Last week our studies in Matthew took us to Matthew 9 v1-8 and to Jesus the Complete Saviour:
Matthew is setting before us the most sumptuous, beautiful
portrait of Jesus as the complete Saviour. In Matthew 5-7 in the Sermon on the
Mount we encounter Jesus the great teacher. In the Old Testament in Leviticus
there is the great call to God’s people ‘You shall be holy as I am holy’ in the
Sermon on the Mount as Jesus patiently unfolds what true holiness is we begin
to see the real beauty of a godly life. But if all Jesus did was teach we would
be despair; the problem with the Sermon on the Mount is not understanding what
Jesus has to say, but living the Sermon on the Mount consistently. We need
wisdom, we need teaching but we need so much more.
So in chapters 8 into 9 Matthew tells us of six miracles Jesus
performed that open up the whole world of Jesus tenderness and healing power.
Firstly Jesus heals the leper; Jesus is quite prepared to become unclean to
heal someone and restore their humanity. Secondly He heals the son of a Roman
centurion; race, creed, culture religious background or want of it is no
barrier to Jesus; His mercy is for all. Thirdly He heals Peter’s mother in law;
there is no one too old, too insignificant for Jesus to help. Fourthly He
stands up in the boat and stills the tsunami that threatened to swap the boat
he and the disciples were in; Jesus is greater than the chaos, greater than
your worst nightmare even in the wildest storm you are safe with Him. Then last
week we came to the story of Jesus casting out demons. If all Jesus could do
was teach, calm storms and heal old women but was powerless in the face of all
the evil that stalks the earth He would be a very nice and worthwhile chap to
know but ultimately ineffective and useless. But no at simply a word from Jesus
evil departs and is destroyed.
I am old enough to remember the Rolf Harris Show it was the
highpoint of Saturday night. The highlight of the show came when Rolf with some
pots of Dulux and the kind of paint brush you would use to paint a door would
paint a picture. As he ooed and ahhed slowly he put streaks of paint here and
there on what looked like an old sheet slowly but surely a picture would emerge
and then Rolf would sing a song with the picture illustrating the song. That
was class entertainment when I was a kid. This is what Matthew is doing
creating a portrait of Jesus; like all good portrait artists he is taking us
into the heart and soul of the character of the subject of the portrait till
like Rolf we break into song, not singing Tie
Me Kangaroo Down Mate but into great hymns and anthems of praise as we find
in v8 the crowd filled with awe worship God.
Now in this great portrait of Jesus that Matthew spreads before
us the crowning glory is Jesus healing the paralytic, saying to him ‘Take heart son (= Gk teknon the most tender
of words a father can use to speak to his son); your sins are forgiven.’
If all Jesus could do was teach, heal old ladies, calm storms
and destroy evil then He would be a great guy to know and pretty handy to have
around when things got tough but ultimately He would be useless. If somehow or
other Jesus is not able to bring forgiveness to my soul and change me then I am
lost.
Let us begin with a question. Why did Jesus say to the man
‘Your sins are forgiven’ rather than simply say to him at the beginning ‘Take
up your bed and walk’? It would have been much easier, the teachers of the law
would not have been outraged, the effect would have been the same, the guy
would have been healed and every one would have gone home happy. Or is the
guy’s paralysis somehow related to sin.
The answer to that is no and yes.
No the guy did not do something very wicked and so God as a
punishment hit him with some awful wasting disease. That is how many think;
something bad happens to them and they think it is God punishing them for
something they have done. In fact the opposite is true; the Bible is emphatic that ‘God does not treat us as our sins
deserve or repay us according to our iniquities’ but rather He sends the
sunshine and the rain on men and women everywhere. In fact a more common
complaint in the Bible and certainly in the non-believing world is that God is
far too kind to the wicked. So, no this guy did not do something wicked and his
paralysis was divine punishment.
But then yes his paralysis did come as a result of sin. You see
this world; the world we live in is not the world God made. The world God
created for His children was ‘good’ a King’s garden a place for god to meet
with his children. This world we live in today though is a world of rebellion;
a world that has declared itself independent of God, a world that has renounced
His sovereignty and so it has become a world of evil, fear chaos, tragedy; a world of pain, disease and death.
Occasionally we see this larger tragedy played out on a smaller
scale. Have you see any of these reality programmes on TV when every a group of
children get the wish of every child they are to live in a house without any
parents no teachers, no authority figures, the kids are to be in complete
control. They think it will be bliss go to bed when you want to, eat when you
want to, watch TV whenever you like, play computer games for as long as you
want to. Heaven! But of course that does not last long. Soon there is fighting
and bullying kids ganging up on one another, the signs of chaos multiply around
them, the mess the uneaten food, the lethargy.
On a much larger scale that is our world such are our lives
when we rebel against God.
A few years ago a read a biography of Stalin and at one point
he deliberately created famine in the rich lands of the Russian steppes to
teach the peasants there to work for the state and not themselves. People
living on some of the richest farm land in the world were reduced to trying to
eat the bark from trees. These poor wretches were not responsible for the
famine but were living with the consequences of living a land of revolution.
This was the state of the paralytic. He lives in a world that
had rebelled against God and his disease was part of that rebellion.
My problem is that when I read the Sermon on the Mount I
understand the rightness of what Jesus is saying but I am paralysed by my
arrogance, selfishness and cowardliness. Because I am arrogant selfish and
cowardly the good I would do I do not and the evil I would not do that I do.
To heal the paralytic Jesus says to him ‘Your sins are
forgiven.’ He is setting this man free from all the consequences of man’s
rebellion against God.
The teachers of the law are outraged by this. They say quite
rightly that only God has the authority to forgive sin – but Jesus knowing
their thoughts challenges then in a quite remarkable way.
The thing is, it is easy to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’, for
who knows whether you are telling the truth or not? I could easily get one of
these sprinkler things that priests use and walk up and down the aisles of BVP
shower you all with holy water and say your sins are forgiven but how would you
really know you were forgiven or not?
But it is hard to say to paralytic take up your bed and walk
for everyone can see immediately whether or not you have the power to heal or
are just another fraudster.
The amazing this is that the man does pick up his bed and walk
and so the implication is that he knows forgiveness also.
Ultimately this is why Jesus in His parables places such an
emphasis upon living a life of grace. It is one thing for someone to brag they
have been born again, they are forgiven, a new man in Christ. Talk is cheap.
How do we know that claim is true other than they exhibit a life of mercy and
compassion? Central to Jesus whole ministry is the Parable of the unmerciful
servant. This man had swindled his master out of a fortune; he owed his master
vast suns in excess of the entire national debt of Greece; such sums he could
never repay. In an act of pure mercy his master forgives him and sets him free
from the debtors’ prison. The servant goes out and stumbles across a neighbour
who owes him just a few pounds; he attacks the man and has him thrown into
jail. His master hears of it and visits judgement upon him. The only way the
world will ever know that Jesus has the authority to forgive sins was for that
man to take up his bed and walk. The only way your family, your friends, your
colleagues, your neighbours will ever know Jesus has the authority to forgive
is through you leading a life of grace and compassion. It is not that God
forgives us but because we forgive but having been forgiven we live a life of
compassion.
The key to this whole passage of Scripture is the title Jesus
takes in this debate with the teachers of the law; He calls Himself the Son of
Man.
On one level the title son of man means just that Jesus is just
an ordinary human being, He is just one of Jack Thomson’s bairns. But then the
title means so much more. The Son of Man in the prophecy of Daniel the title
given to a great king to whom God entrusts governance of the whole universe. He
is one in whom Yahweh finds no fault but only unending pleasure and delight in
His wisdom, love of goodness, compassion, mercy and passion for justice.
In this little story for those who have eyes to see, our King
has come. He can not only teach the ways of God’s Kingdom there is nothing can
stand in His way as He gradually overcomes the rebellion of our world. He can
touch the leper unclean and make him clean. He can reach out to the wealthy
centurions who come from a wholly different culture. He can take the despised
useless old woman and give her back her life, give her hope. He is greater than
our worst nightmare. He has the authority to drive out evil. He can forgive and
heal so that the rebels can be brought back into God’s family.
The consequence of all this worship: the people see in Jesus
the king their weary souls have longed for and they in awe and delight worship
Him. We had two ladies in my last charge one sued to say to me I come to church
so that I can go home thinking ‘What have I got to do now?’ Another lady used
to say to me ‘I love coming here because I go home feeling so unworthy.’ Both
were wrong, wrong, wrong. You come to church to behold the glory of God in
Christ Jesus and to go home rejoicing, rejoicing in his forgiveness to live in
the joy and delight of His goodness.
