened. Jesus refused to give him what he wanted, just what he needed. What he came for was healing. What he left with was wholeness. He forgave his sins but challenged him to quit making excuses or settling for a defeated life. Because God’s bigger than anything life or death can do to us. And he expects us to live like it.

Each of us has just so much time. Precious time to make something out of ourselves. To leave the world better than we found it. To bless somebody because we were here. How could we waste it away?  Perhaps what “amazed” them was not his new body but his new demeanor. The story has the miraculous in it. But it doesn’t have anything to do with somebody’s legs. But more importantly, how Jesus got a man to look at his life, and decided to quit existing and start living. Day by day, sitting around, couch potato, nothing much to do; time on his hands; imprisoned by his circumstances. Or so it seemed. His pattern of behavior had become so comfortable it’s a trap. And he accepted his lot in life as an alibi for living a life that matters. Jesus did what he did because there's a difference in being healed and being cured. If all Jesus had done was “cure him” that’s what everybody expected. But the real miracle was when the man on the mat dared to go forth with the same crooked legs, beyond paralysis! When Jesus dealt with the deeper problem than lame legs, it was authorization to get on with his life. It’s always miraculous when we do that.

Doesn’t this story teach us to be bigger than any kind of paralysis, physical or spiritual? Who here needs to see Jesus giving us permission to get on with our lives, and make a difference in the world? Everybody has a mat to bear. Jesus had a cross! No one is exempt. We’re all alike in this regard. Healing comes, not when we’re relieved of either a mat or a cross, but when we start to carry them! “Take up your mat. Take up your cross. In the world you shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Not underliving. Overcoming.

What makes Jesus our savior is not that he forgives our sins, but he convinces us that we can take up our own pallets and live; like he took up his cross and lived. Jesus lived under the shadow of the cross as "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." The cross was always there. But still he called life "good." That's the miracle! Surrounded by blundering disciples but they were his friends. Beset by temptation, but conquering by the Word of God. Betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, but never stopped loving them. That's the miracle.

Where do we get this power to live under the shadow of a cross, yet not be destroyed by it? For the paralytic, it meant he had to turn his back on an old pattern of living, doing nothing but existing. Do you know how hard it is to get people to do that? Talk about a miracle! Yeah its comfortable, but its also suffocating! What's standing in your way? Do you have the eyes to see it or the guts to rise above it? No yes-buts. Just do it.

One reason I like motorbikes is the ability to raise your speed with the twist of the wrist. (It provides balance to having to work with committees!) Living is like driving on a two‑lane highway. If you get on I-95, you better have something that'll get up and go! Sometimes you get stuck behind a transfer truck, you can't see around it. Plodding along, holding up traffic. I just hate it. Because I don’t like letting somebody else set the pace of my journey. In those situations I get restless, and ease out and peek around the 18 wheeler, looking for the tiniest gap. Then you roll that power on and jolt forward. Decisions have to be made in seconds. The critical moment is when you get alongside the tractor bed about half‑way up. And I'm asking myself, "Have I passed the point-of-no-return?" "Should I go for it, or pull back in line?" Isn't that the paralytic's question too?

There are risks, once you pull out of your lane. Yellow line’s approaching. Hill up ahead. Squinting for headlights coming at you. Have I misjudged the distance? Should I gun it, or get back in line? Here’s where you need the power! ‘Cause there’s just something about “getting back in line” that’s not what God intended for us. For us, like the paralyzed man in Mark's Gospel, the moment of healing comes once we commit ourselves to passing. And cross the Rubicon -- the point of no return.

Thankfully for him, he decided after being challenged by Jesus, that he's had enough of waiting on somebody else to set the pace of his journey; or carry his life around for him. So he picked up his mat in front o’ God and everybody there and went back home on his own. He no longer needed anybody else to tote him places.

And Mark says, "They’re all amazed and glorified God saying, 'We’ve never seen anything like this!'" And I say: “Wouldn’t it be great if everybody wanted to get somebody to Jesus as badly as those four nameless heroes?”

Pastoral Prayer: 2/11/07
O Thou, whose will we can resist, but cannot avoid, we gather once again, behind the masks we maintain, to shut our sadness in. Because we’re tightly wound, boxed in, prisoners of our illusions. Surprise us with Thy joy in this worship. Let wrong embolden us to fight, and human need incite our caring. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where? Here on this Thy day, in this Thy house, grant that all that’s dead within us, will come alive.

We thank Thee for songs that lift our spirits and penetrate the darkness around us. For prayers and hope that won’t be absorbed by our doubts and misgivings. Grant that the fences we build to keep us apart may be fashioned into bridges, so that the hurts of any will be the concern of all.

We pray for ourselves and our church, bearing as we do the marks of a culture that’s too much with us. May our ministries and attempts to bless reflect Thy spirit, rather than the spirit of the age. Deliver us from our shoulds and can’ts, that our yea is yea and our nay is nay. Free us from the need to justify ourselves so that others will want to be around us and our hearts will be at peace.

Bless this fine congregation with deep historical roots, here on this “hill that cannot be hid,” so that we may continue to raise a consistent, coherent, and contagious testimony to Thy truth that sets us free. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.