Monday in the Second Week of Advent, December 11, 2023

Luke 5:17-26

One day as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there, and the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to bring him in and set him in his presence. But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “As for you, your sins are forgiven.”  Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”– he said to the one who was paralyzed, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God, and, struck with awe, they said, “We have seen incredible things today.”

St. Luke is careful to set the stage for the Lord’s miracle in this reading by pointing out that “Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there.”  While St. Matthew and St. Mark note the presence of some Pharisees in their accounts of this miracle, Luke tells us that many of them were present, listening to the Lord, and that they were from all over, even from Jerusalem.  In Luke’s telling, Jesus heals this man early in his Public Life, so we can see that even at the beginning, he had aroused such interest that the Jewish authorities came to see who he was.  Luke also points out that the Pharisees and teachers of the Law were sitting.  This is noteworthy.  Disciples, students, and audiences stand; teachers sit.  The crowd is standing to hear him and Jesus would have been seated.  The Pharisees do not grant him the courtesy of standing as well.  They sit in judgment over his teaching, as it were.  “The power of the Lord was with him for healing.”  This sentence makes it sound as though Jesus had only intermittent power to heal, but it is in fact an idiom showing that the Son of God received all that he had from the Father.  Jesus is the connection between the Father and us.  “And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed.”  We can imagine these men, lugging their friend through the streets on his mat.  There must have been at least four of them, and possibly more, given what they would do.  “They were trying to bring him in and set him in his presence.”  We might expect the crowd to be sympathetic, but it is not.  The people who had assembled to hear Jesus did not want to lose their space and miss his words.

“But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof, etc.”  Unable to enter the house from the front, the men with their burden make their way to the back and a few of them climb up on the roof.  Somehow they get hold of some rope and they rig the stretcher so that they can pull the man up.  Then they remove the roof tiles and lower the man in front of Jesus.  Their persistence pleases the Lord.  We are reminded to persevere in prayer even when the cause seems impossible.  These friends did not tell the paralyzed man that they were sorry, they could not get him in to see Jesus, then take him back and think to try again another day.  They knew that this was their chance.  Jesus might go away the next day and never come back.

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘As for you, your sins are forgiven.’ ”  This is much like when a priest baptizes an infant: he sees the faith of the parents.  It is, in effect, imparted to the infant.  But this man is presented to him as one in need of physical healing, and Jesus does something else, indeed, something unprecedented.  It is as though a person went to a physician, complaining of a localized pain, and the physician sees the disease or condition that is causing it.  The pain may be very minor compared to what is really going on inside the person’s body, but it brought him to the physician.  Jesus forgives the man’s sins, of which the paralysis was but a minor symptom, and the paralysis is cured almost incidentally. 

“Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, ‘Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?’ ”  It would have been more efficient for the scribes and Pharisees to have asked the Lord himself what he thought he was doing, but they do not.  But they will get no answer asking only among themselves.  Perhaps they are afraid.  If only God can forgive sins, and this man’s sins are forgiven, then this must be God before whom they sit and whose teachings they judge.  “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”  Jesus teaches here that he can do both: forgive sins and cure paralysis, and that one is as easy for him to do as another.  It is a staggering revelation, especially for the Pharisees.  Abraham had not forgiven sins, nor had Moses.  Nor did they heal others.  Who, then, was this?

“I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.”  In the Greek, this command is a few words longer than “Your sins are forgiven.”  The paralyzed man gazed at Jesus, who was looking intently upon him, and then he began to move about in his stretcher.  We probably should not think of “stretcher” in terms of a rigid piece of equipment but more as a mat.  The man would have struggled a bit to get out of it, but when he did, his feet stood flat on the ground and his back held him up: “He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God.”  His departure went more easily than his arrival as the crowd parted to let him out.  And everyone wanted to see him.  “He went home, glorifying God.”  May we have this experience too: the forgiveness of our sins upon our deathbeds, and going home to heaven, glorifying God.

“Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God.”  The people are astonished at the man walking.  If they could have seen his purified inner state, they would have rejoiced even more.  “Struck with awe, they said, ‘We have seen incredible things today.’ ”  We do not hear how the Pharisees reacted.  Did they also feel awe?  Let us pray that we might feel awe the next time we are at Mass or Confession, where the Lord waits for us.