“An audacious claim”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, June 2, 2022
Matthew 9:1-8 (Forward, p. 35) CEV p. 991
For once the teachers of the Law of Moses were right on the money, absolutely correct in their thinking. Jesus, in telling the crippled man that his sins were forgiven, was doing exactly as they thought. He was claiming to be God. As Mark (Mark 2:7) quotes them saying, “Why would he say such a thing? He must think he is God! Only God can forgive sins.” They knew fully well that each of us can forgive sins incurred against us personally by another person, but for sins in general only God could pull that off!
Jesus then ‘tests the waters’ as it were. He basically asks God to show whether His claim to forgive sins was valid or not. Which is easier, He asks, to forgive sins or to tell him to get up, pick up his mat and go on home? He then puts this audacious claim into words, “I will show you that the Son of Man has the right to forgive sins here on earth” and heals the man. Obviously, then, the fact that God granted the man’s healing proved that Jesus was indeed correct. God had confirmed thereby that Jesus did indeed have that right.
And what a right that is! That Jesus can forgive all of our sins, past, present and future, and erase them totally, forever. We don’t have to wait until we die to know whether they are forgiven, or to wait and see whether the balance of our good deeds outweigh the bad. We can know, here and now, that our sins are forgiven and put away from us, never to be brought up or remembered again. What a wonderful gift that is, a gift from God totally unearned and unmerited on our part. It is an audacious claim on the part of Jesus, but thanks be to God, it is true. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “And just then some people were carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven’” (verse 2).
“I vividly remember my first personal confession, using the service of Reconciliation of a Penitent in the Book of Common Prayer. It was an early evening on a Tuesday in Lent. The priest and I sat in a side chapel, facing away from one another. At the end of the service, when she said, ‘Go in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins,’ the words took my breath away. I didn’t have an understanding of my sins as a weight until the weight was removed.
“The paralytic doesn’t ask Jesus for the ability to walk. Jesus heals the man so that the crowd can come to have the faith the man and his companions already have. All of us, whatever our physical ability, have fallen short and have sinned. The paralyzed man who came to see Jesus never dreaming of walking home. Forgiveness is a miracle on its own, all the more so because it’s a miracle Jesus entrusts us to bestow on others.
Moving Forward: “Consider scheduling a time with your priest for the Reconciliation of a Penitent. You might review the liturgy, starting on page 447 of the American Book of Common Prayer.”
[Similar liturgies are found in the Canadian Book of Alternative Services, pp. 166-172 and in the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, pp. 223-224.]