Introduction

In this sermon on Luke 5:17–26, Revd. Mark Fletcher explores the story of the paralysed man whose friends lowered him through a roof to reach Jesus. Rather than healing, Jesus first declares his sins are forgiven — revealing that the forgiveness of sins is everyone’s greatest need. This call to personal responsibility points to the cross of Christ as the ultimate price paid to set us free.

And so after the storms it seems that spring is breaking out all around us and it’s full of joy and it lightens the heart. But that stands rather in contrast to what’s going on around the world, which feels like it is darker than ever. And these difficult questions about what is wrong with our world endure. Depending on who you ask, you’ll get weighty answers about politics or economics or the environment or the power of social media. But urgent as these things might be, they have a tendency to put the blame out there and to leave us feeling rather powerless. It is far easier to blame others than to take responsibility for things ourselves. And yet at the heart of the Christian faith and the message of Jesus is this sense of personal accountability. We must give account to God for ourselves. Which brings us to this wonderful story in Luke’s Gospel. And if sometimes we feel powerless to change things, then this is a story that we need to take into account in order to be able to move forward in our lives. Luke’s Gospel is a story about real powerlessness. It is hard to imagine anybody less powerful than somebody who is paralysed, a quadriplegic in the ancient world. We get a sense from the text that it is somebody who at one point had mobility and then perhaps was a labourer or a soldier who’d had some kind of spinal injury and now was utterly dependent on others. And he is blessed in that he has faithful friends, in the full sense of that word.

So a little bit of context. Vast crowds of people are following Jesus around, listening to his teaching, and that now includes many religious leaders. They’d come from all over Galilee to hear what Jesus was saying. And one day Jesus is teaching at someone’s home and the house is packed, the crowd is packed together, they’re probably spilling out through the door and outside the front door. But the thing that Luke records is not Jesus’ sermon, but a particular event which seems to illustrate something foundational about Jesus and his message. So picture the scene. Jesus is in the house preaching what I imagine was a remarkable sermon, and then all of a sudden there is a terrible noise from above him, up on the roof. And then dust starts to fall, and then a chink of light is seen, and someone is lifting the tiles, taking them, pulling the roof apart. Faces appear from above through the hole in the roof. I think it’s a delightful scene. Can you imagine everyone standing there looking up, Jesus with bits of dust falling on top of him? And then they start to lower someone on a stretcher down from above. What is going on? It’s a brilliant picture. These faithful friends have realised that no one can help their friend, and so they want to bring him to Jesus. And if you remember nothing else from this evening’s sermon, remember this. When you hurt, when you feel lost or powerless or in despair, when everything seems hopeless, do whatever it takes to dig through whatever stands between you and the presence of God. And if you can’t do that yourself, ask your friends to do it for you. Because in the presence of Jesus, there is peace and forgiveness and ultimately wholeness.

But there’s a question about how it came to this, why this whole thing was necessary. Verse 18 says, these men had tried to take their friend into the house to lay him before Jesus, but they could not find a way because of the crowd. And I don’t know if you can feel it, but there’s a real kind of sadness in that — the self-interest and lack of compassion of these people, apparently religious people. You can imagine these men saying, excuse us, can we get through? And people turning their back and refusing to move out of the way. It is a terrible thing when religious people and buildings are obstacles to the presence of God. And so these wonderful friends come up with a cunning plan, go up on the roof, pull it to pieces, and lower him down on his stretcher. And you can see that Jesus clearly loves this moment. He’s standing there, you can imagine the smile on his face. There’s a wonderful drama to it, and he sees the opportunity to help people to understand something foundational about the gospel here. Verse 19, they lowered him on his mat through the tiles in the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. Can you imagine the sort of shocked, slightly outraged faces of the people in the crowd? The rude interruption to the sermon. There is this perfect moment for Jesus to show what he is really about. So what does Jesus say to him? Verse 20, when Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

Can you imagine it? The puzzled look on the crowd and on the faces of the man’s friends. The man himself thinking, that really wasn’t what I was hoping Jesus was going to say. You think he came here for forgiveness?

But Jesus is making a really very serious point here, because what he is saying is that the greatest need for everyone, even this paralysed man, is not healing, not everything to be made right in their life, but for them to be forgiven. The greatest need in your life, no matter what you’re feeling right now, is forgiveness — to be put right with God. Now Jesus is being obviously deliberately provocative to make this really important point, and healing is an amazing thing. Health is one of the greatest blessings, but it’s not the greatest blessing. You see, the problem with healing is that it doesn’t last. This man might get healed, but he would ultimately get sick again. He would ultimately die. The problem with solutions to the problems of our life like that is that they don’t last, because they never get to the heart of the problem. We like to point to the problems of this world, and the convenient thing about that is that we don’t have to take responsibility for it. We get to say, it isn’t my fault, it’s someone else.

But what the Bible diagnoses as at the heart of everything that’s wrong in this world today is our wayward, selfish, rebellious hearts, our alienation from God and from one another. As Paul puts it in Romans, the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And forgiveness is the beginning of change, of reconciliation with God. Being reconciled to God sets us free from the past, from our mistakes and the wounds that we carry. It sets us free to live, to be part of the renewal of all things, because that is what God is doing, one life at a time. He says, “Behold, I am making everything and everyone new.”

Why do I need to be forgiven? Because I am part of the brokenness of this world. I share in responsibility for what is wrong. It is not enough, and has never been enough, to say, well, I’m not as bad as some other people. I’m no worse than anyone else. Because everyone else was never the standard that was set. You are made in the image of God to bear witness to his love and his mercy and his goodness and his grace and his creativity and all that he is.

We so take this idea for granted. Amazing quote, actually, by the atheist novelist Marghanita Laski, who once put her finger on the heart of the gospel. She said in a TV interview, “What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have nobody to forgive me.” So hear this for yourself.

Child, your sins are forgiven. In Christ, your sins are forgiven. The past is wiped out. New beginnings are possible. Change can happen.

And the miracle in this story proves that point. And in fact, it’s quite a helpful thing to remember when we think about miracles, because they are not an end in themselves. The point of this story is not the healing of the paralysed man. They are a sign which points to what God is doing, an illustration of his kingdom. And in fact, Jesus asks them a very interesting question, which maybe I would ask you. Verse 23: Which is easier to say? Your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk? Which is easier? Because if you remember, God created the universe with just a word and can heal the sick with just a word. He can even raise the dead with just a word. But he cannot forgive sins that easily. You know the cost of the forgiveness of sins. It is the cross of Christ. The greatest price of all.

And so this miracle is a signpost to the most essential part of Jesus’ life. There would have been many who needed healing, but this man’s healing is a witness that points us to the cross. Verse 24: Jesus says, “I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” And so he said to the paralysed man, “Get up, take your mat, and go home.” This is the gospel. This is the very heart of what Jesus is doing. Jesus does have authority to forgive sins, but only because he pays the greatest price. He takes upon himself the penalty of sin. He pays the ransom to set us free. Because when it comes to earning forgiveness, frankly, we are all like that paralysed man. We cannot do it for ourselves. But Jesus can grant it with just a word, but only because of what is to come. Only because of Easter. Because of the cross.

So what is wrong with our world? Well, where would we begin? But I’d like to suggest to you that where we do need to begin is that each of us takes our share of responsibility for the mess. No more pointing the finger at others. No more blame. I start here, with me. And the good news of the gospel is that as we do that, Jesus offers us forgiveness and the chance to be part of the solution, making all things new. You, like the paralysed man, are offered freedom now, forgiveness now. And one day you, like him, will leap for joy, set free from all that paralyses you. And you, like the crowd, will say, “We have seen remarkable things this day.”

Amen.