The Light Has Come: Jesus's Greatest Healing

CoaH member Jonathan Simpson preaches from Luke 5:17-26. Discussion points: The paralytic needed a group of friends to help him get to Jesus, Jesus healed the man’s root issue as well as the surface problem, the Pharisees didn’t recognize Jesus’s authority to forgive sins.

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  Scripture reader: [Luke 5:17-26] On one of those days as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.

  And when he saw their faith, he said, "Man, your sins are forgiven you." And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, "Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier to say, 'your sins are forgiven you' or to say 'rise and walk?' But that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins." He said to the man who is paralyzed, "I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home." And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying "We have seen extraordinary things today."

  This is the word of the Lord.

  Preacher: All right, good morning church. It's thank you Fletcher for the introduction. It's my pleasure and my privilege to be with you here this morning and to be sharing God's word with you. And this morning, as we're celebrating advent, we, we look forward to the arrival of Christ over the next four weeks. But today, I want to look at this passage from Luke chapter five. And I wonder if you have ever read those stories in the news where someone goes to the doctor for something minor and then the doctor discovers a life threatening condition.

  I read this news article a while ago where a 21 year old woman from Manchester in England had trouble seeing things and she thought she needed new glasses. So she went to the optometrist and the eye doctor takes a look at her eyes but discovers that both of her optic nerves are swollen. So I suspect something more serious is up. So they send her straight to the hospital and the doctors have a look and it turns out that she had a benign brain tumor that was causing a build up of excess fluid in her brain. The doctors were able to perform a procedure to fix the problem but said that she could have died if she had have waited even 12 hours longer. This woman thought that she was going to get new glasses to fix her vision. She instead got treatment that saved her life.

  So this morning, we're looking at this passage where like this woman, a man receives a far greater healing than he expected. And the story teaches us that Jesus sees and heals our greatest sickness. So Jesus was in Capernaum in northern Israel. And at this point in his ministry, he had performed many miraculous healings. Verse 15 says that word had gotten around and great crowds were gathering to hear his teaching and be healed of their diseases.

  In verse 17, we read that Jesus was teaching inside a house and the account of the story and Mark tells us that this was actually the house where Jesus was living in Capernaum at that time. And a large crowd of people made up of scribes and Pharisees the religious leaders in Israel in that day had come from the towns and villages in the surrounding countryside, from Judea and Galilee. And some had come from even as far away as Jerusalem to hear Jesus' teaching. And so there was this crowd that was so large that it was, it was spilling out the doors of the house.

  And now at this point, a group of four men approached the house and this group of men are carrying a man on a stretcher. This man is a paralytic who cannot walk. He, he relies entirely on his friends to get him around. And now it can be easy to hear the word paralytic here. And I'm sure many of us are familiar with this story but not really think what that would have meant, but just take a moment to think what it would have been like to be a paralyzed person in this society, you wouldn't be able to earn a living because for the most part that depended on your ability to do physical work. So you wouldn't have any income and you wouldn't be able to offer sacrifices in the temple. Like the law required you to do, you would be completely and utterly dependent on your friends and family for survival.

  This paralytic would have suffered greatly for years and, and on top of that, there would have been no hope for recovery. I mean, even today, modern medicine does not know how to, to cure, to heal most forms of paralysis. So when these men heard that Jesus, this teacher who was healing people in miraculous ways was in their village, it was worth every effort for them to get him before Jesus. But there's a problem, of course, we're told that the crowd was so large that they couldn't find a way through. in to see Jesus.

  But these friends were determined, they believed that Jesus could heal their friend and they weren't going to let this opportunity slip away from them. So in their creativeness and in their determination, they get up onto the flat topped roof of this house, probably fire an external staircase, which was quite common in those days. And they literally start just removing the roof tiles from the house. Now, just take a minute to think how crazy this really is. They essentially destroyed someone's property, like made a big hole in someone's house in order to get their friend before Jesus.

  It would be like if Taylor Swift and bear with me here, it would be like if Taylor Swift were performing at TD Garden and I so desperately wanted to go and see her, but the crowd was so big and it was sold out that I get a bunch of you together and we climb up onto the roof and take a sledgehammer and like bust a hole into the roof and then abseil down to get front row seats. Ok? Maybe it wouldn't be like that. I'm not sure if I'd have any friends if I tried to do that. And for the record, this is purely analogy. I, I am not a Swifty but you get the point.

  They went to pretty extreme lengths to get this man before Jesus and this a lesson here for us. It says in verse 20 that Jesus saw their faith plural, the determination of these men to get their friends before Jesus was an outwork of their confident faith that Jesus could heal their paralyzed friend. And Jesus alone, you know how determined and persistent are we are we with our friends to point them to Jesus when they need healing and deliverance and salvation. I can tell you several stories in my experience and, and you might have them too where people are brought to Jesus and receive healing and salvation because of the persistent prayers and acts of love and, and faith of a group of family or friends.

  When I was in college, I was involved in a campus ministry called the Navigators. And I was one of a, a core group of people that formed the, the sort of the core of this chapter. And one day, one of my friends in this group brought along a classmate that I think she had met in her philosophy or math class. And I still clearly remember the moment that I met this guy for the first time. We were having a beginning of semester launch event, sort of standing around eating pizza in the park, that sort of thing. I didn't know who this guy was, but we got talking.

  And in the course of our conversation, I asked him whether he went to a church to which he confidently replied, oh, no, I'm an atheist. When I told him that I had grown up in the church. He again, very confidently said something to the effect of, oh, so you're just another one of those kids that's been brainwashed from childhood. Then suffice to say that I was a bit taken aback. And to be honest, I didn't think I was going to see this guy around again, but the semester continues and he keeps showing up to events and you might think, well, why would such a confident atheist keep coming back to a Christian group?

  And, you know, initially, I think he had this misguided belief that he was going to convince us how ridiculous Christianity really was. But really the main reason he kept coming back was because he started to make friends. He was really looking for a community to be around that loved and accepted him. And as he made friends, his curiosity about the Bible and Jesus grew, he started to read the Bible with a few of us and, and the, and he became more interested in faith until he eventually did come to accept Jesus.

  And the funny part is is that it was actually none of us who were with him when he realized this and came to believe the gospel. It was actually, it actually happened when he was in the met at a random evangelist in the park across from campus. The point being that God chose to use us as a group to bring our friend to faith. It wasn't just up to one of us, but we were all faithful to play our part in loving our friend and consistently pointing him to Jesus because we believe that Jesus was really the one who was he, he was looking for.

  You know, often times in our Christian walk, I think we can feel like we're failing. If we haven't let a person to faith from start to finish or if we're not the one leading the group, or if we're not the one who's seen, who's up the front on the stage. Or alternatively, perhaps we don't want to let our brothers and sisters in to help us because I have to be the one that brings this person to faith or this is my responsibility and only I can do it. But you know, the paralytic would have never gotten into Jesus if it was just one of his friends dragging him along the ground.

  See, it's not whether or not we can do it on our own, that matters what matters is that we are convinced like these men that Jesus is the one who is able to save people. And we are faithful to play our part in the communities and circles that we are in to consistently point people to Jesus. And it's a really beautiful and joyful thing to be part of, to strive together in faith, to see individuals receive salvation and healing from Jesus.

  I mean, isn't this the whole reason why the church exists on this earth. If you think of what John Jesus prayed in John chapter 17, he prayed that the church, the people would be united so that they would see the Father's love for Jesus and for his people. And I'm so thankful that we do this in our church. We are united in love for one another and we do work together to point people to Jesus. You know, I've seen it happening, but let's do it more. Let's strive together as a team in faith to get people to see and experience Jesus. But now back to the story, we read that it's because of their persistent faith that these men receive what they came to Jesus for.

  Jesus says to the paralytic at the end of verse 24 and says, rise, pick up your bed and go home verse 25 and immediately he rose up before them. He picked up what he had been lying on and went home glorifying God. How good is that? Like this man who was paralyzed on his bed, possibly for his whole life just gets up at Jesus's word. He picks up his bed and goes home, busts out through the crowd glorifying God. Just think of what he would have been feeling, the joy and freedom of being able to walk and move again and the thankfulness to Jesus and to God for healing him and, and also the hope of the completely transformed life that he now had before him and imagine the joy that his friends would have felt too, their persistent faith had paid off and the friend was now healed. I'm sure that they would have been rejoicing greatly with him and with God.

  And then this reaction of the crowd, verse 26 says, that amazement seized them all and they glorified God and were filled with awe saying we have seen extraordinary things today. You know, oftentimes when I read these stories in the gospel and in the Bible, I wish we could just take just transplant, take those feelings and transplant them into us, the emotions and feelings and thoughts that these people would have been experiencing during these stories. Because I think our rational sigh convinces us of how impossible this is. So we struggled to really imagine what it would have been like to see that happen. But I'm sure that if you or I were there, then we would also feel the sense of amazement and awe at just the miraculous thing that had happened before us. So we see that Jesus had the power to miraculously heal this man.

  But at this point, I have to confess something and you may have picked up on this and I've seen some people like looking at their, their Bibles. but I skipped over a whole part of the story that really forms the core of what is being taught here. Shows us that Jesus didn't just have power to heal physical disabilities and sicknesses. Now, Jesus had the, the power and authority to see and heal this man's greatest sickness. See the first words that Jesus said to the man when he was lowered through the roof and landed at his feet were not rise, pick up your bed and go home. Now, the first thing that Jesus said to the man after seeing him appear before him and realizing his faith was this man. Your sins are forgiven you, your sins are forgiven you.

  This paralytic had got his friends to bring him to Jesus hoping that he would be able to make him walk again. They removed the roof of this house and lowered him down so that Jesus could heal him. And the first thing that he hears Jesus say to him is your sins are forgiven you. Now, this seems a little strange at first glance, doesn't it? Like, imagine if I went to the dentist to get my wisdom teeth pulled out and I have a particularly difficult case. So the dentist administers a sedative for the procedure and then they performed the tooth extraction. And after a while after the sedative wears off, I asked the dentist how it went and they reply, it went great. I removed both of your tonsils with no issues. Like what? I came here to have my teeth removed and you removed my tonsils instead.

  Like if this happened to you. What, what would you be thinking aside from it being a pretty serious medical malpractice, I think I'd be confused and angry and I'd have a whole bunch of questions. Like, why did the dentist remove my tonsils and not my teeth? Why did they even think that my tonsils needed to be taken out in the first place? And, and what authority and what skill does the dentist have to perform the surgical procedure?

  You know, we're not told the reaction of the paralytic after Jesus says your sins are forgiven. But I wonder if it was a bit like hearing the dentist say I removed your tonsils, he came to Jesus to be healed from his disability and Jesus forgives him of his sins. Ok? Maybe he wasn't angry or annoyed that Jesus said this, but perhaps he was a little bit confused that this was the first thing that Jesus said to him.

  And you might be wondering, oh, well, maybe this man had just done something really bad. Well, maybe Jesus saw that this man was paralyzed. And so inferred that he must have sinned in some big way and, and it was punishment from God that he was paralyzed. And so that's why he leads with your sins are forgiven, but that is definitely not what is going on here. We know, for example, from John chapter nine, where Jesus heals the man born blind that we can't say that a disability like this is punishment from God for a particular sin.

  So then why does Jesus seemingly overlook the man's disability at first and jump straight to talking about his sin? You know, I like how Dane Orland puts this. He says that Jesus cannot even wait for the friends to ask him what they want. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven before they could even open their mouths to ask for help. Jesus couldn't stop himself. Words of reassurance and calm tumbled out. You see, Jesus was chomping at the bit to forgive this man's sins, the physical disabilities and illnesses that Jesus saw in people drew out such great compassion and pity.

  I mean, the gospel accounts filled with, with stories of Jesus healing and restoring people physically, but what broke his heart most was to see people live spiritually dead in sin and separated from the love and the life that he knew with his heavenly father. And Jesus is not like that lazy contractor who comes to your house and hammers in a few nails to fix the sagging floorboards and the leaning boards. Now, he's like that contractor who sees that the fundamental problem is the rotten beams that are holding up the floorboards. And so he, he replaces the beams with, with new ones that won't rot.

  Jesus is always concerned with restoring the whole person, not just fixing the symptoms because Jesus knew that sin is the fundamental disease that infects every person, the root cause of all the pain and suffering and Brokenness that he saw around him. And so when he sees this paralyzed man of faith, Jesus' first impulse and, and his greatest desire was to deliver him from sin.

  Now, you would think and hope that the Pharisees these learned religious leaders would have understood these things and rejoiced that Jesus forgave the man sin. But the reaction is quite the opposite. They were annoyed. They were not happy that Jesus spoke like he was the one who had authority to forgive the man's sin. Verse 21 says that they began to question saying who is this? Who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? And to be fair, they, they have a point. Note that Jesus isn't saying I forgive you in the same way that if I stole your lunch and then asked for forgiveness. Now, he's saying all of your sins now and forever are forgiven and God does not hold them against you.

  But what does that actually mean? You know, it's easy to come along to church and hear the word sin and, and forgiveness and it becomes so familiar. So we gloss over it and don't really stop to think what it means. But the Bible defines sin as any thought or action or attitude or anything about you that is inconsistent or opposed to God's perfect character. So we have to define sin in terms of who God is. He existed eternally imperfect holiness before anything else existed. He is perfect in goodness and love and in power and he's the best there is in the fullest sense of that word inside and outside the universe. He's worthy of all praise and adoration and, and glory and sin.

  Sin is that thing in us that says, hm, I don't know about that. I think I know better. I don't think I really want or need God. I don't want to worship God. You see sin is opposition to God. It's, it's an affront to who God is. And so when Jesus speaks to this, this man, he's saying all of your sins, past present future are forgiven. God does not hold them against you. Let's think about this from the perspective of these first century Jewish religious leaders, the Israelites had been offering animal sacrifices to God for the atonement of their sins for hundreds of years before this according to the mosaic law. So if you sinned, then you would take your animal sacrifice and you would go to the temple and the priest would offer it for you and you, you would receive atonement for sin.

  But now here's Jesus who the Pharisees just know as this religiously untrained carpenter from Nazareth. And he comes along and says to this man, all your sins of past present future are forgiven. There's no animal sacrifice needed God doesn't hold it against you. And so the Pharisees are thinking, you just can't say that that's not how this works. Not even Moses or David or any of the other prophets were so presumptuous to say what you were saying. Who are you to be playing the role of God? Only God himself can declare someone innocent.

  But Jesus knows their thoughts. And so he asks them in verse 23 which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say rise and walk. And it's at this point in the story where Jesus turns to the paralytic and says, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And of course, the logic here is that if Jesus can do the impossible and heal this paralyzed man by saying rise, pick up your bed and go home, then we better believe that He did in fact have the authority to forgive the man's sin. And if he had the authority to forgive sins, then the only logical conclusion is that he must be God. And if he is God, then we can trust that he both sees our greatest need most clearly. And that He truly is the only one who can forgive us.

  And this is why the story is such good news for us today. And I want to bring this home for us with, with two points. The first is just like the paralytic, Jesus sees that our most urgent need is His forgiveness. We of course, just like everyone else who has ever lived, suffer from the same eternal life ending disease that this paralytic suffered from. But the problem with sin is that it prevents us from seeing just how deeply sinful we are. Our sinfulness causes us to continually justify ourselves and convince us that everything's ok. We don't need God. But remember the woman from Manchester who went to the optometrist, the story that I shared at the beginning, she had no idea that in reality, she was in a life-threatening situation hours away from death. It was only the doctors who had the skill and the ability to see what was going on, who could truly see the seriousness of the situation.

  And so when it comes to the condition of our soul and our whole being, we ought to trust the diag the diagnosis of the one who created us and, and not rely on our own flawed assessment. When Jesus looks at you and me, he sees that our most urgent and fundamental need is to be delivered from our sin and to be restored to wholeness with him. And if this is the first time that you've heard this or this is the first time that it's really stirring in your heart, then I just want to please ask you to not ignore that God is inviting you to trust Him and receive his forgiveness. Come and talk with me or, or someone else we'll have prayer counselors at the back after the service and we'd love to talk to you about that and pray with you.

  But for many of us, we, we have trusted Jesus assessment that we need God's forgiveness. We believe that and, and God has forgiven our sins in Jesus. But oh, how we need to be reminded of that? Isn't it so easy to slip back into the mindset that, that we're doing OK? Apart from Jesus or I am going to follow the rules. I'm just gonna be good myself. And that's how I win God's approval. But the more that we understand and remember just how needy we really are of Jesus' forgiveness and love, the more we can enjoy the experience of living in the light of the fact that he has indeed forgiven us and blessed us with eternal life with him.

  And that brings me to my second point for us, which is really just to delight in the fact that Jesus is out here and that, that he has forgiven us. You know, if I asked you all what Jesus's greatest healing was in the gospel accounts, then I might get a few different responses. Some of you might say that this story, the healing of the paralytic is the greatest or perhaps the raising of Jairus daughter to life and, and surely the raising of Lazarus from the dead after three days has got a score pretty highly on that list.

  And all these stories are amazing demonstrations of Jesus' power and compassion. But they were all a physical picture of his greatest act of healing the forgiveness of our sins leading to eternal life. Remember the reaction of the crowd when the paralytic rose from his bed and walked out the door, amazement seized them. They were filled with awe. They glorified God for this wonderful and amazing act of healing. Remember the reaction of the paralytic how he bounded out the door with overflowing joy and elation, just glorifying God. These reactions are meant to be just a taste of the glory and wonder of what it means. When Jesus in both his love and compassion and power toward us, speaks over us. The words, your sins are forgiven because those words are the start of eternal life. It's freedom from bondage to death. It's the way by which we experience the greatest joy and pleasure and fulfillment. And it's the beginning of the life that God designed us to live with Him.

  So let's remember that and just delight in the fact that Jesus has forgiven us and blessed us with eternal life. Today, as we've said marks the first day of the season of Advent, a time of preparation and anticipation leading up to Christmas that prepares us for the celebration of Christ's arrival. And while you wouldn't traditionally consider this story, a Christmas story, it is certainly a glorious declaration that our savior has come you know, the Pharisees were expecting a great and powerful political and military figure who was going to deliver them from the rule of Rome.

  But isn't the reality far greater and far sweeter for us that it was Jesus, this lowly carpenter from Nazareth, this, this one born in a manger in Bethlehem who humbly came to give his life to purchase our forgiveness from sin. He saw our greatest need and he gave himself to heal us from our greatest sickness. You know, I hope and pray that we all experience the joy of that reality as we meditate on it in the coming weeks of advent. Let's pray.

  Heavenly father, we just thank you and praise you that you have forgiven us and that you have healed us. We praise you Jesus that you came, and you came to give your life so that we could be healed from our greatest sickness. And Lord I just pray that if any of us here today haven't come to believe that and accept that that today would be the day where, where they believe you and trust your forgiveness and receive a new life just like the paralytic received new life. And Father, I pray that we would all delight in the fact that you are our healer that you have forgiven us, that you gave yourself for our salvation. And I pray that that would fill us with great joy in the coming weeks as we look forward to your celebrating your arrival at Christmas. So we thank you and love you Lord and pray all these things in your powerful and precious name, Amen.