18th Sunday after Pentecost 30.9.12 Your sins are forgiven
Our Lord works two miracles in today’s Gospel story. The first is to forgive the man’s sins; the second to restore him to physical health.
It is the second that attracts more attention but the first that is more important.
Yes, the forgiveness of sin is a miracle, in that it is a direct intervention by God in His creation, causing something to happen which would not happen by natural causes.
If we had a priceless vase and it smashed to pieces there is no way we could restore it to its original value.
But the human soul, even when defaced by sin, can be restored ‘as good as new’.
You could murder ten people and still be restored to a spiritual state of innocence, as though one had never sinned.
The sin can be forgiven; and then the purification of the soul can follow. Admittedly some souls would take a lot of purifying but it can be done.
This is a miracle, one which we may take for granted because it is common; but we need to realise how totally we rely on God for this arrangement. Otherwise after even one sin we would be lost forever.
So we come back to life whenever we are forgiven of a deadly sin; or healed when it is a lesser sin.
Our Lord wants us to draw confidence from this Gospel incident. He has both the power and the desire to forgive us, to put the pieces back together.
But not everyone sees this or wants to see it.
People will dispute His power. Who does He think He is by doing this, the pharisees asked. Does He make Himself equal to God? (Yes, He does)
We can forgive something only if it is somehow an act which harms us. I cannot forgive you if you stole someone else’s pot plant; but I can if you stole mine.
Today people would say, who is this Jesus that I have to answer to him? What has he got to do with it?
Only that He is God, that He has created you, keeps you in being, and would, if you let Him, put you back together again.
Every sin does relate to Him because the whole world belongs to Him. It is His creation, every particle of it.
There is nowhere we could go, not even into outer space, that would be outside His territory.
Most sin is an offence against another person, but all of it is an offence against Our Lord.
Therefore He has the right to give or withhold forgiveness. He is always willing to give it; but not all are willing to ask for it.
Another stumbling block is that many people are unhappy with their lives. They know they could be living differently, but they cannot see how to get out of the rut.
Here the difficulty is believing in the miracles of forgiveness. God may forgive sins but could He forgive mine? Many think not.
His miracle in the Gospel shows that He can and will forgive on request.
It is as easy for Him to heal the soul as to heal the body. He can make a sick person (and even a dead person) stand up; He can put together the shattered fragments of a soul.
The hard part is getting people to believe this, and to seek that new life which is available to them.
Everyone would like physical healing; not everyone wants spiritual healing because there is a fear of what that might mean.
If I let Him forgive me I have to change the way I am living – and not everyone can face that.
Not many people would like to stay on a stretcher if they could be well instead. The same applies to the soul. Why stay sick (or dead) if we can know the true vitality of holiness?
May the Lord raise us to life – in soul and body.
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