The two healing scenes we read in our gospel have a very different tone. The tone has been shifting a lot as we’ve been going through this part of Luke’s gospel. Let’s remember back two weeks where we left off with Luke’s gospel. It was the hilarious calling of Peter, James, and John to become fishers of people. That whole scene was filled with levity. Then our first scene today is remarkable for its gentleness. The second scene is filled with conflict and boldness. Different as they are, they both point to the same reality, which is where we will end up today.
In the first scene we meet this man
with leprosy. We want to remember that
their term leprosy was a catch all term for just about every kind of skin
disease. Some of it was contagious, some
not. In order to be totally safe those
who had leprosy were forced to go into extreme quarantine; to move out and not
associate with others. You’d leave your
family and live alone, or else in a leper colony. If your condition improved you could
return. If not, then you were out for
the rest of your life (which may not have been all that long).
Remember also that many people
believed that if you had a disease or impairment of some sort it was evidence
that God didn’t like you. You must be
some sort of extreme sinner. So, in the
case of leprosy it was not only being removed from your community but it was
also the stigma of God’s rejection of you.
The leper approaches Jesus but
appears to have stayed at an acceptable distance. He bows with his face to the ground. Notice he’s not bold enough to even look into
the face of Jesus, this holy man. Yet he
does beg despite his knowledge of his unworthiness. “Lord,” (recognize the respect in that
address). “…if you choose, you can make
me clean.” This is not a question or a
command. It is simply a statement of
reality. Contrast it to the earlier
story of the devil testing Jesus in the wilderness. Over and over again the devil said, “If you
are…” Or also translated as, “Since you
are…”
The leper is letting the next step
truly be Jesus’. Jesus is given freedom
to choose yes or no. Notice Jesus’ next
move, ‘Then Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.”
Some people are perfectly fine
without much or any human touch. Other
people crave being touched. We don’t
know this man’s situation but it is probably likely that no one had actually
touched him for a long long time. I
suspect he was hungry for it. It is
perhaps more significant that Jesus touched him than actually healed him. The leper, medically contagious, ritually
unclean, outcast from human society, was physically touched by a holy man. No amount of dirtiness was going to deter
Jesus.
Unlike the testing of Jesus by the
devil where his arm is twisted to act against his will, here Jesus says, “I do
choose. Be made clean.” Then he orders him to tell no one except the
priest who will perform a medical exam on him.
Why tell no one? That’s a big
question but it can be answered simply by saying Jesus did not want to be known
mostly as a miracle worker. That is not
his primary mission. While that drew
people to him he did not want that to be the case.
Notice how warm the whole scene
is. There is deep respect between Jesus
and the leper. There is touch. There is free will acknowledged. And there is restoration to life.
Now we contrast that with the next
scene. There is a huge crowd listening
to his teaching. Apparently they were
quite packed together because additional people couldn’t squeeze in. Luke makes an interesting comment, “The power
of the Lord was with him to heal.” What
does that mean? Does that mean that
sometimes Jesus had “magic hands” and sometimes not? That’s probably not what is meant, at least
says commentator Joel Green. (New International Commentary on the New
Testament, Luke, Pg. 240) Rather it is a
reminder that all of Jesus’ ministry is carried out in and through the presence
of the Holy Spirit. Jesus does not act
alone. His actions and his powers are in
sync with God’s intentions for the world.
The calmness ends there
however. The paralytic’s friends are not
willing to let a crowd get in the way of their friend’s healing. They will go to extraordinary means to get to
Jesus. Somehow, someway they get him up
on the roof. Then they rip off the top
of the house and lower him down through the hole they made! Talk about devoted friends. This is an amazing act of creativity,
devotion, and pure nerve. What a
contrast these guys are to the leper we met before.
I don’t think insurance agents get
too many claims where people ask for coverage for roof damage caused by the
ministry of an itinerant preacher!
Will Jesus reject this boldness,
this butting in front of the rest of the crowd, this destruction of
property? Who do they think they are
anyway? It appears as if the
scribes and Pharisees in the crowd were not impressed by what they saw.
Given what we know about Jesus to
this point we’d expect him to either heal the man or else maybe send him out to
wait his turn. But he does something
that we do not expect at all. Jesus
tells the man he is forgiven. Forgiveness?!? What about healing?
For us the forgiveness sounds like
an oddity. For them it was a scandalous
declaration. The Pharisees and the
scribes certainly think so! “Who is this
who is speaking blasphemies? Who can
forgive sins but God alone?”
We are so used to receiving
forgiveness at the beginning of a worship service by simply asking for it. We have this sense that forgiveness is a
given. How cheap it all seems! Not so.
That is a failing of our faith.
Martin Luther would call it “cheap grace.” You can’t just go to God and expect
everything to be patched over. We humans
do bad things. We hurt each other. We damage the creation. Real damage means real restitution. Sometimes I think our Roman Catholic brothers
and sisters in Christ have it right when they expect people to have individual
confession and then be prescribed actions for forgiveness. Even so, that is cheap.
We can learn something from the
scribes and Pharisees here. Sin is
nothing more than brokenness from God.
Sin robs life. There’s no cheap
and easy way to fix it. It certainly
doesn’t come only by some guy pronouncing it.
So when Jesus says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you,” they are
rightfully claiming he is uttering blasphemies.
Only God can offer forgiveness.
Through Moses God had prescribed what forgiveness required. There were ceremonies and animal
sacrifice. Remember, sin robs life. Something needed to give its life for the
life the sin stole.
Jesus is not being arrogant when he
says, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven
you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’?
But so that you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to
forgive sins” – he said to the one who was paralyzed – “I say to you, stand up
and take your bed and go to your home.”
In a way, the healing was the lesser
miracle here. Forgiveness is the
greater. The real core of this passage
is that Jesus has the power to forgive.
He, the Son of Man, speaks for God.
Vivid as the scene is, with the man being lowered through the roof, and
the paralyzed man being healed, and the protestations of the religious leaders
present, the real thrust is Jesus’ ability to authoritatively speak for
God. Jesus speaks. Things happen.
This is a serious threat to the
religious leaders. I don’t want to make
them out to be close-minded old fools.
They weren’t. They had carefully
passed down Jewish traditions for centuries.
They knew how to be faithful.
They knew how to survive.
Until that day.
When
I read this passage I often make a mistake in understanding the end. I often imagine the scribes and Pharisees
returning to wherever they came from and then formulating a plan to get Jesus
later on. Not so. This is my mistake.
Luke
say, “Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with
awe…” “All of them” truly means all of
them – critical scribes and Pharisees included.
Next
week we’ll meet more religious leaders and they too will be upset with
Jesus. But they are different leaders
than these.
Whether
we come to God with gentleness or boldness God sees us and God responds to
us. Whether the ills of our lives are quickly
healed, or never healed at all, God is still acting in this world. Jesus’ primary purpose was not to fix
people’s problems. Jesus’ purpose was to
fulfill the promises God had made to humanity in the past. With that fulfillment God was revealing
something new. I pray that we can all
see that we are part of what God is doing.
And just as surely as Luke’s storyline moves forward, so God is moving
us forward as well.
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