A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus entered a boat, made the crossing, and came back to his own town. There, the people at once brought to Jesus a man paralyzed, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, have courage, son. Your sins are forgiven.
At that, some of the scribes said to themselves, this man blasphemes. Jesus was aware of what they were thinking and said to them, why do you harbor evil thoughts? Which is less trouble to say, your sins are forgiven or stand up and walk? To help you realize that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he then said to the paralyzed man, stand up. Roll up your mat and go home.
The man stood up and went toward his home. At the sight, a feeling of awe came over the crowd, and they praised god for giving such authority to men. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
There's a subtle argument here, and maybe it's not so subtle. But I want you to note in passing, here's another illustration of what I've said so many times. You cannot say that Jesus Christ was only a good man because he if that's all he was, he was not a good man. Because here is another instance where if the people who heard him and saw what was going on, if they made a mistake, if they misinterpreted him, if they didn't get what he was trying to say, in other words, if they didn't understand him, he had every opportunity of correcting them. But he didn't.
But he didn't. So you have a choice between two things. Either he meant literally what he said or he was a hypocrite, a liar, and one of the most misleading human beings that the world has seen. Now let's go back here a bit. Here's a man brought to Jesus Christ on a mat.
No one asked him to do anything. And our blessed lord we're following Saint Matthew now. Our blessed lord turns to the man and says, your sins are forgiven you. Well, those standing around him knew knew a thing or two. They knew that only god can forgive sins.
Only God can forgive sins. And here's this son of a carpenter from Nazareth who's been going back and forth over the lake in a rowboat or minus sailboat. He's coming in and telling this paralytic, your sins are forgiven. Only god can forgive sins. They knew that.
And therefore, you see, they drew the right conclusion. You blaspheme. What does blasphemy mean? It means he's making himself out to be god. That's what it means.
You can't escape that. It's impossible to escape it. That is unless you throw reason and logic out of the window, which, of course, is the indoor sport today. So they draw the right conclusion. Who can forgive sins but God?
And here is this son of a carpenter from an inland town of Nazareth is saying, your sins are forgiven. I'm forgiving you your sins. You can't miss the you can't miss the implications here. Alright. What follows?
Our lord says, look. What are you thinking about? Why do you harbor evil thoughts that is accusing me of being blasphemous? And so which is easier, to tell a man his sins are forgiven or to cure his disease? And he says, get up.
Carry your mat and go home. Now this is a powerful illustration of what Of of a number of things. One is certainly that god is that Christ is claiming here to have the power of god to forgive sins. And if he didn't have it, then he is guilty of blasphemy because he's making himself out to be god. If he did have it, then he is God, and the people understand that clearly.
Now how can you escape it? If they misunderstood Jesus, if they are in error, then why didn't he come back and try to explain this to him? Look, my good people. You've got this all wrong. You have misunderstood me.
I am not claiming to be God or however he would have explained it. I don't know. But if he were an honest man and knew his hearers misunderstood him, then being an honest man, he would correct them, wouldn't he? You'd do it. I'd do it.
And I don't claim to be too honest. But he didn't. He did not. He reinforces it because he goes and performs at nobody's request, explicit request, he cures the paralytic and tells the man to pick his mat up and go home. No.
The the the cure is instantaneous. It's not a gradual thing. It's instantaneous. The very fact that a person could be cured and and walk, a person who hasn't walked for years, that itself is a miracle, you know. Just think of what happens to your arm when you have it in a cast for a couple of weeks, how useless it is.
And somebody would come along and say, look, your arm's cured, and immediately, you you can use your arm. I remember when I had a broken elbow, it took me months to recover the use of that elbow after it was cured. But here Christ says to the paralytic, you're cured. Get your mat and go home. Say hello to your wife.
You see, this is exactly the situation about the in Saint John, about the this is my body and this is my blood. Here's a whole multitude of people who misunderstand Jesus. His own disciples misunderstand Jesus. The multitude leaves him because they cannot accept cannibalism. They were Jews.
The very thought of eating a man's flesh and drinking his blood was absolutely repulsive. It is to us, it ought to be, but you see we're so used to this that we just swallow it and go our merry way. So the crowd leaves Jesus. Then he turns to the disciples. He said, are you going to leave me too?
Notice he made not the slightest effort to explain it. If he didn't mean his man words literally, if he didn't mean what the multitude took him to mean, what his disciples took him to mean, that he was talking literally, then why didn't he correct them if he were an honest man? Why didn't he say, as the as the reformer said in the sixteenth century, all kinds of things about what the little verb to be means, that this is my body, this is my blood. Why didn't Jesus if he if the crowd misunderstood him and if he were an honest man, why did he not say, look, my friend, you've got this all wrong. Let me explain what I really mean.
Don't be so literal minded. Try to be more poetic and so on. He said nothing like that. All he did was to turn to his disciples and say, are you going to leave me too? So there you have it.
You don't have a choice of Jesus Christ between being a good man only. That's no choice you have. As as Lewis says, Clive Staple Lewis says, all you can say about Jesus is that he was what he claimed to be or that he ought to have been put into jail as a criminal or put into an asylum as an insane and crazy man. They are your choices. Two thousand years, people have made their choices, and they bend their knee and say, my lord and my god.
In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.