What it takes to be forgiven

Sermon for Trinity 19

Ephesians 4:22-28  +  Matthew 9:1-8

Forgiveness. What is it? What does it mean? How does it work? Today’s Gospel gives us a glance. And we do well to pay attention, because without the doctrine of forgiveness—and not just any doctrine but the true doctrine and the right understanding of it—there is no escape from eternal condemnation and the fires of hell, not to mention the hopelessness and guilt of living your earthly life, too, under God’s wrath, anger, and judgment. But where there is forgiveness, there are none of these things, only God’s grace and acceptance here and a sure place with Him in His Paradise forever. So turn your thoughts and attention to the account of the healing of the paralytic, and learn what it takes to be forgiven.

Forgiveness is needed wherever sins have been committed. God certainly calls on us to forgive one another for the sins we commit against one another. But today we’re not talking about you forgiving your neighbor or your brother or sister in Christ. Today we’re talking about God’s forgiveness for the sins committed against Him. We’re talking about being restored to a right relationship with God after a person has broken that relationship with sin. We’re talking about being reconciled to God after one has made him or herself God’s enemy by breaking His commandments, or by simply carrying around the ugliness of the sinful flesh that is always hostile to God.

Everyone needs God’s forgiveness, for all have sinned. As the Psalmist says, If You, LORD, kept a record of iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? The answer is no one, no one at all. But the Psalm goes on to say, But with You there is forgiveness, that You may be feared. So God does forgive sins. But not everyone realizes that he needs God’s forgiveness, and not everyone knows the right way—the only real way—to obtain God’s forgiveness.

But the paralytic in today’s Gospel did, as did his four friends who carried him on that stretcher up to the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching. We assume that his friends brought him to Jesus to be healed of the paralysis that kept him immobilized. And that was surely one reason they came. But the first words out of Jesus mouth were words of forgiveness, not physical healing, and we aren’t given the impression that the man or his friends were at all disappointed.

“Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.” Take heart! Be of good cheer! That implies that he wasn’t of good cheer when he came, that his heart was troubled, that he knew his sins, that he shared King David’s sentiment in Psalm 51: For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. But with a few words, Jesus quickly removed the problem. Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven you.

You know how the scribes, the experts in the Law, reacted when they heard Jesus say those words. This man blasphemes! This man in mocking God! Contradicting God! Giving God a bad name!

Why did they say that, these experts in the Law? Well, they had no right jumping to that conclusion, but they did have some reason to be confused. Because, as experts in the Law, they knew that God had established a pattern, a method of forgiveness in the Old Testament. It required several things, none of which seemed to be present when Jesus simply spoke those words of forgiveness to the paralytic. What were the Old Testament requirements?

We talked about it a little bit this past Wednesday as we considered the Second Article of the Creed. Through Moses, God set up a whole system, a pattern for forgiving sinners. In order to be reconciled to God, the penitent sinner was to bring a spotless animal to the priest. The priest, as the mediator between God and man, was to make atonement for the sin by killing the animal in the sinner’s place. As a result, the one who brought the sacrifice was given the assurance that God forgave him his sin.

So you had the penitent sinner bringing the sacrifice. You had the divinely appointed priest or mediator. And you had the blood sacrifice as the price of atonement. When those three things came together, the sinner was forgiven, according to the word and promise of God.

But none of those three things were present in that house with the newly made hole in the roof when Jesus forgave the paralytic. Or were they?

Unbeknownst to the scribes, Jesus was true God as well as true Man, and a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. In other words, as the book of Hebrews explains, He was a real priest of God, but not a Levitical priest, not born of the tribe of Levi. He was a priest whom God had anointed directly, whose origins were unknown to the people, just as the origins of Melchizedek, who ministered to Abraham, remain unknown in Scripture. As the divine-human high priest, Jesus is the perfect Mediator between God and Man, able to represent God perfectly as God, and able to represent man perfectly as Man.

As priest, Jesus was about to offer the once-for-all sacrifice of Himself on the altar of the cross, the one acceptable sacrifice to provide atonement for all the sins that the world has ever committed, from the sins of Adam and Eve to the sins of those who will be alive when Christ comes again at the end of the age.

So the Priest is there. The sacrificial Victim was there, and His sacrifice would take place soon enough. But what about the penitent sinner bringing the sacrifice? The paralytic didn’t bring Jesus to the cross to offer up to God, true. No one can offer up the sacrifice of Jesus. He had to offer Himself, and He did. Sinners are not to offer His sacrifice. Instead, sinners are to claim the sacrifice that Christ has now already offered. Sinners are to flee to Christ and His sacrifice, take refuge in Christ and His sacrifice, hold it up before God as the atoning price that has already been provided. You don’t provide it. You just hold it up as your “ticket” to forgiveness, as it were, your answer before the Judge. In other words, you are to have faith in Christ Jesus. And God, in His mercy, according to His promise, counts faith in Christ for righteousness, and pronounces the believer “forgiven.”

That faith was brought along that day by the paralytic and his four friends. The text clearly says that Jesus spoke the words of forgiveness when He saw their faith. Now, it’s not as though they deserve credit for believing in Him. That didn’t originate with them or from them. It was a gift of God through the word they had heard about Jesus, the same word that brought them there that day. Still, that faith was a necessary element in the forgiveness that Jesus pronounced.

But how could the scribes and the rest of the people know that Jesus had such authority to forgive, when they couldn’t see all the elements that the Old Testament required for forgiveness? Jesus offered the proof: Why do you think evil in your hearts? For is it easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then he said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” So he arose and departed to his house. That miracle of healing was the divine seal and proof that Jesus, the Son of Man, had power on earth to forgive sins.

You can’t climb down through a hole in the roof to find Jesus anymore, as the five men in our Gospel did, in order to hear Him, as the true High Priest and the All-atoning Sacrifice, forgive you your sins. But what did He say to His apostles after He was crucified and risen from the dead? As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you…All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Go and preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations. Forgive sins to the penitent! Use the loosing key! You have My permission, My authority, and My command! Which is why, every Sunday, at the beginning of the service, after you confess your sins, claiming only the mercy of God and “the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Christ” as the reason for your request for forgiveness, I pronounce the absolution, proclaiming that I, “in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, forgive you all your sins…” Because God has given this authority and command to men.

So when you hear, “I forgive you your sins,” you should take heart! Be of good cheer! Because it means peace with God. It means heaven is yours. It means there is now no condemnation for you, that God will not hold your sins against you. It means that one day Jesus will stand beside your body, paralyzed with death, and will tell you to arise and go home to live with Him forever. And you will.

Even now, having been released from spiritual paralysis, from the paralysis of guilt and fear of God’s judgment, now able to flex your spiritual muscles and move your joints, your hands, and your feet, you’re free to serve God without fear. Forgiveness is what frees you to love God and to love your neighbor, and especially to love your fellow Christians. Through the forgiveness of sins, you have put aside the Old Man, as Paul wrote in today’s Epistle. Through the forgiveness of sins, you are being renewed in the spirit of your mind. Through the forgiveness of sins, you have put on the New Man, who was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Before you go home to your eternal rest, use the healed limbs the Lord has given you to work, to do something or to make something good with your own hands, so that you may have something to share with the one who is in need.

But after working hard to serve the Lord, when you realize that even your best service was still marred by sin and impure motives, always come back to the place where Jesus is with His forgiveness, to His holy Church, to His Means of Grace. Come in humility and repentance. Come, not once, but over and over again, as long as you carry that Old Man, that sinful flesh, around with you. And remember what it takes to be forgiven: Christ the High Priest and Mediator, who has authorized ministers to forgive sins in His stead, through preaching and through the Sacraments; the atonement made by Christ; and the God-given faith to trust in Him as your Mediator and Redeemer. In the words of St. John: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Amen.