Miracles of Jesus: Get Up and Walk

Uh, you guys must not have gone to the

drone show last night, just like my

family, and got to bed early. Um,

but I hope that you had an excellent

Fourth of July. Uh, this morning, just

crazy story I want to tell you about for

a second. Uh at 5:00 a.m. we're laying

in bed asleep of course and from our

kids' room the fire alarm just starts

going off the smoke detector and like of

all days you know we're like spring out

of bed and we're like oh no our house is

on fire. Uh but I guess the batteries

were just running low but man of all

days today was the day that our smoke

alarm went off or ran out of batteries.

So everything was good. No smoke, no

fire. Everyone went back to bed. Um but

uh quite the startle. So we are in a

series right now on the miracles of

Jesus. The miracles of Jesus. So far

we've looked at uh the miracle of Jesus

turning water into wine at the banquet

of Canaa. We've looked at the disciples

crossing the Sea of Galilee and the

storm raging. Jesus is fast asleep and

the boat wakes to calm the storm. We've

looked at the healing of a boy who was

held captive by an evil spirit. All of

these miracles week after week, we kind

of bring up the idea that they are not a

simple party trick that Jesus is trying

to do. He's not doing it for the sole

fascination of those in his audience.

Rather, there is something grander and

more cosmic at play. Jesus in these

miracles is ushering in the reign of God

or the kingdom of God or God's ideal

world. And this world is breaking into

the world in which we live. These

stories that we look at each week are

like the kingdom of heaven and our world

today eclipsing one another and God's

ideal world shining through like a pin

prick of light.

So when we look at our stories, they're

not just magic tricks. There's something

that are telling us about the character

and person of God and what our God God

wants to do in our world. So today we're

looking at uh one of my favorite stories

in scripture. It's this paralyzed man

who's lowered through a roof by his

friends to secure the healing power of

God.

So let us turn to our scripture reading

today from Luke 5 17- 26.

It reads like this. One day Jesus was

teaching and Pharisees and teachers of

the law were sitting there. They had

come from every village of Galilee and

from Judea and from Jerusalem.

And the power of the Lord was with Jesus

to heal the sick. Some men came carrying

a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to

take him into the house to lay him

before Jesus. They could not find a way

to do this because of the crowd. They

went up to the roof and lowered him on

his mat through the tiles in the middle

of the crowd right in front of Jesus.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said,

"Friend, your sins are forgiven."

The Pharisees and the teachers of the

law began thinking to themselves, "Who

is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who

can forgive sins but God alone?"

Jesus knew that they were thinking what

they were thinking and asked, "Why are

you thinking these things in your

hearts?" Which is easier to say, "Your

sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up

and walk." But I want you to know that

the Son of Man has authority on earth to

forgive sins. So he said to the

paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take

your mat, and go home."

Immediately he stood up in front of them

and took what he had been laying on and

went home praising God. Everyone was

amazed and gave praise to God. They were

filled with awe and said, "We have seen

remarkable things today."

This is the word of our Lord. Thanks be

to God.

So yeah, like I said, this is one of my

favorite encounters that we have with

Jesus in the gospel accounts. And I know

I might say that about too many

different passages, but this one I think

is truly remarkable. I mean, there are

so many details and undercurrents that

are happening in this story. There is

like a handful of theological quirks

that cause us to kind of scratch our

heads. Like the text reads that the

power of the Lord was on him on Jesus to

heal and we wonder like was it ever not

or is it especially prominent in this

particular moment or the fact that Jesus

forgave the sins of this man and we

think to ourselves well Jesus if if you

can forgive sins by the power of your

word why is it that you went to the

cross why did you die on the cross

and more there are this group of friends

that would go to such great lengths to

secure healing for the paralyzed man.

Who were these people? Why did they do

this? What motivation did they have? And

we read from the text as we carefully

read the text, the paralyzed man was

healed on behalf of their faith. It says

their faith.

We can I think spend the rest of the

sermon kind of looking and focusing on

the ordinary miracle of friendship

really which reminds me of I think an

very important meme. It says no one

talks about Jesus's greatest miracle

having 12 close friends in his 30s.

But I I say he had probably 11 close

friends in his 30s.

And I'm not the only one who thinks that

this passage is intriguing. I think that

maybe you do too, but in the earliest

remaining Christian church at the

excavated site of Dura Europa in

modern-day Syria are the earliest

examples of Christian wall art. There's

seven paintings in this church's

baptistry. And of the uh depictions in

this baptistry are the stories of the

women at the tomb of Jesus and the

parable of the good shepherd and Jesus

walking on water with Peter. And among

others is the story of the paralyzed man

who was lowered through the roof. I have

a picture of this but it doesn't look

awesome on the screen. Uh you could see

the man with the mat kind of coming out

from the house and Jesus kind of

pointing like go. We've come a long way.

The Sistine Chapel is definitely a

better representation of Christian art,

but this one's good, too. So, what is

our focus today? What does this passage

have for us in this moment? I don't

think it comes from a theological

conundrum that we approach in the text.

I don't think uh it is about for us

today the persistent power of

friendship, though that would preach.

It's not about the text historical

significance to the church. I think

rather the key theme for us that we need

to see in this text today is evident I

think in the broader understanding of

the gospel of Luke. It's especially

prominent in the story. But here is this

theme that transcends or it really uh

guides us throughout the narrative of

Luke.

It's that the work of Jesus was to bring

the dissolution of social boundary

markers for the kingdom of heaven. the

dissolution of social boundary markers

in the kingdom of heaven. And let me

explain what I mean when I say this. In

the broad picture of of Luke and into

the book of Acts, this was originally

one work that we split into two. But

over the course of this narrative, we

see that the news of Jesus Christ is

going from Jerusalem to Judea to the

ends of the earth. From Jerusalem to

Judea to the ends of the earth, the

gospel is spreading to all people, to

all nations, to all tongues and tribes.

But here in lies the problem.

How can the good news travel to the ends

of the earth if it is met with every

social and religious and political

barrier in its way? How does the good

news spread? And this is the exact

problem I believe that Luke has in mind

as he forms his account of the life and

ministry of Jesus. Luke, for starters,

was not an insider of these social

boundary markers himself. Luke was a

gentile. He was not at the Jewish

religious center of the ministry of

Jesus. He was an outsider in the sense

geographically likely from the northern

Mediterranean. He's not from Jerusalem

or Judea which was the geographic and

religious center of the ministry of

Jesus. So by most accounts, Luke is an

outsider and he is writing his account

of the gospel to outsiders

with the central focus of displaying

that God's mission in our world is to

break down the barriers that separate

people from belonging in God's ideal

world.

That is Luke's mission. So today in our

text we see this very particularly. But

before I go there I want to illustrate

this point a little bit more just in the

overarching idea of Luke's gospel. Luke

is writing his gospel to upend our

expectations

of who belongs and who doesn't who gets

it right and who does not. Who is

blessed and who is otherwise. Luke

starts his gospel with a scene that we

would very much expect

at the temple in Jerusalem with a priest

performing his priestly duties. That is

when an angel of the Lord appears to him

and tells him that his wife who is far

past childbearing years is going to have

a child.

At this point,

at this point, he questions the intent

of the angel and is therefore made mute

for the duration of his wife's

pregnancy. I think that is for some

pregnant women uh a miracle in and of

itself. He's a quiet husband for a

little bit,

but then the scene cuts directly after

this to the margins of society. So, it

shows us the center and then splits to

the margins. We see in this scene in the

backwoods of Galilee in an insignificant

village of Nazareth to a teenage girl,

an angel of the Lord appearing

and is told to this teenage girl that

she is highly favored and to her the

divine child will be born.

And Mary affirming this in an act of

faith closes the encounter with these

words. She says, "May it be as you have

said,

faith from the margins being displayed

in Luke's gospel." And a short while

later, she's filled with this song which

we now call the Magnificat where she

affirms this kind of uh reversal of

expectation. She says, "God has brought

down the rulers from their thrones and

has lifted up the humble. God has filled

the hungry with good things and sent the

rich away. empty,

a reversal of expectation. And this here

is not an isolated event in the Gospel

of Luke. Where does the angelic

proclamation of the divine child go?

Does it go to the scribes in the temple

courts? No. Rather, it goes to

illiterate shepherds in the fields.

Unexpected.

The announcement of the arrival of the

lamb of God who comes to take away the

sins of the world comes not from the

hightraic corners of the holy city, but

it comes from the river banks outside of

town from a weirdo who eats bugs.

All of the parables and healing stories

of Jesus, especially in the the uh

gospel account of Luke, all kind of

feature this reversal of expectation.

Think back through the rich man and

Lazarus or the healing of the Roman

centurion or

um the good Samaritan.

All of these are tail uh are stories of

a reversal of expectation. And here's

kind of a strange one to leave us on in

this particular note. Where

who first recognizes Jesus as the

Messiah in the crowds?

Is it the teachers of the law? Is it

that the scribes or anyone else that

might have spiritual insight?

No, it is the folks who were possessed

by evil spirits. They were first to

recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

This is a reversal of expectation.

And we are given this lead in Luke

Luke 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4. Just before this, we're given

this lead by Jesus himself. Jesus starts

his ministry at in his hometown. He asks

for the scroll of Isaiah as he reads

aloud in the in the synagogue. And he

says this. He says, "The spirit of the

Lord is on me because God has anointed

me to proclaim good news to the poor.

God has sent me to proclaim freedom for

the prisoners and recovery of sight for

the blind, to set the oppressed free, to

proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

So the point is that we could not read

Luke without understanding this broader

picture, this broader narrative of what

is happening of what Jesus is doing and

proclaiming. Luke is writing to convince

his outsider audience that God's ideal

world in God's ideal world there are no

outsiders to God's love and belonging.

There are no outsiders.

So this theme fits squarely in our story

today. While Jesus is holding a

symposium at the this dinner party where

crowds and religious leaders are

gathering there through the roof, a

paralyzed man is lowered to the feet of

Jesus.

And the funny thing is after this point

in the story, no one says anything. Not

the paralyzed man or the man's friends.

No one is asking for them for Jesus to

do anything. But Jesus kind of senses

this question and it seems almost louder

than words and we ask ourselves,

what is Jesus going to do?

What is going to happen next? And this

is where Jesus throws us a curveball.

Jesus breaks in from the silence after

everyone has thought, "What will Jesus

do next?" And they're eagerly awaiting

for what's going to happen. Jesus breaks

in and says this, "Friend,

your sins are forgiven."

Now, if you're anything like me, I kind

of think to myself, I'm like, "Jesus,

wait a second." Like, the dude is

paralyzed. He sits on the ground begging

for alms from those who pass him by.

He's not looking for thoughts and

prayers. He's not looking for a

confessional booth by which he can clear

his conscience. The man wants to be

healed. At least that's what I think. So

Jesus throws us this curveball. And for

most of us today in our modern minds, we

don't understand what's happening here.

See, in the pre-scientific ancient world

that surrounded them, one's condition in

life was believed to be determined by

divine favor or divine retribution in

accordance to one's faithfulness.

So in the ancient world, why are the

rich rich and the powerful powerful?

Well, it's because their fidelity to God

has granted them this blessing. It was

thought. And in the ancient world, why

are the poor poor and the diseased

paralyzed and blind diseased paralyzed

and blind?

It is because of their infidelity to the

divine. It was thought.

So what is more

is that because this man lay before

Jesus who had contracted this condition

because it was supposed his sinfulness,

he was likely barred from every festival

and feast and social and religious

event. He was barred from the weekly

synagogue meetings in which his

community met for worship.

So as every week passed and as his

family gathered and worshiped together,

as every festival of booths or Yam Kapur

came and went and the community

celebrated together,

the paralyzed man lay at the outside

edges of the community, unable to join

in, reminded of his despicable situation

in life

and of a God he thought had did not want

anything to do with him.

Yet in one word here, in one word, all

the barriers that kept him from

belonging to his community came crashing

down. In one word, all the walls that

separated him from full fellowship of

friends and family dissolved. See, this

is good news. This is the work of Christ

in the world to dissolve barriers that

would separate him from belonging to

God's ideal world. This is good news.

But the story does not end there.

See, just as soon

as Jesus

uh approached this man, as soon as this

person was lowered through the roof,

there were those who stood in the way.

There were those who said, "But Jesus,

you can't do that. First of all, you're

not God. And second of all, we've worked

incredibly hard to uphold the barriers

that kept this person out."

Friends, I think that there will always

be those whose job it is to make

boundary markers of who is in and who is

out. We see it throughout scripture and

we see it throughout history and we see

it, I think, in our world today.

As we give thanks to God for the nation

in which we live in the blessing that we

all get to experience, we also too have

to be so honest with ourselves in the

wake of the 250th anniversary of our

nation. I think the church of Christ in

America also faces a serious problem.

And I know that I'm preaching to the

choir here. I mean, you guys made it the

day after the 4th of July here bright

and early. But our church today faces a

force of those who would seek to co-opt

the church of Christ and blend it with a

form of nationalism.

Not to proclaim liberation for the

oppressed or freedom for those who are

on the outside held captive,

but to erect be barriers built in fear

to define again who belongs and who does

not. who is in and who is out, who is

first class and who is not.

See that the exact same barriers that

Luke would so poignantly write to tell

the world have been demolished with the

inbreaking kingdom of God would be

reconstructed by nationalism

masquerading as a holy cause.

All the borders that Christ sought to

dissolve in his messianic proclamation

are being raised again under his very

name.

But the good news still stands.

Neither is this the end of the story.

The gatekeepers do not have the final

word.

See, after Jesus anticipated the

reaction of the religious leaders and

addressed them accordingly, he turned

his attention back to the paralyzed man

and told him, "Get up, pick up your mat,

and go home."

The formerly paralyzed man left the

presence of that crowd that particular

day not just to return to his house, not

just to return to the place where he had

a roof over his head. His journey back

home that day meant a full restoration

to his community, a reestablishment of

his belonging, a complete shift in his

identity and how he and others would

perceive him from that point forward.

That is the good news. That is the good

news of Jesus Christ for our world

today.

So friends, I don't know who needs to

hear this word, but if you have ever

felt like there are walls that have been

constructed to keep you out, barriers

put in place to disassociate you from

the community, from belonging. or you've

experienced those whom you love barred

from the community because they did not

fit the boundary markers that have been

put in place.

I remind you I remind us today that

Jesus came not to uphold those barriers

but to dissolve them to proclaim good

news to the poor, freedom to the

prisoners, recovery of sight to the

blind, and to set the oppressed free.

In closing, hear these words from the

Apostle Paul.

He writes, "I am convinced that neither

death nor life, nor angels, nor demons,

neither the present nor the future, nor

any powers, neither height nor depth,

nor anything in all creation will be

able to separate us from the love of God

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

This news is not just for us. This news

is not just for people who look like us

or worship like us. This news is for all

people, for all tongues and tribes and

nations.

Everybody.

Amen.