All Your Sins Are Forgiven

5 January 2020

All Your Sins Are Forgiven

Mark 2:1-12

When you read Mark’s Gospel and get to the second chapter you suddenly find yourself with a great surprise.

Up until this part of the story every time Jesus gets near someone who is sick, he heals them as if it is no problem at all.

In Chapter 1 he is in a synagogue preaching a sermon when a demon possessed man screams out at the top of his lungs. Jesus immediately tells the demon to get out of the man, and it does.

They leave the synagogue that morning , everyone is amazed at how he teaches as one with authority.

They go off to the home of Simon for lunch and there is Simon’s mother in law … about as sick as you can be with a fever.

Jesus grabs her by the hand, says “get up”. The fever leaves her and she feels perfectly strong and well again.

When evening comes everyone in the whole village who is sick arrives on the door step and Jesus goes out and heals them all, as if it is not even difficult.

By the time you get to Chapter 2, you are expecting that if someone is sick Jesus will heal them, without a moment’s hesitation. He seems to be good at all illnesses, like a specialist in all areas.

Leprosy, fever, disease, demon possession … you name it … he can heal them all. All he has to do is speak and the person is healed.

You come to this story in Chapter 2 and if you have been paying attention it comes as a great surprise.

There is a paralysed man brought by his four friends to Jesus. They can’t get in because of the crowd, and so they make a hole in the roof and lower him down through the hole. I am pretty sure that is not good manners.

I lived in a street in Sydney some years ago where all the terrace houses in the street has such narrow stair case to the second story, that the only way to get anything upstairs when you were moving in was to push it through the upstairs window.

It was often quite a sight to see some one standing on the roof of a removalist truck pushing a mattress through the window from which they had removed the window panes.

Well that was not unusual in little queen street … but I have a feeling these guys have taken it to a new level.

You generally don’t dig through the roof of a house that doesn’t belong to you.

They are desperate, and they are determined to bring their friend to Jesus … they have unshakable trust in the fact that Jesus can heal him.

In fact, Jesus, makes note of the faith that he sees in these men … who are so certain of the incredible power of Jesus.

Well they dig the hole, they lower their paralysed friend down, and they there he is right at the feet of Jesus.

What do you think they thought when Jesus said to him,

“Son your sins are forgiven.”?

He wants to be healed.  His friends want him to be healed.  The crowd knows that is why is there.  And Jesus declares that his sins are forgiven. 

The ‘Acti-mites’ section did this story during the week of Summerfest. This is how they helped the kids see the surprising nature of Jesus response. They started a bit silly … but end seriously.

Slides

You see in a land where there are no social services whether the man is paraplegic of quadriplegic makes not real difference, he is in a hopeless state.

The man can’t work.

He is reduced to begging

Wheelchairs do not exist

If he is to go anywhere, or do anything … people must help him. He is desperate perhaps more than we can easily imagine, and it is perfectly apparent to every one that he is desperate. Jesus says to him, “Son, your sins are forgiven”.

Now as I said at the start of this sermon, if you have been reading Chapter 1 of Mark’s Gospel you know full well that Jesus is more than capable of healing this man.

There is no doubt that Jesus can heal him and because you have had the story read to you already you know that by the end of the episode he does.

The question you must have at this point is why has Jesus chosen not to do it just yet?

Why does he not treat the man like everyone else up to this point of time? Why does he not say, hey take up your mat and go home?

Friends, the point is that Jesus did see what this guy really needed:

• He knows that walking again will give him back part of his life here … but that being forgiven will give him a life for this world and for eternity.
• He knows that walking again will put him back in the flow with other people … but that being forgiven will put him into the family of the Living God.
• He knows that walking again will make him physically independent … but that being forgiven will bring him into a freedom from the hold of Satan, to which nothing here comes even close.

You see if he remains unforgiven, he can never be right with God. Not now, and not into eternity.

From Jesus point of view there is no problem greater that to have our sins dealt with. The man’s problem is massive and its serious.

Now why is that so?

I think if you don’t understand this … you will never understand Christianity.

So let me try and explain it as best I can.

It is a serious thing to make light of the living God and pretend as if he is not important and the ruler of your life.

Just last year on the eve of Anzac day one of the remembrance sites was covered in spray paint and defaced and mocked

There was a great up roar about the next morning but it was all too late to get it cleaned up for the ceremonies for Anzac day that morning.

There was a WW2 veteran interviewed and he looked at the reported with tears rolling down his eyes and he said I thought they would have reverenced the memory of my friends who died. I am on his side … I would have thought they would have reverenced the many who gave so much.

It is a serious and evil thing to ignore those who have given so much and to who we owe so much, and many were angry.

Do you think God will not be cross beyond all belief if we keep acting as if he is not worthy of our thoughts and our worship and our thanks … when we owe him everything?

You and I get angry at those who dishonour Anzac Day … how much more will God be angry with those who dishonour him and his Son?

Ever treated God as if he doesn’t matter? When was the last time you said thanks for my life? When was the last time you said … “how do you want me to live?”

How have you responded to Jesus who say follow me as your king?

The man who is unforgiven in this world is totally unprepared for death. The man who is unforgiven, on the day on judgement will pay for the consequences of his own sin, and in the after life he really has no hope.

No wonder Jesus deals with that first.

Jesus has a big heart, and that is why he does not pretend that the man’s condition before God is not serious.

Jesus doesn’t play that terrible game where you don’t tell the truth.

I lived under the misapprehension that if you lived a fairly decent life you had a better than average chance of making it in the end.

It wasn’t until I realised I had spent a life ignoring the one who made me that I realised how serious a situation I was in.

That is why these words of Jesus are so very wonderful.

Son your sins are forgiven.

Forgiveness is right at the heart of Christianity.

I hope you can see that from what we are told here in Mark’s account of this day.

Well the story goes on doesn’t it. There is an argument by the people.

Who can forgive sins but God alone, and they are right.

If your sin is against God … then only he can forgive you.

Mind you there have been a few hints that already that Jesus is God … and Jesus gives a few more here.

They didn’t say  …

Who can forgive sins but God alone, out loud. They were thinking it. However, Jesus responds to their thoughts … that ought to have made them rethink who he was don’t you think?

How would you like to be in the presence of someone who knew what it was you were always thinking?

Jesus knows that talk is cheap.  That is why he asks:  Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’, or to say ‘Get up take up your mat and walk’?  (v9)

Now he does not ask whether forgiving sins is easier than making a lame man walk.  Healing someone is a breeze.  Forgiving someone – getting someone out of hell into heaven – is going to take nothing less than the sin-bearing death of Jesus.  That is much harder.

What Jesus asks is whether it is easier to SAY “forgiven are your sins” or “get up and walk”.  T

Well of course it is easier to say your sins are forgiven because no one knows if you have done it or not. But the moment you say to the paralysed man, get up, take your mat and walk … well every one knows in about 10 seconds if you’re a fraud or not.

Well Jesus does the thing you can see, so that you can know for sure that he has done the thing you can’t see.

He has authority to forgive sins.

The people say … we have never seen anything like this.

Well I want to say I haven’t either.

It is breath taking story … and it underlines how important forgiveness is.

Let me ask you a question.

Are you an unforgiven person here today?

Do you think it is time you thought seriously about it?

Maybe the thought of being off side with God has never crossed your mind … but today it has.

Can I urge you, don’t let another day go by without coming to Jesus on your knees and saying

• I see now I have spend a life ignoring you
• I see now how serious that is
• Please forgive me
• Please let me follow you as my Lord and King.

I reckon this man thanked the Lord every day for the rest of his life that he could walk again. 

But I am sure that even more than that, he thanked the Lord every day that for all those months or years he lost his legs.  It was because of that he came to Jesus and got what mattered more.  Sure, he got his legs back for this life but he got the smile of God as his Father, for this life and for all eternity, which was even better.