A reading of the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark. Our lord came back to Capernaum after a lapse of several days. He'd been on the eastern side of the lake. Now he's come back to the northeastern corner to the to this was a big city of Capernaum. And word got around that he was at home.
Notice he must have been living there. At that, when people heard about it, they began to gather in great numbers. So much so that there was no longer any room for them, even around the door of the house where Jesus was staying. While he was delivering god's word to them, some people came along bringing a paralyzed man with them. The four who carried the man couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the great crowd all around So they began to open up the roof over the spot where Jesus was.
When they'd made a hole, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, my son, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting around asking themselves, why does this man talk like that? Only god can forgive sin. He commits blasphemy.
Jesus, knowing their reason, said to them, why do you harbor these thoughts? Thoughts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, stand up, pick up your mat, and walk? And then he said to the paralyzed man, I command you, stand up, pick up your mat, and go home. The man at once stood up, picked up his mat, and went outside in the sight of everybody.
They must have opened up for him. The crowd was awestruck. Everybody 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 now notice in this passage, the keyword there is blasphemy. Blasphemy. Now that means that the people around Christ who heard him, who were there, understood that he was claiming to be god. Now that is inescapable.
You may say, you can throw out the text or you can but but there's no problem here with translation. There's no problem here with the Greek. There's no problem here about it. It's authenticity. So what do you have to do?
You if you accept, and you have to accept it as a as a piece of writing, just as plain literature, that somebody wrote this about Jesus Christ and that the people who were there, who were in the best position to judge what the man was saying was, I'm making myself out to be god. It's inescapable, and this is half of the problem that put him on the cross. This is this is one of the most basic reasons that the Jews had when they when they took Christ to the high priest of of of charging him with blasphemy, that he made himself out to be god. Now just just this week, in in a in a book review of the new in the New York in the in the New York Times, some writer or other, he was saying that he accepted Christ as now listen to this, as divine but not as god. Now that's a very nice distinction.
I just don't know what the man's talking about. He probably doesn't know either. But the thing is, he doesn't accept he does not accept Christ as God. But, of course, he thinks he's a wonderful man. He was the essence of humility, you know, and benevolence, all that.
That is nothing but moonshine. That is nothing but moonshine. Because you here is one of the hardest, most indubitable, practically incontrovertible statements in the New divinity, that he's God. That's what everybody around there thought he was saying. And notice, our lord proves it because the argument this is a perfectly logical argument.
Perfectly logical. There's no record that Christ ever read Aristotle's logic. He had more sense. But you can't escape it. He said so he turns to the the people and says, which is easier, to forgive sins?
Because, you see, he agreed with them that only god can forgive sins. Think of this. When you hear so much of this nonsense about confessing our sins to one another. I'm not talking about alcoholics anonymous, but I'm talking about that we that we we confess our sins to the community. Only god can forgive sins.
Forget the community. Only god can forgive sins. And what is Christ? Christ accepts that. He accepts that.
That's the major premise of his syllogism. And then he goes on to say, which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven? Well, in other words, I'm acting as god, or to say, get up and grab your mat and get out. Go home to your wife. Start making an honest living.
You've got it. What do you make of it? You talk about how any how can anybody who can read? And there's no problem here with translation. I don't even you can do there's a what happened.
No matter I mean, there's no problems. Nobody says there is. There's no question of the authenticity of this text. There's no question about it being part of the gospel, you know, all of these things. It's all clear.
Now you say, what do you everybody knows that Christ was God. Everybody does not know Christ was God. There are plenty of so called Christians who do not believe Christ was God. Good people, of course. There are many good secular humanists in the world.
There are good many good God fearing atheists in the world. That's not the issue. We're not talking about whether whether people are good or bad. We're talking here about what does this text say. What is Christ saying?
And not does not only does he talk, but Christ acts. He does something. And notice, this isn't done out on the on the eastern on the eastern shore of the lake up in some mountain away. This is done in the close confines of a house where people all are with the people all around him, they could hear him, they could see him, some of them were touching him, no doubt. And and the this business, know, of opening of the house, that's not a big deal because the houses and they still are.
They're flat roofed, and the and the roof of the house is really, really a a huge patio. Because when the once the sun goes down, you go up on the roof. You have your chairs. They have you could see it over there. You've been over.
They have, flowers and stuff growing up there. It's like the 2nd Floor of the house. So all they did was to open up take away the the the we would call it a hatch cover on a boat and simply overtook that off and then lowered Christ down to where he was standing in the midst of the people. That's there's no problem there at all. I mean, it's all very simple.
Yeah. But it was very ingenious. And the way after the man gets up and picks up his mat and how the crowd must have opened up and let him walk out because they couldn't walk in because of the crowd. Because everybody was absolutely startled. But I I bring that in because this is so real, so human.
And and in some instances, these these minor minor details are important to get the whole flavor and the gist of the situation. Notice our blessed lord doesn't touch the paralytic here. He just simply says, your sins are forgiven you, and only god can forgive sins. I forgive sins. The conclusion of that fine syllogism is I am god, and you better believe.
In the name of the father, of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.