“Which is easier to say to the paralytic ‘your sins are forgiven’ or to say, ‘rise and walk’?”

This question posed by Christ requires serious reflection. Today’s gospel is about the practical application of faith.

If you were blind or paralytic and I were to say to you that your sins are forgiven and to go in peace I wonder how that would impact on your inability to see or to walk. At the conclusion of my blessing the reality is that you still could not still see nor walk.

If I was that blind or lame person then prayer and blessing, although welcome, would not in any way alter my handicap. Your blessing and prayer may very well be good for my spiritual well-being but do nothing for my physical limitations.

On the other hand, if I was paralyzed and you were to say to me rise and walk then you are putting yourself on the line to be condemned for ridiculing the handicapped. There is nothing worse than they holding out false hope, false promise or false faith. Such empty words would not only be cruel but mock and ridicule my human frailty. Imagine then, my amazement if as a result of your command I was able to rise, take up my bed and go home. Imagine the astonishment of my family who knew that I was crippled and now saw me whole.

My world and their world would be utterly transformed. In the presence of such a miracle words of gratitude would fail. Would I believe in the person who so transformed me? Absolutely and irrevocably! Whatever medicine or therapy that I had tried to cure my paralysis, up until those words were uttered, had failed. I also would know that as a direct and immediate consequence of the words spoken by Christ I was healed. Could I do other than believe that the person who had healed me was God? – For God is the only one who can do the impossible.

It can be said that as a direct result of my healing I saw and I believed. That in the circumstances of my cure that would be easy to do. However, I wonder if Christ had only uttered the words “your sins are healed” whether I would still believe. How many of us if they had a choice between accepting either the proposition that their sins are forgiven or their infirmities healed would choose for their sins to be forgiven rather than their bodies healed? Everybody wants to be physically well. The reality however is that physical healing can only ever be temporary and remains whilst we are alive. Everyone dies and their bodily remains fall away. However, the soul remains. If sins are forgiven then the soul is healed, and I wonder of the two forms of healing which is more beneficial to me and you – even though we may not understand this to be so.

Real faith however does not depend upon healing miracles as its basis. Real faith depends upon the acceptance of God as maker of heaven and earth totally, unconditionally and unquestionably. Real faith is akin to leaping into the abyss in the assured knowledge that you will be caught in the loving arms of the living God. Real faith is its own reward. However, healing miracles are of assistance as they point to a power which is beyond this world and has all of creation as its dominion.

So what are the lessons from the paralytic and his friends? I think there are a number of points to ponder. Firstly there is the unshakeable faith of the friends. They had total conviction that they would succeed if only they could come before the Christ. Secondly, we do not need to ask to be healed. Christ did not say to the paralytic “what is it you want”. He healed him freely. In a similar way Christ knows what we need before we ask him. Thirdly, as people in the world today with all its secular pressures, we all need some assurance that Christ is the God of the living. The world today, despite all its cynicism and atheism, if it was confronted with a miracle that allowed it to exclaim “we never saw anything like this” would in an instant cause all churches to be filled with people on their knees praying for repentance and lamenting the state of their souls. However, that is not how Christ wishes us to enter his kingdom. Christ wants us to seek the kingdom not out of self interest in that we would know that the alternative leads to the path to damnation but out of the exercise of free will and in the committed expectation that God loves us totally, unconditionally and unquestionably. It is only then we can be said to be the children of God. Amen.