A reading from the holy gospel according to Mark. Jesus came back to Capernaum after a lapse of several days, and word got around that he was at home. At that, they began to gather in great numbers so that there was no longer any room for them, even around the door of the house. While Jesus was delivering God's word to them, some people arrived bringing a paralyzed man with them. The four who carried the man couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the great crowd around him.
So they began to open up in the roof a hole over the spot where Jesus stood. When they had made it large enough, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, my son, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves, why does this man talk like that? He commits blasphemy.
Blasphemy. Who can forgive sins except God alone? Jesus was immediately aware of what they were thinking, themselves. And Jesus said to them, why do you harbor these thoughts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to tell him, stand up, pick up your mat, and walk again.
That you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. And then Jesus said to the paralyzed man, I command you, stand up. Pick up your mat and go home. The man stood up, picked up his mat, and went outside in the sight of everybody. They were awestruck, and everyone gave praise to God saying, we have never seen anything like this, and this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. This is one of the extraordinary incidents in our Lord's life. There were many extraordinary incidents, but this is one of the unusually extraordinary incidents. First of all, there is no question about this text, about its authenticity, about what it means literally. You may look at it from several points of view and you come up with the same conclusions.
Here is one of the few times when we have such a clear cut expression on the part of Jesus Christ claiming explicitly to be God. Now time and again I have said that whatever you may say about Jesus Christ, there is one thing we cannot say about him, that he was only and exclusively and nothing but a good man, perhaps the best of men who ever lived. That is one thing you cannot say about Jesus Christ. And here is one of the outstanding illustrations of that statement. Because here our blessed Lord remember, he's as much a Jew as anybody else there.
He is much he is as orthodox as any scribe or any Pharisee. He knew as they knew. And notice, he does not deny this point when they say only God can forgive sins. He doesn't reject that. He accepts that.
And then he says that you may know that the son of man has the power to forgive sins. And then he tells the paralytic, get up and walk. And the man got up and walked out of the house. Now another extraordinary thing about this incident is how the miracle, the physical miracle, is explicitly wrought as evidence of the truth of what Christ said. It isn't often our lord did this.
So don't lose the impact of this scene. It is one of the scenes. It is one of the incidents in our lord's life which put him on the cross. Remember, the basic charge against Christ under the Jewish law, and remember the Romans condemned him only because of the Jews. The basic charge was that he was a blasphemer, that he made himself out to be God.
Now strange as it may seem to you, today you hear people who certainly should know better and how they reconcile what they say and be consistent in some other aspects of their life, I don't know. But you will hear people who will put it up as doubtful what Christ thought about himself. Was he conscious of being the Messiah and the son of God? Well, how can you have any doubt about what he stayed, about what he maintained, about what he thought of himself? When you have a text such as we read today, and there's no question about question about its authenticity or about its interpretation, there is no way of wiggling out of this.
And the the point I'm making is not so much. Really, it it's the insignificant part of it as far as I'm concerned. As in in in relation to what I'm saying, the physical miracle was astounding enough. But the point is that when they brought the paralytic to Christ, all he said was, your sins are forgiving you. As if he was as if he was challenging these good orthodox Jews all around him, as indeed he well might have done because it couldn't have been more clear clearly expressed.
So here is a man who's from Nazareth, but now they're down in Capernaum up in that northwest corner of the lake right by the sea. And here he says to the man, your sins are forgiven you. And these good honest to God believers in God, these monotheists, these men and women who had a supremely and exalted a concept of God said only God can forgive sins. And then this man, the son of a carpenter from Nazareth, this inlander, he says that you may know that I have the power to forgive sins. And he says to the paralytic, get up and walk out of here.
And the man got up, picked up his mat, and walked out of the house. So whatever you may think of the miracle, which is dramatic enough, and this was a very dramatic scene, don't overlook this aspect of it. Here is one occasion when if Christ was not what he said he was, that is the son of God with the power to forgive sins Notice I'm talking about what he claimed to be. If he is not that as he claimed, then what must he have been? Either a fit has ever seen because he was so persuasive.
And there's your choice. It is not a choice between the historical person, and there's no question of that today, believe me. There is no rationalist of the most rationalistic category who denies that Christ, Jesus Christ, actually lived and moved and had his being. So we're dealing with an actual person. There's no doubt about it.
Now the vital question is who was he? Was he only a man? He certainly was a man. He certainly was a human being. He was born of a woman.
That we know for sure. But was he more than that? Did he claim to be more than that? That's my point. Did he claim to be more than that?
And here today in this reading, you have one of the most explicit statements of our lord that he was more than a man. If only god can forgive sins, and if I admit that, and then if I say I can forgive sins, what does that make me? It makes me fit either for the lunatic asylum or something extraordinarily true in this world, something beyond our imagination, something beyond all fiction, something that we couldn't create by our imagination. As some have said, that Jesus Christ was simply the product of a vivid imagination of people. That no no one holds that anymore, but that has been said.
And so in this in this statement today of our lord and this miracle of the paralytic at Capernaum, see what it means to you. Do you down deep in your hearts realize realize that Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, in his personality and he was only one person, was nothing less than the son of God, God himself, your savior. In the name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit. Amen.