The Authority to Forgive Sins
A sermon on The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity by Pastor Zill on Matthew 9:1-8 at Faith Lutheran Church & School in Tucson, AZ.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Man, has it been a busy week or so in Israel or what?!? And, no, I’m not talking about what you are watching unfold on your favorite news channel, but what is unfolding in our Gospel text today. And it’s wild.
Our Gospel lesson today tells us about a healing, and a whole lot more. And it tells us things that it doesn't say directly, and it says plenty. Jesus had just come from the calming of a storm on the sea and casting a Legion of evil spirits which had possessed a man into a herd of pigs, who then rushed into the Sea of Galilee to drown themselves.
Now Jesus enters His own city - not Nazareth, but Capernaum. Then “they" brought to Jesus this man who was paralyzed. Now the other Gospel accounts tell us about the crowd around Jesus and how the man was lowered through a section of the roof which they had torn up - but those details aren't in this Gospel account. It is clear that they brought the man to Jesus so He could do something. One would assume that they were looking for a healing.
But Matthew tells us that Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, "Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven." Notice that Jesus looked at their faith. We can assume that they wanted a physical healing, but their faith had to do with sins, and the consequences of sin, and their hope and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus answered what He saw inside, in their faith, not what He saw on the outside. And as always, there is always more with Jesus.
Their attitude and faith makes more sense than the modern mind might recognize at first blush. The Jews lived in a society that interpreted every catastrophic illness as a response by God to their sin. This kind of false teaching continues today. It would be reasonable to say that because the man was paralyzed, he and his friends imagined that his sins had caused this state. “Well, he must have deserved it.”
But that isn't what Jesus saw - or at least that isn't what the text tells us that He saw. We are told that He saw their faith, not their guilt. He saw their hope for forgiveness, not simply a sense that one sin or another had merited this man's troubles.
In any case, Jesus responds by encouraging the paralytic and then forgiving his sins. And THAT is when the scribes - the local religious experts - got involved.
They stood there aghast! They probably shook their heads as they said to themselves, "This fellow blasphemes!" They accused Jesus of blasphemy because they knew, as a matter of common knowledge in their society, that only God had the power or authority to actually forgive sins. Certainly, anyone could say it, but since sin is against God, only God can actually forgive sin.
Incidentally, we run into that same fundamental attitude today when many Protestants look askance at our confession and absolution, saying that man does not have the power (and they mean "authority") to forgive sins. "Only God can do that!", they say.
Jesus not only saw the faith of the paralytic, He heard the unbelief of the Scribes. He knew their thoughts, and so He challenged their unbelief, putting them to the test. He asked them why they were thinking evil in their hearts. When you deny that God has the power to do what He says that He will do, or when you question the validity and power of the Word of God, you are thinking evil. You are doing the devil's work.
But, to be fair, we need to ask, how could they know? How could we know?
Well, Jesus was right there, right in front of them. He fed thousands on what amounted to a sack lunch. He healed the sick somewhat regularly. He preached the clear and pure Word of God. That should have spoken to their hearts, if they were God's people to begin with. He was fulfilling prophecies of the Messiah. He is doing precisely what the Messiah was supposed to do - and they, the Scribes, the teachers of the Law and the scholars of the Scriptures, were supposed to know.
They Scribes were responsible to know. And they actually did know, but they did not want to accept it. For those Scribes, that day, Jesus demonstrated the answer to their question with what I call "This, Therefore, That". He asked them, "which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise, and walk'?" Here Jesus had the Scribes over a barrel. Sure, it is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven." But who can tell if it was so? It isn't like you can see forgiveness at work. But if you say, "Rise and walk", the proof is in the pudding - the paralyzed man either gets up and walks - or he doesn't. You either can do it or you cannot.
But the problem they faced in answering Jesus on that day is that they knew that only God could actually do either one. That means, of course, that if you could heal the man's paralysis, then you must be God, or have the power to do so from Him, and if so, you actually did possess the authority to forgive sins. If He actually possessed that authority, then Jesus wasn't guilty of blasphemy, they were. Unfortunately, they couldn't answer Jesus honestly like that, however, without opening themselves to the charge of blasphemy. So they remained silent.
So Jesus said, "But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" - then He said to the paralytic - "Rise, take up your bed, and go home." And he rose, took his bed, and went home. With one brief sentence, Jesus demonstrated His authority - the authority to heal, and, therefore, also the authority to forgive sins.
And in the act which demonstrated that authority, Jesus also illustrated His great love. He saw the need of the man and He met it, without regard for how others would perceive it, or what they would say. He loved the man, He had compassion, but He actually gave the paralytic more than seemed to be needed but what he needed most - forgiveness.
Yes, Jesus has the authority to heal, and therefore He has the authority to forgive sins.
Now the question is, does God have the authority to do with His authority what He wishes? Of course, He does, And God has given that authority - the authority to forgive sins - to the Church, to be exercised by the pastors when they publicly pronounce holy absolution.
He gave that authority to the Church after His. resurrection - it is recorded in John 20:22-23, He [Jesus] breathed on them [the disciples], and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. "If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained." Jesus bound Himself to their absolution, and ours, for the comfort and encouragement and faith of those who would believe.
That is why our Small Catechism says, "I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, especially when they . . .absolve those who repent, it is as valid and certain, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us Himself." So, when I pronounced your forgiveness this morning, you were truly cleansed. Not by any authority inherently in me, but solely in Him.
We also see the love of Christ here. He demonstrated it, of course, in His great compassion toward this paralyzed man, granting him forgiveness first and healing second. We have that love even more clearly demonstrated on the cross. Jesus said once, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Jesus demonstrated His love for us by dying for us. He died for our benefit and in our place, the death that we have earned by sinning. Because of Jesus and His death and resurrection, we have been forgiven. And today and each time you hear those words of Absolution, whether it is through a bald man with no hair like me, or a long haired man like Pastor Wirtz, God is giving you the forgiveness that Jesus has earned instead of what your sins have deserved.
He is also showing us His love in that He has granted this authority to forgive to the Church, for our comfort and our peace. He also gives us the same comfort and peace in the Holy Sacrament, thereby showing us our forgiveness, and handing to us, if you will, in such a personal way that which we cannot doubt that He has included us in His grace. It is almost like when Jesus spoke directly to the paralytic. He still doay speaks directly to each of us - and feeds us with His own body and gives us to drink of His true blood so that there is no room for doubt in us.
And just as He did for the paralytic back then, Jesus forgives us first, and then He heals us, yes physically. No, He doesn’t heal us of all our physical ailments (yet). But He does something even better - heals us of death and hell, and heals us of spiritual corruption. But yet, one day soon He will follow the forgiveness of our sins with the total healing of our bodies in the resurrection to life eternal.
In the meantime, we enjoy that same love, compassion, and authority at work on our behalf, in the way that God chooses to give it to us - even now, even here. Actually, let me say that differently; Especially now, and especially here! And we can dare to live life boldly and confidently in the grace of God because God is there with us. He is watching us and protecting us, and when we fall, He is there with the power, the authority, and the clearly demonstrated will to forgive us when we sin and to heal us from whatever stands in our lives to hinder us from serving Him.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.