No one gets to Jesus in just the same way.  Am I going to tell Jesus, “Lord, that’s not how I’d do it”?  If people bring someone to Jesus in a way that sort of bugs me or even damages my property, shall I complain, protest, or entertain feelings of resentment?

It’s clear in what we just heard that news is spreading about Jesus.  I wish we could say the same in this country in these times.  The number of those in America who have never once in their lives attended a church continues to grow: one nation under God, in God we trust.  There are those who talk about Jesus, but none of their talk seems to guide them through any of the many church doors of a Sunday.  They don’t mind being Christian, so long as they don’t have to attend a church.

The biblical witness tells us that when people know Jesus is around, they gather, crowd in.  That would be wonderful!  There back in Capernaum, near the Sea of Galilee, “They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and [Jesus] preached the word to them” (2:2).  Now, the jaded part of me says, yeah, they’re there, all crowded around . . . for the show!  Jesus does mind-cracking things—as they’ve heard reliably.  This is going to be great, just you wait and see!  Where’s the popcorn and Dr. Pepper?  Mark tells us exactly what Jesus was doing, is always doing: “he preached the word to them.”  Beloved, the miracle is the Word.  The Word is power.  The Word is healing.  The Word is cleansing.  The Word is strengthening, beauty, and peace.

And people need help.  Not everyone is able to get themselves to the help they need.  I spend more time than I probably ought to wondering why more people aren’t here on Sunday, or in any church, for that matter.  Yes, ours isn’t the largest town in the area—there are only so many people not in church around here on Sunday, but I’ll tell you, there are more not in church around here than in church, Sunday morning.  Why?  Oh, they don’t want to; they don’t care.  There is that, but I’m afraid also that there are those who would come, if they weren’t overwhelmed by the feeling of sticking out, of knowing no one, having no support network, no friendly face or nod of the head, or hand extended in greeting and welcome when they walked into a church.

Going to a church, any church, for a first time isn’t so easy!  Who are you?  What brought you here?  For some of us, it would be the easiest thing in the world to walk into a meeting filled with strangers; for others, the very thought is like a gigantic, screaming stop signal.  People need help.  They need salvation.  Some know it; others sense it; not many want to admit it.  You know I’m always encouraging you to invite people to come and see, come and belong here; as you invite, just remember their built-in reluctance, and don’t let yourself become discouraged when they tell you no.  Keep at it, patiently—periodically—persistently, prayerfully.

Back in Capernaum, the crowd all crammed in, “Some men came, bringing to [Jesus] a paralyzed man, carried by four of them” (2:3): bringing someone to Jesus!  Glory, hallelujah!  It makes me want to weep with happiness.  Now, it’s not like those four men are wrestling their friend in through the door, all kicking and punching and crying for momma.  No.  The man is paralyzed: unable to do a thing for himself, helpless.  Let’s sit with that a minute.  Did you bring yourself to Jesus?  Who brought you to Jesus?  It may have been so long ago, and you may have been so young, that it’s hard to remember that you couldn’t do a thing for yourself, for salvation.

No one comes to Jesus of their own will.  We talk a lot about free will: we value that, highly.  And if it weren’t for sin, I would say let’s value free will very highly, as the gift of God it was, before sin completely disfigured it.  Remember, it was of their own free will that Eve and Adam ate of the fruit, tasted sin, and found it wasn’t so bad—except they were nekkid and ashamed—it wasn’t so bad, until God came near and called to them.  No, the motive force, the decisive force at work in bringing anyone and everyone to Jesus is not free will but the Holy Spirit, who opens ears, opens eyes, who cracks open that door into the darkness, so the light begins to shine in.

It’s strange and a little sad that the crowd gathered there to listen should be the obstacle to bringing that paralyzed man to Jesus, but this is what happened, as Peter vividly remembered.  I sort of think Peter remembered it so vividly because headquarters there in Capernaum was probably Peter’s home.  If that’s true, then the roof that was being broken up to lower the man through the hole was . . . Peter’s roof: HEY!!  What sacrifices are we willing to make for Jesus?  What inconveniences are we willing to endure, for the sake of clearing the way for someone to come to Jesus?  Sometimes it may be a roof, sometimes, the obstacle that needs to be set aside is ourselves.  The roof keeps out the rain—good!  The roof also can block the light.  Oh, people can come to Jesus, of course . . . so long as it’s my way, our way, so long as they believe exactly the same as we do and don’t fail to toe the theological line we’ve established because we know it’s right and everyone else is wrong and probably going to hell, thank God.

Those four friends—we aren’t even told their names or if they even believe in Jesus—they know their paralyzed friend needs help.  Somehow, they’re pretty sure Jesus is help; people have been saying that Jesus is help, and Lord knows nothing else has helped, and the only thing blocking the way between the help they need and the help Jesus offers is all those people there with Jesus.  Well, those people didn’t mean to be an obstacle!  Gracious, if they had known there would be an emergency like this, they would have been happy to make way, make room.  There’s plenty of room here, God knows!  No one means to be an obstacle; no one wants to be told they make a better wall than a door.  Let us so walk with Christ that we allow him to make us doors; otherwise, despite ourselves, we can all too easily become walls—oh, yes, walls are good, too—until you need a door.

Jesus saw what was happening and was impressed.  Mark puts it powerfully: “Jesus saw their faith” (2:5).  What is this faith?  Jesus can.  Jesus can help.  Jesus can do it.  Just get to Jesus; he’ll do the rest.  To the man who could do nothing for himself, nothing to get, earn, achieve, or accomplish his own healing, his own salvation, Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (2:5).  So, the man was paralyzed because of his sins?  This was God’s judgment?  Remember what Jesus says elsewhere: such things are so that the power of God may be seen (Jn 9:3).  We’re so quick to blame God and so slow to praise Him.  When we stop looking for whose fault and start looking for whose power—oh, the things we’ll see!

And sin is like a paralysis, isn’t it?  When we’re stuck in sin—paralyzed, as it were—we can get to feeling as if we have no ability to do a thing about it, except grieve and mourn and weep and keep doing it.  Keep digging ourselves down deeper.  Your sins are forgiven.  It wasn’t as if that paralyzed man had personally offended Jesus, that he should say I forgive you.  We’re not told the man said a thing or even asked for forgiveness.

It seems to have become no great trouble for us Christians to neglect that people are living under condemnation.  Well, we know we aren’t living under condemnation, so we either don’t think about it or else we just sort of assume that, if we aren’t under condemnation, then no one is under condemnation, because why would God?  But try this thought experiment with me.  Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you believed you were under condemnation.  Let’s say that belief colored everything you did, was like the center of your worldview, your way of seeing the world and others.  Let’s say, just to ratchet it up a notch or five that, not only did you believe you were under condemnation but that you actively, helplessly—sometimes even willingly—added to your condemnation, act by act, word by word, week by week.  How would you feel?  Sad?  Angry?  Stuck?  Resentful?  Resigned?  Hopeless?  Helpless?

Then, this man, this Jesus, around whom were gathered all these people with their many different histories and desires and hopes—Jesus, seeing and understanding what is happening, says, even before any formal request is made or maybe even thought, says to you as though he knows all about it, “your sins are forgiven.”  You are not condemned, no longer condemned.  You are forgiven.  How does that change how you see things, life, yourself, others, God?  Jesus is telling that man: believe me, your sins are forgiven.  You only need to believe it and live in that belief, that . . . faith.

Jesus always talks like he knows what he’s talking about, through and through, start to finish.  That staggered everyone: some for awed delight, others for indignant outrage.  Jesus knows what we most need to hear.  Oh, “You are loved” and “I love you” are great, don’t get me wrong, but if you’ve lived a human life for longer than, say, twelve years, I think it’ll begin to make some real sense to you that the words we most need to hear—and I suppose all too rarely hear—are “You are forgiven.”  Maybe accompanied by a hug.  Hugs are good.

Our choices carry weight that, one way or another, we must bear as we make our walk through this life.  Some choices make us feel light; others make us feel heavy.  Some choices we thought at the time ought to make us feel so light, so free, so happy, turned out to be much heavier than we could have imagined or would ever have wanted.  Sin is like that.  There are also those choices that seemed, as they loomed, to make us feel so weighed down—like going to a church for the first time, yet once the decision was made (the right decision, after all), we found ourselves feeling unexpectedly, unforeseeably light.  Choosing Christ is like that.

Mark tells us only that the man carried there by his four friends and lowered down through what had been Peter’s good roof was paralyzed.  We aren’t given any background or any details.  I visualize that man as one so weighed down by his sad and bad choices—his history of sad, bad choices—that he was being crushed, no longer able to move, no longer able to act.  He didn’t want to make any more choices.  He was done with freedom as it had been sold to him by all the snake oil salesmen.  He was ready, therefore for forgiveness; he understood, therefore that what he most needed, what was killing him for the lack of it, was forgiveness—forgiveness of his sins, his many sins, all those ugly sins that seemed so pretty, at the time, so desirable.  He knew he could not forgive himself, no matter that the kindhearted people around him kept telling him that was the way to peace.  We don’t need our own forgiveness—there’s a costly sacrifice!  We need the forgiveness of others.  We need the forgiveness of God.

For Jesus to say to him, “your sins are forgiven”—that was the true freedom, the real freedom and the joy that makes light.  Even if that man remained unable to command his body to get up and walk, Jesus gave him the key to joy and peace.  Yes, his body had been failing him—in so many ways for so long.  It was his heart that was killing him.

But those teachers of the law.  I don’t want to say they were hard-hearted.  When it came to sins against other people, they understood that apologies could be made and accepted.  For them, the sticking point was the sins against God.  Beloved, all sins are sins against God, because He wants us to live one way rather than another with one another as well as with Him.  How we live with one another is how we live unto the Lord.  God watches.

Beloved, just like God, Jesus knows what we most need—imagine that!  Jesus also has the power to demonstrate he knows what he is doing, knows what he is saying.  The power of healing and of restoration is with him for a reason.  The Word is power.  Jesus has the power to do what pleases God—in him, we do, too.  One thing that pleases God immensely is offering forgiveness, being forgiving.  You and I know that isn’t always so easy.  It’s not supposed to be.  It’s not so easy to follow Jesus; don’t be deceived about that.  It’s not so easy to do as Jesus tells us.  It’s not easy, and it is blessed, and we have help, beautiful, holy, blessed help.  We aren’t living in Jesus for ease.  We are living in Jesus for blessing and to be a blessing.  There is healing and hope in forgiveness—if you know it, give it.  By what he has done for us, Jesus has made healing possible for us.  Forgiveness is not approval.  Forgiveness is not endorsement.  Forgiveness is not permission.  Forgiveness is a call, a helping hand, back into righteousness, life on God’s terms.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.