The
Scandalous Gospel of Forgiveness
August 20,
2006
Cleve May
Our text today poses us a question: What is it that
draws you to Jesus? Well, I’m sure many of us
here will have different answers, but all of our answers have two things
in common. First, they reveal much about our thoughts regarding and our
relationship with God. Second, whatever our
attraction to or expectation of Jesus, if we
truly encounter him they will be blown away and we will all be continually
shocked at who Jesus reveals
God to be.
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some
days, it was reported that he was in a house. So many gathered around that
there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he
was speaking the word to them.
If you spend any time at all reading the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life,
you’ll quickly notice that Jesus always drew
a crowd. On this particular day, he packed a house to overflowing. What
was it that drew these people to Jesus? Well,
like us, I’m sure their responses varied. But whatever the reasons for
enduring such cramped quarters, we can confidently say that shock was the
experience of every person who filled the house that day.
Our passage begins with Jesus “speaking the
word” to the crowd, but the text quickly shifts focus. We read of another
group of people approaching the already jammed home.
The some people came, bringing to
him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not
bring him to Jesus because of the crowd,
they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they
let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.
Were these folks late because they were indifferent or lazy? No. They were
the last to arrive because they were compassionate. When this group of
people heard Jesus was in town, they did not
run ahead to secure good seating. To the contrary, they went to get their
friend, the one who could not run ahead. They heard that
Jesus was a healer and their friend needed
healing. And so they carried him, and they were late; and when they
finally arrived, so near the goal of bringing their friend to
Jesus, they find the way blocked – access
denied. However, these folks refused to succumb to discouragement. They
were going to bring their friend to Jesus.
And so, in a remarkable display of resourcefulness, and brazen disregard
for personal property, they head to the one unoccupied place of house, the
roof.
Can you imagine what must have gone through the mind of
the paralytic when his friends began dismantling the roof? The man must
have objected. What were they going to do, drop him into the room? Who
wants to anger a crowd, or a homeowner, or interrupt an important teacher?
This was a bad idea.
Well, we don’t know the details of this event: how long
it took to dig the hole, how big it was or at what point
Jesus stopped teaching. But however it
happened, the demolition crew succeeded and lowered down their frightened,
humiliated friend, right in front of Jesus.
Talk about a moment of anticipation! Everyone in the room and around the
house, not least of whom the paralytic, must have wondered what on earth
Jesus would do.
…they removed the roof above him;
and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the
paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith
he said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
“Son, your sins are forgiven!” No one saw
this coming! The religious people in the crowd go nuts because they knew
that only God could forgive sins and therefore this
Jesus was committing blasphemy. Others in the crowd must have
simply thought they heard him wrong. And I only imagine that the four
friends on the roof must have thought, “No, Jesus…
it’s his legs.” Whatever drew this crowd to Jesus,
everyone there was shocked by these words.
You see, Jesus is a healer, and the
four men on the roof had faith that he could help their friend, and the
text reports that Jesus did send the man home
walking. But in this incredible statement, “Son,
your sins are forgiven,” we discover something far more amazing
that a miraculous healing… here we discover the heart of
God and the essence of the gospel proclaimed
by Jesus and entrusted to us, the church.
Scripture tells us and we believe that Jesus
of Nazareth is the image of the invisible God,
in whom the fullness of God dwells bodily. If
we want to know who God is, what
God is like, or about God’s
posture toward us, we look to Jesus. These
words of forgiveness are God’s words.
In this text, we discover that the man on the mat represents every man and
every woman. He is the good the bad and the ugly. He is Mother Teresa and
he is Adolf Hitler. He is you and me. He is
all of humanity entrapped and paralyzed by sin, impotent
to self-help and destined to bear the devastating consequence of rebellion
against God. In Jesus’
word of grace to this man, we hear God’s word
of grace to all humanity, “Sons and daughters, your sins are forgiven!” In
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus,
God reconciled the world to himself, dealing
fully and finally with the problem of sin. Do you know what this means for
us?! There is no sin or shame or hurt in our lives that
God has not forgiven. So we can come boldly
to God, freely confessing our sins, allowing
the light of God to overcome the darkness of
our lives. The forgiveness of God is total
and if means freedom. Because we are forgiven we are free from all guilt
and shame. Our lives are not defined by or reducible to our failures.
Because we are forgiven, we are free to forgive others - our spouses, our
friends, our families and our enemies. We are free to restore broken
relationships, free to love in the face of animosity, free to live
peacefully in a world of violence. Because God’s
forgiveness is total, we rest secure in God’s
love, not ever having to wonder if today’s sin might change the way
God feels about us. This security destroys
the deception that we need to perform for God.
This security gives us the freedom to worship God
in love and gratitude rather than out of self-interest or
self-preservation. We don’t worship so that God
will forgive us. We are forgiven, so we worship!
Scripture declares that Jesus, who was
sinless, became sin, that we might become the righteousness of
God and that he died for sins, once and for
all to bring us to God! Scandal of scandals!
In the man, Jesus, we discover every man and
every woman. He assumed our identity completely, became our sin, took on
our paralysis, and bore the judgment due us. Jesus
took our identity and gave us His. We now stand before
God as, in Paul’s words, “holy and blameless
and irreproachable.” This is what it means that we are forgiven!
It is important to note that the man on the mat does not ask
Jesus for forgiveness, nor is there any hint
that the man somehow merited such pardon. The text says nothing of the
paralytic’s faith. Jesus simply declares forgiveness, unsolicited and
unearned. This is grace! We receive the same scandalous gift of
forgiveness today. In our faith and confession of sin, we do not prompt
God to forgive us any more than the man on
the mat prompted Jesus. We confess because we
are free. We are not bound to shame. We do not have to hide our sin.
Because the light of Christ has overcome the
darkness of sin, we can live lives of honesty and integrity, naming our
sin for what it is and turning from it as we rejoice in the gift of
forgiveness. God does not first respond to
our acts of faith, rather we respond to God’s
faithfulness. The great Reformation theologian John Calvin described this
as ‘evangelical repentance.’ He said the gospel is not “Repent and you
will be forgiven,” but rather “You are forgiven, therefore repent!”
The force of Jesus’ words and the
various responses they elicit require us to see ourselves in each of this
story’s parties. We’ve already placed ourselves on the mat with the
paralytic and in Jesus who swapped identities
with us, but we can go further. We must not be quick to judgment when we
read of the indignant religious folk in this story. We too balk at the
scandal of God’s forgiveness because it
extends to those we want to demonize: the terrorist, the liberals, the
fundamentalists, the homosexual, the criminal… just name your enemy; they
too are forgiven; and we are the indignant religious folk. We are also the
crowd around Jesus that prevents latecomers
from entering. Well intentioned in our gathering, we sometimes forget that
church is not an event designed to meet our individual needs spiritual,
social or otherwise. Church is the identity of God’s
people who are called to continue the business God
ultimately revealed in the Jesus, that of
drawing the world to God and into the
community of God. We must all reckon with the
question: do I view church as my identity, or as an event in my schedule?
We are also called to see ourselves in the friends that bring the
paralytic to Jesus. Jesus’
healing power drew these four, but also compelled them to bring another.
We have far more reason to draw near to Jesus than these men because we
know that in Jesus God
has drawn near to us! We are drawn by our desire to know the
God of limitless love and scandalous
forgiveness. If this gospel is true, and this is true, then we must
heed our Lord’s example and our Lord’s command.
Jesus, who left the throne room of heaven to
enter our world that we might know the God
who forgives us, also commands us to go into the world drawing others to
Him. We are to go out to share the Gospel with all who do not yet
know they are loved and forgiven by God. To
the degree that we do not feel compelled to such action, we must ask
ourselves, are we really drawn to Jesus? Or
do we simply enjoy our religion?
So what might it look like for us to be a ‘four friends church?’ There are
endless possible answers to that question and we should pursue them all,
but let me comment on an example near to my heart, youth ministry. There
is an interdenominational organization called Young Life that exists
specifically for the purpose of reaching young people with the scandalous
Gospel of forgiveness. For over sixty years Young Life has trained staff
and volunteer leaders to enter the foreign mission field of the high
school, to befriend kids, to walk through life with them, both telling
them and showing what it means to follow Jesus. In this area, Young Life
has nine staff, over sixty volunteer leaders and a strong ministry
presence in twelve of our local high schools. Young Life leaders, like the
four friends, go out to bring people to Jesus.
I am privileged to have worked with Young Life for seven of the last nine
years and in that time have been amazed at what God
is doing through this ministry. During the last three years I have also
served on church staffs and through that experience, along with my study
of scripture, I have come to believe that bringing people to
Jesus must mean bringing them into the
church. Only in the community of faith can we learn who we are and how we
are to be God’s people.
God’s business is and has always been the creation of a holy
people, not of individuals, and thus the church is the epicenter of
what God has done, is doing and will do in
the world. Long before Young Life was the church and long after Young Life
will be the church. So, we have here the opportunity for a beautiful
marriage. The church has much to gain and learn from Young Life, and Young
Life misses its ultimate purpose without the church. The combination of my
church and Young Life experience led to my being hired here at Aldersgate,
where the leadership of this congregation recognizes the need to
compliment the discipleship of this church’s young people with outreach to
kids who aren’t coming to us. At the same time the leadership of Young
Life in this area recognizes the need for direct connection to the church.
So, I am working in partnership with both as we attempt together to bring
people to Jesus. You will hear more about
this partnership in the future, but I lift it up this morning as one
example of how this church is trying to become a four friends church, a
church that gathers around Jesus and yet is
sending its members out to bring in the people all around us who need so
desperately hear the eternity-altering news that their sins are forgiven.
O God, make us more and more this kind of
people.
In the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit.
Amen
