Luke 5:17–26
A sermon preached at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral on the Sunday after Ascension 16th May 2021
Jesus came to earth on a mission, and is about to return to his Father. One of the last things he does is to make an announcement: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in my name in all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” These words are what Luke’s history leads up to—his climax. Which may disappoint you. I mean, if you were given one wish for the world, or one wish for yourself, what would it be? Forgiveness, I suspect, would be a long way down our list. But consider this:
In 1994 Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress won an overwhelming majority of votes, and the new South Africa was born. One of the first questions it had to face was what to do about people who had committed atrocities in the years of struggle. What usually happens is that the winners round up the leaders and supporters of the old regime and there is a blood bath. Under Nelson Mandela’s leadership, and with Bishop Desmond Tutu at his side, another plan was put in place. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed, and amnesty was offered to everyone who had committed crimes in the years of struggle, regardless of which side they were on—so long as they told the truth, faced their victims and said sorry. If they were not prepared to repent, the law would take its course.
This was revolutionary. Come clean, be forgiven, and be part of the new South Africa! Clearly, this was inspired by the Christian gospel. It is one of the reasons South Africa avoided civil war. You see that repentance and forgiveness of sins can be key to a new era.
God owes us nothing. He is grieved and offended by our many evil deeds. Nevertheless, Jesus came on a ministry of reconciliation, at the end of which he made this announcement. It is possible to have done with rebellion, turn to God, receive his gift of amnesty, and enter his kingdom.
When I realized we had arrived at Ascension Sunday, and I was also due to speak to you about forgiveness I was troubled to find a connection. But here it is at the climax of Luke: Jesus makes this final announcement and ascends to where he came from: repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in my name to all nations.
Let’s return to Luke’s story! Jesus is back in Capernaum.
Luke 5.17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus …
Here is a paraplegic, possibly a quad; if you gave him one wish, you know what it would be. Most people who are sick or handicapped or disfigured would give almost anything to be normal. And some disabilities are worse than others. Living in a house with a crippled child is tough, both for the child and for those who have to look after it. And it gets harder as they grow up.
You may have visited the Quadriplegic Centre In Shenton Park. It is especially designed with wide corridors and special bathrooms, and the people there zoom around on electric wheelchairs. Most of them prefer to live there, because it was difficult at home. After you’ve yelled for your mother multiple times to take you to the toilet and she gets there too late. Well, with all the love in the world, it builds up resentment on both sides, and there were no quadriplegic centres in Jesus’ time.
It must have been quite a thing for this man’s family when they heard that Jesus was in town again. The last time he was here they had missed out. But now he is back—teaching at Peter’s house. So they lost no time. Four family friends brought him on a stretcher. How the chap on the stretcher felt about it, we are not told. Scared, I imagine. Feeling that the whole thing is impossible, that he might end up embarrassed and disappointed. Still, there must also have been a glimmer of hope. When they reached the house they saw they’d missed out again: the house was full and there was a big crowd around the door. But this family was desperate.
Capernaum has been excavated. The walls have gone, but the foundations are still there, and they tell a story. The synagogue is easily identified and so, strangely, is the house where today’s incident took place. Centuries later, when Christianity became official, a big octagonal basilica was erected over it, which is easily identified in the ruins.
The interesting thing about many houses in Capernaum is that there is the foundation of a stone staircase that ran up the outside of the building. The roofs were flat so people could sit up there, and sleep on hot nights. They wrapped the stretcher around their friend so he wouldn’t slip, and up they went. Once on the roof, they looked around for a way to get through.
At this stage the crippled guy was maybe trying to call it off. “No, come on guys, take me home.” But this close to Jesus they were not going to give up. They could see how the roof was constructed and it wasn’t steel reinforced concrete. Luke talks about tiles. Mark says they dug through. However it was, they started making an opening.
Imagine being in the room below. Houses in Capernaum had stone walls and no windows, so it was dark inside—perhaps a few candles on this occasion. Everyone is absorbed in Jesus’ words. Then comes a scraping sound from above. A few people look up, but Jesus goes on talking. More noise from above. People are getting distracted. Dust starts to fall, and suddenly a hole opens up. A shaft of light streams down. Not even Jesus could hold their attention now. He looks up himself. The hole gets bigger. Now there is a face, then another, then four faces.
We have all seen pictures in children’s books of the next scene. The four friends on the roof lowering the stretcher with a rope on each corner. That would be impossible. There is no way they could have made a hole that big without collapsing the whole roof. No, when the hole was just big enough to get through they tied their friend tight to the stretcher, and lowered him feet first. The light from above was like a spotlight in a dark theatre, everyone in the house was looking up, and he is helplessly revolving around. He must have felt like a prize fool.
Anyway, someone grabbed the end of the stretcher; they make a space and lay him on the floor. Everyone is crowding forward to look down on him. He is embarrassed and angry. If only he hadn’t let them bring him on this mad adventure. Jesus studies him, then looks up at the expectant faces of the four men on the roof. And Luke says he saw their faith:
Luke 5.20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
I wonder what the look on their faces was then. How would you feel? The doctor says you have cancer. Your one prayer is to be healed. And the hospital chaplain comes by and prays for your sins to be forgiven. Insulting! The men on the roof are shocked and disappointed.
Others were surprised too. Many were synagogue leaders who had come to check Jesus out. And now he has said something quite outrageous:
And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
It is a very good question. To answer it we need to understand something about sin. Sin is doing wrong, but always it hurts someone. Suppose I am driving away from the church. I back out and don’t look carefully where I am going and run into a child. I’m going to feel pretty bad, but also I’m going to owe someone. If the child is injured, I’ll be paying out for a long time. Sin brings debt, you see. That was how Jesus understood it. In the Lord’s Prayer he says, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
If it goes to court, the judge is going to award damages to the parents of the child. I am going to have to pay. But suppose the parents come to me and say, “We know it was an accident; we forgive you.” They can do that, because the wrong is against them. But the child may grow up crippled, and he may not want to forgive; one day he might make a claim. That’s his right; he suffered the hurt. Only the person to whom the debt is owed can forgive.
But suppose you hurt someone on purpose. Suppose you lose your temper and bash your wife. You have certainly wronged your wife and owe her, but you have also broken the law. You owe something there too. And you have also broken God’s law, which means you owe God. Sin always carries with it a debt to God. The experts listening to Jesus were right. Only God can forgive a sin against God. And what if God doesn’t forgive?
Not to be forgiven means to be shut out of the coming new world. To be consigned to what Jesus called “outer darkness” and “weeping and grinding of teeth.” Do you see the importance of forgiveness?
Happily, God doesn’t want any of us to end up unforgiven. So, Jesus came announcing “the acceptable year of the Lord”, the time of amnesty. He invites us to be forgiven and enter his kingdom. His final announcement was that the offer of forgiveness should be proclaimed to all nations. Sadly, not everyone accepts the invitation.
The authorities were right that what Jesus said to the man on the stretcher was blasphemy … unless … unless Jesus had authority from God to forgive—or unless he was God himself. But there were lots of ordinary people in the room who couldn’t care whether it was blasphemy or not; they were thinking Jesus couldn’t heal the cripple, and that’s why he offered him forgiveness.
Some sicknesses you can imagine people getting healed. It’s not hard to imagine an epileptic or a cancer patient being healed. But a paraplegic is different; you can see it. Crippled legs shrink and twist. It is impossible to imagine them just being restored.
A new student arrived at George Whitefield College walking with the help of a pole cut from the bush. He caught polio as a child, and one leg was twisted around so that his foot faced backwards. It kind of hung down and was useless. One of his class mates took him to an orthopaedic surgeon who said he could operate and straighten the leg and put him on callipers so he could walk without the pole. It was like a genie offering him his greatest wish. It was costly, but his mate offered to look after it. I took him to Groote Schuur Hospital for his final check-up. The surgeon lifted him onto a table and brought his whole team in to examine him. It wasn’t very nice. Then one of the young doctors said, “It won’t work.” “Why not?” said the surgeon, and they argued about whether the muscles could grow again. In the end the surgeon agreed, and they told my student they could straighten his leg, but he would never walk on it. He would need crutches for the rest of his life. He chose to stick with the pole! There are things even surgeons cannot do, and fixing cripples is one of them.
Anyway, there weren’t any orthopaedic surgeons 2000 years ago. Most people in that room reckoned Jesus had hit the limit on healing, and forgiving the man was a consolation prize. But think! If Jesus can’t restore useless limbs, can he restore a broken world? It was almost a challenge.
Jesus knew what they were thinking and challenged them: “Which is easier, to say to the paraplegic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up, pick up your stretcher and walk.’?”
And when they thought about this and decided the answer was obvious, he said, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins …” Then he turned to the man and said, “Get up, take your stretcher and go home.”
His mates were gob-smacked. They wanted to carry the stretcher for him. But no way! “The man said carry it, and I’m going to carry it.” And I bet he couldn’t resist the temptation to run a bit on the way.
There is no limit to Jesus’ power. A man stood up once when I was preaching and said, “Can Jesus cure my epilepsy?” Of course he can, and your cancer, and your AIDS. Will he? Perhaps, but maybe he will not, for he first has to deal with something bigger. Jesus said his mission was to save sinners. When Jesus asked them which was easiest, to forgive or to heal, he knew it would be easy for him to heal. He made the world, he can fix it up. But forgiveness … he would have to pay the debt—and that meant dying in our place.
You need to know that God wants you in his kingdom. For that to happen you need to be forgiven. Forgiveness means acceptance, friendship with God for the rest of your life, and then a share in the new world. Most of us experience physical healing in this world—many times over—but the kingdom of God is where most of it will happen. Whatever you suffer in this world, you can be sure you will find full healing in the age which is coming. That’s what it is all about.
Our greatest need now is forgiveness. Without forgiveness, in the end we lose everything. With forgiveness, one day our every wish will come true. If you are uncertain how to receive God’s forgiveness, talk to a pastor or a Christian you trust. If you want to accept God’s gift of forgiveness now, you could say this prayer:
God, you made me and you gave me my place in the world. You have protected me and brought me to this day. I know I have ignored you and turned against your will. I see now that that is stupid. I want to come back to you and be in a good relationship with you. I know that I need your forgiveness for that to happen. Please forgive me. Jesus says he wants to forgive. The Bible says he died to make it possible for all my debts to be cleared. Please make me clean. And help me to be the person you want from now on. Amen