Scripture -- Isaiah
43: 16-21 and Mark 2: 1-12
My name is Aaron. I want to tell you about the most memorable day of my life. My
friends and I heard that a man named Jesus had been teaching and healing people all over
the area. Now he was back home in Capernaum, which is just the next town over from where
we live. It's a big deal when you hear someone's able to cure people of leprosy. I don't
know anyone who's done that before.
So we got to talking. There's a guy, Joseph. He's been a friend of ours since we were
all kids, playing together while our mothers did the laundry in the river. Something
happened to Joseph a long time ago; I don't know what, exactly. I've never thought
it was anybody's fault, but Joseph can't stand up straight, and tall and strong like he
should. When he's sitting, he looks just like everyone else and you wouldn't know anything
was wrong, but he can't run or even walk unless someone carries him. He's paralyzed. He
sits at the city gate during the day, begging for coins or food. In the evening he lounges
by the fire with his family or looks up at the stars with us. He's kind and compassionate,
tells great stories and doesn't want to be a burden to anyone. Joseph tries not to let his
situation make him bitter or depressed, but sometimes it happens anyway. All of his
friends wish so much that we could do something to set him free of his paralysis.
That's why, when we heard about Jesus, we tried to convince Joseph to let us take him
to Capernaum. It sounded like a sure thing and so easy to us. Surely Joseph would want to
be cured. No one wants to stay paralyzed. No one wants to stay cut off from the fullness
of life. Doesn't everyone want to live free if offered the possibility?
Joseph said no. He didn't want to go. He didn't want a lot of attention focused on
himself. You can never get to Jesus alone, there are always people around and he didn't
want all those people he didn't know to know he had a problem he couldn't fix himself.
Besides, he said, being paralyzed wasn't such a bad thing. He had friends and family who
love him, food to eat, a decent house to live in, a beautiful sky above him and hills
around him. This was enough. He didn't need any more than this. Other people have much
harder burdens to carry than his. And besides, if he kept lifting weights and doing
exercises, maybe someday he could teach himself to walk again. "Thanks for the
offer," he said. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm really fine, just as I
am."
Well, my friends and I became convinced that if only we could get Joseph to Jesus,
Jesus would heal him. Even the nay-sayers became convinced. So we hatched a plan. We would
take Joseph to Jesus with the faith that Jesus would both overcome his resistance and heal
him.
One morning, shortly after Joseph had taken up his position by the city gate, we
converged. There were eight of us. We told Joseph we were going to Capernaum for a party,
and he was coming with us. "No" was not an acceptable answer. Four of us picked
up the rods of his pallet before he could roll off in protest, and we headed down the
road. Periodically we would stop and trade places it's hard work to carry someone as far
as we carried him. I think each of us prayed with every step we took that Jesus would heal
Joseph and that we wouldn't drop him before we got there.
When we finally arrived, the place was packed. Jesus was in his house, but there were
so many people they couldn't even fit in the front yard, let alone inside. Joseph figured
out what was up and began to complain that we'd tricked him. If he could have walked, he
would have run the other way.
In everything you really want, in everything that's really good, there are always
setbacks, resistance and barriers that must be overcome. This was no different. But our
faith and our longing for Joseph to be healed were so great, we kept going. When we
couldn't get in the door, we went up the side stairs to the roof. I can't believe we did
next what we did, but it's true. When we got to the roof, we set Joseph's pallet down and
began to dig a hole in the roof of Jesus' house, big enough for us to lower Joseph.
Now that we were so close to our goal, Joseph began to talk. I don't know if he'd even
been aware of his feelings before, but they started rushing out. He was afraid, terribly
afraid. Afraid to ask for help. Afraid of having his life change. Afraid of the unknown.
He was afraid. What if he tried to walk and failed. What if he allowed himself to hope and
was disappointed. What would all those people think this was truly embarrassing. What
would he say to Jesus? But what was the most frightening of all, Joseph finally realized,
was that Jesus might actually heal him, and then what would he do? All his old defenses
wouldn't work anymore, he'd have to learn to walk again, not just on the outside, but
inside too. Who would he be then, after he had changed? And would we still be his friends
while he learned to be a new person?
Exchanging our prison of paralysis for an unknown promised land is frightening.
Surely you know those who refuse to cut back on their work and stress even when they
know a more balanced life is what God intends for them and is the way to find joy in
living.
Surely you know people who refuse to seek help for their depression or for addictions,
trying with limited success to manage on their own when the gifts God has given us in
medicine and therapy and 12 step programs could change their life, if they would only
acknowledge their need and find the courage to go.
Surely you know those who refuse to exercise and those who refuse to open the walls
they have built and those who insist on hating others and those who hold onto the
injustices of life like a trophy even when they know that all these things handicap our
ability to find joy and love and freedom and life. Paralysis is not unknown to us.
Paralyzed people need friends to pick them up, even when they are too afraid and
resistant to go, and take them to Jesus. I'm not talking about hauling out a Gospel gun or
beating them on the head with the Bible. I'm talking about living a strong love, concern
and faithfulness that doesn't give up and that recognizes that God uses many avenues for
grace and healing.
We don't have to take our friends to Capernaum and drop them through a ceiling, but we
will be called on to overcome barriers as we take them to the places where Jesus is
available to bring healing to their paralysis: in a support group or over a cup of coffee,
in a therapist's office or on a hike, in a conversation with a pastor or in a Bible study,
or even in a church such as this, that struggles with its own paralysis and fear of
change, even as it is a vehicle for the powerful healing of Jesus Christ to touch lives
such as yours and mine.
Well, an amazing thing happened. Joseph must have decided that more than he wanted to
stay as he was, he wanted to be free of his paralysis, free to live, and he was willing to
work for it. He pulled himself off his pallet, over to where we were digging. With tears
running down his cheeks, he started digging. "If you guys could carry me this far, I
might as well help too."
You should have seen the faces of the people below us when the sunlight streamed in the
house through the hole we made. The falling dirt cleared the people away from right below
us and we dropped Joseph down carefully on his pallet.
Of course we had to stay on the roof, looking down. Jesus came over and asked Joseph a
question. Then he looked up at us for a long time, looking at each face, looking into each
set of eyes. I know we had brought Joseph there to be healed, but somehow, I knew I would
never be the same either.
"Son, your sins are forgiven," said Jesus, which was the first word that
Joseph needed to hear from the Lord.
After years of believing he was not worthy of God's love or anyone else's, after years
of believing that his problems were punishment, after years of being angry at God and
himself, his sins were forgiven. "Your sins are forgiven."
Then the focus shifted. Jesus became angry at the scribes who were sitting there. They
thought it was blasphemous for a human being to forgive sins only God had the authority to
do that. Who was this man who spoke on God's behalf? How dare he?
I know Jesus' words seem normal to you, but they weren't to us. No one was supposed to
say such things. Then I thought of Isaiah, "Behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you
not see it?"
"Which do you think is easier," said Jesus, "to say to the paralytic,
'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Stand up and take your mat and walk'? But so that
you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you,
stand up, take your mat and go to your home."
No incantations, no prayers, no laying on of hands. He just reached out his hand to
Joseph and waited. Maybe telling someone to stand up and walk is harder than forgiving
their sins, because when God forgives our sins, we don't necessarily have to do anything
different, or so we think. But when God tells us to stand up and walk, we have to decide
whether we're going to take the opportunity God has given us, or not.
Maybe they go together: forgiveness and healing someone's paralysis. All I know is that
God has the power in Jesus to do both.
We friends had acted on our faith. Now it was Joseph's turn to act on his. Jesus
reached out his hand to Joseph and waited. They looked at each other for what seemed an
eternity. I don't think anyone took a breath. Finally Joseph reached up, placed his hand
in the Lord's and stood. He straightened his back and looked up at us, his friends who had
brought him here.
I don't know how to tell you what that felt like, how awesome and humbling it is to
have been an instrument of God's grace, bringing a friend to the healing power of Jesus.
Later, Jesus said that he healed Joseph because of our faith, the faith of Joseph's
friends. Did you know that friends could make such a difference?
Maybe you can make that difference for someone. Maybe someone right now is trying to
make that difference for you. Maybe you're here this morning because of a friend, or maybe
you're here so God can use you as a vehicle of grace for someone in need.
Joseph and Jesus kissed each other on the cheek and said a quiet word that no one else
heard. Then Joseph did what Jesus had said: he picked up his mat and went home. But not
right away. We had told Joseph we were going to a party in Capernaum and we didn't lie. We
sang and danced all night. We had the biggest party that town had ever seen.
