As we look at the next healing story in Luke’s gospel (5:17-27)we see a man who was crippled from birth aided by some great brothers. The crowds were so large that they found a way to get there friend into the healing presence of our Lord! We can learn a lot from just this small thing. In life we need each other, especially when we are in pain and agony. God puts others into our lives so that we will come into Jesus presence and receive healing and renewal.
All of us have wounds, hurts and need God’s healing touch. Here is a definition of a wound I used last Sunday along with a definition of what I think God intends for us in healing:
Wound – An ongoing pain that pulls us away from experiencing the beauty, joy, goodness and love of God and isolates us from deep relationships with others.
Healing –God’s process of restoring us to our original beauty and back to enjoying His presence in worship together.
In this story Jesus doesn’t respond by rewarding their faith initially with healing, but instead he rewards them by announcing forgiveness. This blew everyone’s mind, I guess in their mind it was one thing to go around healing all these people, but it was quite another to declare forgiveness of sins. I am not exactly sure why that is to be honest. I mean I get it “God alone can forgive sins” but I also wonder, who do they think was doing all the miracles, the carpenter? Jesus even said it was easier to say he was forgiven than to heal. . .
Then something amazing happens Jesus tells the man to get up take his mat and walk. We don’t know when the man was healed, but I honestly think it was when his sins were forgiven. Recently I have become convinced that one of God’s primary vehicles for healing is forgiveness. He longs to heal our hearts and restore us to himself in worship and to others in relationship, but we have barriers up. Through His Spirit He helps us break down those barriers. The two main barriers we put up are our own sin which we must learn to confess and turn away from and forgiveness which we do not grant others. As we hold onto our “debts” and our “debtors” we will find it a struggle to come into God’s presence freely and joyfully as He intended. It would be wise to spend time each day “clearing our accounts”.
In the grand scheme of the gospel we know that our debts have been paid for in full by Christ on the cross and at that He invites us to live “debt free”. Yet, the way that we are able to see the fruit of this freedom is through confession of our sin and asking for restoration and forgiveness through His Spirit. Our redeemer will turn none away, He wants us to lose these burdens.
Especially during these economic times we are all reminded of how much our “debts” control us. Even if we do not think about them on a daily basis, the mortgage, car payments and credit card bills weigh on us over time, so that we are not free to live as we have been called, Generously. I think there is a direct parallel in our spiritual bank account as well. Wouldn’t love to have Bill Gates pay our debts, so that we can live generously and free?