Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 85; Luke 5:17-26
In the Gospel of today, we have the story of the forgiveness and healing of a paralytic man who was brought to Jesus by his friends. It is a story with so many practical lessons. Today, let’s ponder on two messages from this incident.
I. Who are those I surround myself with?
This man was paralysed but he surrounded himself with friends who had faith, friends who would think of taking him to Jesus, friends who carried him when he couldn’t carry himself, friends who knew where to take him, friends who stayed by him when he could no longer hang out with them.
The first message is who are the people we surround ourselves with?
Do we surround ourselves with people who will lift us up or people who will bring us down, people who will mock our faith, people around whom it is hard to celebrate our faith?
Are we close to people who will always tell us the truth in love, guide us on the right path, who will take us to the Lord, who will bring us to Jesus or bring Jesus to us when we are down?
Or, do we surround ourselves with friends who would paralyse us or lead us away from Jesus?
Are we always in the company of people who will easily abandon us when life deals harshly with us?
Those we surround ourselves with, to a large extent, determine how far we go in life, who we become and what we get from life. The first saving grace of the paralytic in today’s Gospel was that he surrounded himself with the right people, with people whose faith supplied when his own faith could no longer be actively expressed.
II. Jesus forgave the sins of this paralytic.
The religious leaders who were present confessed that forgiveness of sins belongs to God alone.
They are right in this – our God is a God who forgives sins. What then are we doing with our own sins?
Some of us are living comfortably with our sins, some are beating themselves up, some are justifying their sins, some have despaired of salvation, some are blaming others for their sins, some are happy with their sins and their spiritual paralysis is getting worse. Many do not know what to do with their sins and shame.
This is what we should do with our sins.
We should acknowledge them, confess them to Jesus, surrender/offload our sins to Him, receive His forgiveness in faith and accept grace for a new life.
When we do this, we shall experience what the prophecy of Isaiah in the First Reading talks about, concerning the restored Jerusalem – we shall become renewed, revived, transformed, joyful, free and alive again, Amen.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on December 5, 2022.