“JESUS HEALS A PARALYTIC”
Saint Matthew 9. 1-18
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity: 2 October 2005
Fr Watson
There would be great fear and pain in dying a catastrophic trauma filled death. But, on a battle field or in a car, it would be quick and decisive; even doomed to failure there would be something your own body could do...even if it were only to run, flinch, duck or cry out. On the other hand, horrible malignant diseases such as "Lou Gerhig's Disease" and others like it, probably strike more terror in our hearts when we think about them. Whether the Iron Lung of days past, or the ventilator of a Christopher Reeve, being paralyzed would be horrible.
Being a non-believer is being paralyzed. Being born into the world is being born with the birth-defect of spiritual paralysis. It is even worse than paraplegia or quadriplegia to be born dead in sin. The curse of original sin causes every new-born to have such spiritual paralysis that the lungs of faith are shriveled and cannot breathe on their own; this results in death.
A man who is paralyzed can't wash himself, feed himself, move himself or do anything for himself. This is "almost" a perfect picture of the unbeliever.
Movement and activity, actions of all kinds, must come from outside the paralyzed one; must come from the charity of an "other." New-born infants also fall into this category of total dependence. Are not young babies just like the paralyzed man in today's Gospel?
Not only does original sin cause deathly paralysis, but daily sin creates situations of paralysis in your lives that can and do cause all sorts of mischief and heartache. You know how much that hurts and scares. You know the Lord's Word. You know you are to Love God. You feel badly when you realize that much of the time when you want to read His Word, pray, have family devotions, and come to mid-week Vespers, you are paralyzed. You are immobilized with greed, selfishness and sloth. The world seeks to anesthetize you. Your sinful nature wants to go to sleep. The devil tells you to relax and worry about yourself. You truly, in your new-creation, want to love your neighbor; you want to help those whom you can, you want to love your wife, husband and children better than you've been doing; your "saint" wants to do better. But all you feel much of the time is the black, suffocating, debilitating horror of paralysis. The good that you want to do, that, you do not do. The evil that you wish to refrain from, that you find yourself doing. You share with St. Paul in this war against the paralysis of daily trespasses.
Do not despair little flock. For you, fights the Valiant One, Whom God Himself elected. Your Gideon has arisen. God has left His lofty self-contained perfection and has come to find you. No lost sheep of His fold will ever be left behind. [In fact, the separated, confused, and lonely lamb out in the dangers of the wild is also a good picture of paralysis.] The sheep does not, can not, save itself; it is too paralyzed with fear to move.
God has taken on flesh and blood that He might come to you as you are. The Son of God has become your brother. Christ comes to you not in sovereignty, power, awe, and shock, but through humble means; through His body and His blood, His person. He finds you not by being apart from you and yours, but rather He rescues you by placing you into His family, His fold, what He calls His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. He comes to you in a boat, the great unsinkable ship of the church. He crosses over the sea of your sin and arrives to His own city, the New Zion of the Church's location. He brings you inside its gates of safety and splendor. Even as you were once carried to him paralyzed on your own bed, an infant in the arms of sponsors and "God-parents," so too even now you are repeatedly carried into His loving presence by friends in the faith. You lie prostrate, impotent and blind on your pallet, while your four dear friends each carry a corner of your bed. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the eternal friends who carry you into the presence of the Master, the Physician, and the Shepherd.
Sin paralyzes you. You realize your helplessness when the Law of God knocks you down and you can't get up. Carried to Jesus you are told: "Son be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven." That my friends is the good news; not: "I am going to cure you, I am going to make your limbs strong again, I am going to re-connect and fix your severed spinal column, I am going to take away your cancer, I am going to "....... fill in the blank..." The Gospel is always: "...your sins are forgiven." That objective reality, won at so great a cost at Calvary in your Friend's body and with His blood; that gracious gift poured out so freely and copiously upon you in Baptism, Absolution and Supper is the true Evangel. Having your sins, your mistakes, your inadequacies, your hurtful, negligent, and incompetent actions, words and thoughts done away with, that is the only good news. This forgiveness, this freedom, is what causes you to be of good cheer. You are of good cheer, which is not the same as "being happy." The song may have said "don't worry be happy," but God the Son, God the Man, says "I have kept the Commands for you, I have paid for you, I have died for you, I have forgiven you.. .be of Good Cheer." Christ is that cheer, that joy, that contentment and peace. Why, he even calls you "son," even as He also calls you brother, sister and friend.
Not only does He absolve you clean and pure and spotless, but He gives you patience and longsuffering-ness [endurance] to bear with your earthly burdens for a bit longer. Even while it will feel from time to time (maybe even daily at times) like you're back on that bed unable to move, in the eyes of God you are as free, alive, Spirit-filled and springing in sanctification as a frisky lamb, a darting hind, a prancing pony.
"Arise take up your bed, and go to your house." Your sins are forgiven. And, you are here, now, in your house. We too marvel and glorify God, that He has come to us and saved us in His Son. Such power given to the God/Man, and now shared with you.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost