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Luke 5:12-26
Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy
12While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
13Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.
14Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
15Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
17 One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. 18 Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. 19 When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.
20 When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
21 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
22 Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . .” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 25 Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. 26 Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”
Today’s listed reading is made up of two passages in which Jesus performs miraculous healings – one of a leper, the other of a paralytic. At first, the two stories seem to have in common only the fact that they’re about healings. But as I’ve looked at them, I’ve been struck more and more by the nuances of Jesus’ interactions with the people in the stories.
The first passage tells about Jesus healing a man covered with leprosy. As the man approaches Jesus, he says something that seems strange when you think about it. He says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” On the one hand, that’s a statement of faith and confidence in Jesus. The man recognizes that Jesus has the power to perform the healing he needs.
But on the other hand, the man leaves open the possibility that Jesus might not be willing to ‘make him clean.’ In the ancient Hebrew world, lepers were regarded as having been punished by God with this terrible disease. In fact, the Hebrew word for leprosy literally meant “smiting,” as though God specifically chose certain people to get the disease. The Hebrews thought that if you had it, you deserved it, so the man wasn’t sure Jesus would be willing to heal him. But in coming into the world, Jesus was inaugurating an age of grace, extending blessing (and healing) beyond what any of us could claim to deserve.
So, of course, Jesus was willing to heal the man. And once he had, he instructed him not to tell anyone, but instead to go and perform the rituals to get certified by the religious leaders as ‘cleansed.’ We think of the religious leadership as enemies to Jesus, but he still instructed people to respect their authority.
In the second story, Jesus interacts with three different parties: the paralyzed man, the man’s friends, and a group of Pharisees and teachers of the law who were gathered around.
The first interaction is between Jesus and the friends of the paralyzed man. Since the crowds around Jesus are too big to get the man through, the friends climb up on the roof, make an opening, and lower the man into his presence.
Then we’re told that when Jesus sees their faith, he acts on behalf of the paralyzed man. It’s not the paralyzed man’s faith that leads Jesus to act – it’s the faith of his friends. That seems to confirm something some people might sometimes doubt: the idea that our faith – and our prayers – can influence God to act in the lives of those we know and love.
The second interaction is between Jesus and the paralyzed man. It seems to me very significant that the first thing Jesus does for the man is not to heal him of his paralysis, but rather to forgive his sins. The man and his friends must have assumed that his most pressing need was for physical healing. But apparently, in Jesus’ eyes, the man’s most pressing need was for forgiveness.
My sense is that this reveals an important truth. Almost all of us have something about ourselves that we’d really like God to ‘heal.’ But whatever that ‘something’ might be, this story suggests that God has different priorities for us. It seems like God is more concerned about our spiritual health – and specifically about our need for forgiveness – than he is about the obvious, outward things we want to have fixed.
The third interaction in this story is with the Jewish religious leaders. The teachers of the law were theologians and religious scholars – the “law” they taught was the Law of Moses, found in the first five books of the Old Testament. And the Pharisees were very committed religious Jews. Their great devotion to keeping God’s laws led them to be judgmental and self-righteous. So these religious leaders were shocked to hear Jesus declare the paralyzed man forgiven of his sins. The Jews didn’t think anyone but God had the power to do that, so the Pharisees and teachers of the law thought that what Jesus said was blasphemy. Of course, they didn’t realize Jesus was God in human form.
The Jewish leaders didn’t criticize what Jesus said, but he knew what they were thinking. And before he physically healed the paralyzed man, Jesus told the religious leaders that he was doing it for their benefit – so they would see that he had the authority to forgive sins. And as the formerly paralyzed man walked away carrying his mat, Luke says that “everyone” was moved to amazement and praise for God. And everyone here would include a lot of the Pharisees and teachers.
We tend to think that Jesus came into the world only for scandalous sinners like “tax collectors and prostitutes.” But maybe this story wants to make the point that Jesus came for anyone who felt a hunger to hear him and learn from him. Maybe Jesus saw the Pharisees as sinners like everyone else – people who needed to be forgiven and set free from their spiritual paralysis just as the man in this story was set free from his physical paralysis.
Let’s pray. Lord, we know that you see our need for forgiveness, even when we try to deny it to ourselves and others. Forgive us, and heal us of every sickness and weakness that might prevent us living the abundant life you have in mind for us. And help us to keep in mind that Jesus was given the authority to forgive everyone’s sins, not just the sins of the ‘religious.’ Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
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