The Dignity of God’s Forgiveness

Imagine for a few minutes that Jesus is staying with some neighbours down the road just like 2000 years ago when he travelled slowly through the land, preaching and healing. Give yourself some time to stay with the idea, play with it. Leave the rest of the world and details out of it, just focus on Him being right down the road.

If that were so, the first thing I’d want to do is grab my husband and run down to meet Jesus and listen to Him! Second, remembering that He is a healer and that His cures are true and lasting, I would push my husband forward praying Jesus would give him healing. My husband would probably be doing the same thing with me, so there might be a bit of a scuffle.

I know we would stay, listening to everything Jesus said until it was very late and everyone said good night and the house was shut up for the night. We’d talk excitedly, or walk silently, homewards. Would any of us be able to sleep after such an evening?

Soon (I hope very soon), I would think of people I know and love who cannot get to Jesus to hear Him or to receive healing because they are too ill and too old to even get down the street. There’s my friend, who sometimes struggles so hard to breathe and cannot go out anymore. It would be difficult to wait, so I’d probably rush up to her house way too early in the morning and wake her up. She’s quite hard of hearing and so might not even understand what I was so excited about and why I wanted to take her with me, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer! We might have to walk a step, rest, walk a step, rest again, but sooner or later we would make it down to where Jesus was staying. “Please, Lord, help her breathe and hear again!”

Or maybe there would be no need for us to say a word. We do read in the Gospels that Jesus is asked for specific healing sometimes – the blind man, the leper, parents – but many others were healed because He knew their needs.

The telling of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof to Jesus is part of the ‘triple tradition’ – events and stories found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is not a parable, it is the description of a specific event that happened in Capernaum during His three years of public activity.

What we know is that a paralytic man was brought to Jesus by friends who carried him on a mat of some sort. Did he fully understand why they were doing this? Did he believe passionately, or did he only harbour a faint hope for some improvement? The friends’ belief was very strong. Some think they were Peter, Andrew, James and John (New Jerome Commentary p601 15.3) How far did they carry their paralyzed friend? Who thought of going through the roof? Even better yet – how did they react when their friend walked out of the house, carrying the mat on which they had carried him?

And so we read a man was brought by his friends to Jesus for healing. On perceiving their faith, Jesus said to the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” This shocked the scribes and Pharisees. Throughout the land, people knew Jesus “Possessed the power of the Lord to heal.” (Luke 5:17) Not everyone knew that Jesus had the power of the Lord to forgive sins. The scribes and Pharisees thought that Jesus was a blasphemer. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7 and Luke 5:21) since only the offended can forgive the offence.

Jesus knew what they were thinking and chastised them, “Why do you harbour evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? (Matthew 9:4-5)

Every word in the Gospel holds great meaning for us, especially those spoken by Jesus, but this question always confused me and I would skip over it, getting what I could from the narrative as best I could without understanding it. Thankfully, even the Jerome Commentary states that “Which is easier…” is a confusing question!

Now Jesus turned to the man lying on his mat and said, “Stand up, take your bed, and go home.” And the man did so, leaving behind the crowd and the argument to walk out of the house to his friends who had such great faith.

So… which is easier depends on who is speaking. To say to someone ‘your sins are forgiven’ is easy because there is no visible proof. To say ‘get up and walk’ is not easy because the proof of our ability, or lack of it, is visible and immediate. So this is teaching us that Jesus has the authority and power of God over the visible (paralysis) and the invisible (forgiveness of sins).

This is good to understand, but what does this mean for you and me today?

Let’s go back to the beginning – imagining Jesus is staying just down the street. We can walk over and see Him, touch, and hear Him.

Physical healing would change my life – to be well again, free from pain, able to stride, to run – but spiritual health is much more important. Jesus is good, pure goodness and love. Being in His presence, I could not help but be aware of my own sinfulness. My soul and my heart need healing and I would rush to find Jesus.

Relieve the anguish of my heart, and set me free from my distress. See my lowliness and suffering, and take away all my sins (Ps 25:17-18).

Telling us about the healing of the paralytic teaches us that Jesus truly has the power to forgive our sins. We read in John that after Jesus’ resurrection He appeared and ‘He breathed on them and said to them ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.’” (John 20:22-23). As promised, Jesus is still with us and forgiveness is received through the sacrament of reconciliation. Our sins are forgiven instantaneously and completely, just as was the man’s paralysis, and there is no trace left at all.
Pope Francis has described the sacrament of Reconciliation as:

a Sacrament of healing. When I go to confession, it is in order to be healed, to heal my soul, to heal my heart and to be healed of some wrongdoing (Wed. 19 Feb. 2014).

Lastly, and fitting for the event we have been reading about, Pope Francis said on Wednesday, 30 March 2016,

We all are sinners. We sinners, with forgiveness, become new creatures, filled by the spirit and full of joy. Now a new reality begins for us: a new heart, a new spirit, a new life. We, forgiven sinners, who have received divine grace, can even teach others to sin no more. “But Father, I am weak, I fall, I fall”. — “If you fall, get up! Stand up!”. When a child falls, what does he do? He raises his hand to mom, to dad so they help him to get up. Let us do the same! If out of weakness you fall into sin, raise your hand: the Lord will take it and help you get up. This is the dignity of God’s forgiveness! The dignity that God’s forgiveness gives us is that of lifting us up, putting us back on our feet, because He created men and women to stand on their feet.