Bible Text: Matthew 9:1-8 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Trinity 2023 | The four friends who carry the paralytic ask Jesus for nothing, at least not with words. They don’t say, “Please heal him, he’s a paralytic, he’s our friend.” They don’t confess their faith in Jesus by saying, “We believe you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, we know you can heal Him, we know you want to, because you’re merciful and full of love.” They don’t say anything. They don’t speak a word. But no one doubts what they’re asking for and why. The house is full of people, so full they can’t even get in, and every single person in that house knows exactly why these men lowered a paralytic from the roof right in front of Jesus. And you know why. And Jesus knew why. Without anyone speaking a word, everyone knows.
The cliché is that actions speak louder than words. That’s true sometimes, sometimes not. Sometimes words are the only thing that will do. I remember reading some book or watching some movie – I don’t remember which – where the dad never expressed his love for his child, never said, “I love you,” “I’m proud of you,” and so the child thought he was unloved, until his dad died and he found in his dad’s drawer every newspaper clipping that mentioned his son, every picture from every Christmas card, and he realized how much his dad cared about him. Sounds touching, doesn’t it. But really it’s ridiculous. A dad owes his son words, and if he loves him, he will speak it, over and over and over again, and only then will the actions mean anything. So it is not that words are useless, that if we show it with our works we don’t need to speak it. It’s that words and actions belong together.
So of course you use words when you pray to your Lord Jesus, when you ask Him for things. But your actions are going to fit those words. These men didn’t need to ask because their actions were so obvious. Their actions perfectly mirrored their unspoken request. The trouble they went through, carrying this paralytic to Jesus, and when the crowd was too much and they couldn’t even get in the door, couldn’t even get close to Jesus, they lift him on top of a roof, lift a grown man, limp, dead weight, on top of a roof, and then dig a hole to let him down in front of Jesus, the trouble they go through screams their love for this man and their total trust that Jesus can heal him and wants to heal him. That’s why our Gospel says that Jesus sees their faith. He sees it with His eyes. Yes, faith is invisible, yes, it’s in the heart, but Jesus saw their faith, not because Jesus was using His divine power to peer into the invisible recesses of their hearts, but because their faith was in plain sight for everyone to see – their actions made it more than obvious.
So when we pray we act. Do not love in word only, but in deed and in truth. If I pray every night that God keep my children Christians, then I will act, I will bring them to Jesus, I will make sure they are baptized, I will take them to church, I will read the Bible at home, I will pray with them, I will model the faith for them in my actions toward them and toward my wife. St. James says, “I will show you my faith by my works.” And the Lord Jesus says that our light will so shine before men that they see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. So it is not only Jesus who sees faith by the works that flow from it, it is our children and the world around us. And above all, we want them seeing by our actions that nothing in the world is more important to us, more precious to us, than the Gospel of Jesus and living within His Kingdom.
What is so beautiful about this Gospel is that while Jesus can see the friends’ faith by their works, by what they do, the paralytic himself literally does nothing. He can’t do anything. He’s confined to a bed. For all we know he can’t even talk. He’s like a baby, totally helpless. And it’s to him that Jesus says, “Be of good cheer, child, your sins are forgiven.” Not to the friends who did so much work, but to the one who did nothing, just lay there incapable of any work.
So while the Christian life is full of good works, those works are not in the least what earn your salvation, your forgiveness. Jesus couldn’t make it any clearer than He does in this Gospel. He gives full forgiveness and He gives it freely without the guy doing anything to earn it, more than that, with the man being incapable of earning it. If the Pharisees are offended at Jesus forgiving sins, it’s not simply because He’s a man and He does it – only God can forgive sins – it’s that He does it without condition. The Pharisees believed in forgiveness, they didn’t think they were perfect, they weren’t that bad at reading the Bible, they weren’t that low a species of hypocrite, they believed they could get forgiveness from God, they just thought you had to earn it, a lot like the Mormons or the Roman Catholics today. But with Jesus, there’s no, do this, and your sins will be forgiven. There’s no, you did this, and so your sins are forgiven. There’s no, some of your sins are forgiven, but you’ll have to work more to get the rest of them forgiven. There’s not even, look how great your faith is, your sins are forgiven, he says nothing about this guy’s faith. There’s none of that. Just full and free forgiveness of all sins, inherited from Adam and committed since, forgiveness of the guilt, forgiveness of the punishment, of everything, every sin without exception, and totally free, without a hint that he has done anything to earn it or will ever do anything to earn it. Be of good cheer, child, your sins are forgiven.
But we should pay attention to how amazing this moment is in the history of the world. Before this time, no man ever claimed to be able to forgive sin. It was totally God’s province. Search pagan antiquity, search the Old Testament and see. No one claims it. The prophet Isaiah says it, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions and who remembers your sin no more,” says the Lord. Nathan, when he confronts the adulterous and murderous King David with his sin, says, “the Lord has put away your sin.” Only the Lord does it. When Jesus does it, He is drawing His line in the sand. Either He is the Lord or He is a blasphemer.
Now Jesus of course proves that He can forgive sins by raising the paralytic. This is the point of all Jesus’ miracles, to serve as signs, testimonies, proofs, that He has the power to forgive sins, to save us. That’s why miracles have for the most part stopped happening. People get the impression that back in the old days, in Bible times, miracles were always happening right in plain sight. That’s simply not true. The reason Jesus’ miracles amazed people so much is that it was a new thing, no one had seen anything like this. Read the Bible and you’ll see that there are ages, hundreds of years, maybe even thousands of years, where there are no miracles, where no one sees a single supernatural event. And this is because God orders history, and He sends forth His miracles at the right time, and especially at the fullness of time, to draw everyone’s attention to what He has to say and do. Jesus does His miracles to prove, as He does so explicitly here – that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.
And the resurrection is His last great miracle, it is the miracle that besides a few here and there, ends miracles, because it is the great proof, that He has the power to forgive sins. He earned it. He gives it free because He bought it with the greatest price imaginable, in fact it cannot be imagined, cannot be comprehended, it surpasses all human thought and reason, this price He paid. God died for it. The forgiveness He speaks is not simply word. It is deed, it is action, it is soaked in the blood of the God-man. No man had ever said before, “Be of good cheer, son, your sins are forgiven,” because no man can redeem his brother, but this man could and this Man did, because He is the eternal Son of the Father. And the shedding of His blood and the agonies of His curse on the cross are the only payment for sin, the only answer to death and hell, and they are the full and complete answer. And He gives that answer freely, because He paid for it.
So the people marvel at Jesus and so we should marvel. They marvel because God gave such power to men. That’s what our Gospel says. What power? The power to raise the paralytic? Or the power to forgive sin? It’s the same power. That’s the point. The power over the corruption of your body, the power over the death that infects you, the power over cancer, the power over every evil thing that affects your body, is the power Jesus exercised that day when He said, “Be of good cheer, son, your sins are forgiven.”
And this, not the power of other miracles, but this, the power of forgiving sins, is the legacy and bequest the Lord Jesus left to His Church, His last will and testament. That man was not disappointed when Jesus said, “Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven.” The Greek is, “Be courageous, your sins are forgiven.” He wasn’t disappointed. His friends weren’t disappointed. In fact, these are exactly the words they were hoping to hear. They were the words that confirmed everything they believed about this Jesus, that He was powerful to save and He wanted to do it, He was just as gracious, more even, than they expected. And that, “Be courageous, your sins are forgiven” was to say also, “Wait for it, and I will heal you. Obviously it’s going to happen. Obviously if I now call you a child of God, if I now say you are perfect and free from all sin, righteous and pure, how could God deny you any good thing after this? It was as much as done. And they knew it.
And this is exactly what you should think when you receive the forgiveness of sins, and especially when you take into your mouth and soul the body and blood of your Lord. Take courage. Wait for it. There is nothing good that God will deny you. He has called you His child. He has put His name on you. He has forgiven you your sins. He’s fed you with His life. This is the guarantee of all else. And if it does not come in this brief life, if there is disappointment here, do not think you have lost out. He has given you your crosses to conform you to Himself, so that your joy can be full as His joy is full. Remember there will be no paralysis, no cancer, no disease, no loneliness, no despair, no dementia in the resurrection. The voice that says, Take courage, child, your sins are forgiven, will raise you incorruptible from the grave and you will enjoy for eternity what no man and nothing can take from you.
And it is loving this Gospel, this forgiveness, this Jesus, and knowing the glory of having it, of having Him, this, and only this, that moves us not only to pray with our hearts and confess with our mouths, but to live and act like we know that there is nothing greater than knowing our Savior Jesus Christ and living now and forever in His Kingdom, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is one God, world without end. Amen.