Not Expected?
And seeing their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” Luke 5:20
Are Forgiven – “Your sins are forgiven.” But that’s not what we wanted, Lord!
You’re one of the friends. You carry the stretcher, pushing your way through the crowds, sweating in the hot sun. “If we can just get there, I know he will heal him.” But you can’t get near the house. There must be another way. Of course, the roof! Up you go. Well, not quite that easily. Carrying a paralytic up a flight of stairs is not like wheeling a hospital gurney into an elevator. But you get there. Now the sweat really drips. “We’ll have to dig through the roof.” More mess. Cut fingers, dust, rubble. If I only had something to drink. Finally, a hole. And who will pay for all this mess? We’ll worry about that later (I’ll have to pay, of course). The roof is open. The cool air rushes up through the hole. Carefully now. Lower him. Slowly. Slowly. He’s there. Jesus is standing over him. We did it! He’ll walk again.
And then the shock. “Your sins are forgiven.” What? Are you kidding me? All that work to have him dismiss sins. He still can’t walk. What good is it to forgive sins if we have to carry him out? Lord, we wanted healing. That’s why we came. But you gave us nothing useful.
End of story. Or is it? Do we live like the friends on the roof, expecting Jesus to provide according to our agenda? We want something useful, not something that only matters in the end. We want healing now, recovery now, prosperity now, protection now. After all we have done, why don’t we get what we came for? Why does Jesus think it is sufficient to forgive sins and leave the man paralyzed?
Forgive is quite literally “to send away from, to dismiss, to let go of, to quit or forsake” (in Greek, aphiemi). Jesus is not blind to the man’s condition, nor does he ignore the expectation of his friends. He knows the concern, but He understands the real need. Unless this man is forgiven, walking will be of no value to him. So Jesus treats the root of the problem. And they are shocked. Today, Jesus still treats the root issue first. And we still complain. Jesus knows that the real illness is our unholiness, our rebellion and our guilt. The greatest physician doesn’t bother with the symptoms (like paralysis). He cures the cause.
What is true about this story is true of us. We come to Jesus with an agenda. Help me. He provides healing for the root cause, but we want observable results. Are we disappointed? Or are we willing to accept the decision of the physician?
