When Jesus heals, and there are many miracle stories in the
gospels, he always seems to link healing with conversion and faith. He utters the words “Your sins are forgiven”,
or their equivalent, on many occasions. For a number of reasons, the religious
leaders of Israel disliked him. He taught “with authority” rather than like the
Pharisees, who taught from the previous teachings of great rabbis in a legal
fashion, according to precedent. He flouted so many of their laws, comparing them unfavourably with the grace and mercy of
God. They were afraid that his teaching would provoke an uprising which would
bring the full weight of Roman justice crashing down upon them.
In an episode from the Gospels, Jesus is teaching when he is confronted
by the paralysed man on a stretcher. There are scribes and Pharisees present,
listening, it would seem, for something he might say or do that they could use
against him. He first tells the man, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then he actually
heals the paralysed man. His forgiveness of the man’s sins provokes the
Pharisees to anger. They believe he is blaspheming by claiming the right to
forgive sins, which belongs to God alone. Their reasoning is this: “This man
claims to be able to forgive sins. This makes him out to be a sinner and a
blasphemer. God does not listen to sinners, Therefore, Jesus cannot heal the
man.”
Jesus does then heal the man, proving the opposite: Because
he can heal the man, God listens to him. Therefore he is not a sinner.
Therefore he does have the power to forgive sins. He has beaten the Pharisees
at their own game. The implication is that he really is the son of God, though
he does not explicitly say so.
We can be so like the Pharisees, even in the world of today.
We listen to the teachings of the Church, not to imbibe and obey them, but to
find fault with them, to let ourselves off the hook, so to speak. We try to
rationalise the difference between what we want and what the Church teaches. We
want to do it “my way”, not God’s, when it doesn't suit us. Yet Jesus is God’s son,
as today’s parable proves, and therefore the bearer of all truth. In the words
of God heard at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”
We need to be less like the Pharisees, thought themselves
righteous enough to pass judgement on the Son of God. We need to be more like
the paralytic and his friends, who had such humble faith in Jesus that he
healed the man. Only in this way can we be the recipients of his love and
forgiveness. Only in this way can we receive spiritual healing from God as he tells us that our sins are forgiven, that we,
too, as a result, are able to “Get up, take up our beds and walk.”
Fr. Phillip
