Making the Impossible Easy

Trinity 19

October 14, 2012

Jesus Makes the Impossible Easy

Matthew 9:2

In name of Jesus. Amen.

In our Gospel for today the paralyzed man whom Jesus met was helpless. We don't know how long this disability had plagued his life.

We do know that he had a mat. On this mat he would beg for help from others. And since he couldn't go out and buy a mat at the department store, it's safe to assume that he'd had this mat for some time.

We can also see this man's distress at his long-term condition in how Jesus addressed him, ”Take heart, son!” This Greek word that the Holy Spirit inspires Matthew to record is a command from Jesus to this unnamed man to be courageous. We could translate it as “Cheer up, son!” Aside from the obvious reason for his sadness—his helplessness—there may have been another reason for his depression.

Though he had friends who carried him to Jesus, these kind men may have reminded the paralytic of what he lacked. Consider the crushed hope if the men would have to have carried their crippled friend back home. They were certainly taking a chance because they were expecting the impossible.

Jesus saw their trust. But trust or faith can mean saving faith or trust in specific promises of Jesus. So their faith could have been trust that Jesus could heal their friend. But could it have also been trust that Jesus was the promised Messiah and would do whatever was best for their friend, including not healing his paralysis? Possibly.

Whatever their expectations were, Jesus exceeded them all by addressing this man's most serious problem. It wasn't his physical handicap; it was his sinfulness. And Jesus fixed that first, “Your sins are forgiven.”

What Jesus literally did was send away this man's sins. The Greek word here means to depart. Jesus is telling this man's sins to go far away. But where? Where does the sin go? They can't be sweep under his mat. They have to go somewhere or else the man gets sent far away from God. One of them has to leave.

Jesus sends the sins to Himself. This man's sins were waiting for Jesus when He was lifted up on the cross. And there their right to condemn their owner was sent away by Jesus' blood.

The teachers of the law were infuriated by Jesus' promise. They grumbled to each other that Jesus was just a man who was pretending to be God. That is the essence of blasphemy: speaking God's Word without permission from Him.

But Jesus wasn't speaking out of turn. His Father sent His only Son to preach and teach. The Father says,

“This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5)

The paralytic man listened and heard Jesus do the impossible. He forgave him. And He made it easy for him. Jesus didn't demand acts of gratitude. He didn't force him to share his story with others. He didn't ask for his only possession, his mat, as a sign of obedience. He just forgave him. He made the impossible easy for this crippled man.

Jesus makes it easy for us, too. Some of us are crippled by pain. But we are all helpless in our sin. We naturally assume that we must work to send away our sins in cooperation with Jesus' work. We believe and confess that Jesus did it all, but when you repeatedly ignore the needs of helpless people, like the paralyzed, or the unborn, or the old, the Devil steps in and whispers, “You have to work harder, because Jesus didn't save you for a life of ease.”

The Devil is half-true and indeed we agree with him. But the Devil is muddying the waters. Jesus does ask us to deny ourselves and do things that are hard and inconvenient for the benefit of others. But we bear our crosses as a result of Jesus' hard work for us on the cross. Our hard work is the result of Jesus' work and it doesn't cause Him to forgive us.

The cause of our forgiveness is that Christ loved us so much that He died on the cross. And that's it. It's finished. We can't believe that it's that easy. But when you can't believe how easy it is, put your eyes on the cross and see Christ making it easy for you there.

Consider the second stanza of the hymn, “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted.” It ends,

Many hands were raised to wound Him,

     None would intervene to save,

But the deepest stroke that pierced Him

     Was the stroke that Justice gave.

The severe harshness of justice against the sins of the paralytic and our own sin striking Jesus is what makes His forgiveness easy for us to possess and to proclaim. By His command,

I forgive you all your sins

in the name of the Father and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.