Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, Who had given such power [authority] to men.” Whereas “the scribes said within themselves, ‘This Man blasphemes!’”
It might seem as though the paralytic in today’s Holy Gospel was more of a pawn in a chess game, caught between two feuding parties: the scribes who meticulously policed everything our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ said and did and our Lord Himself. But such is not the case when we remember that our God is “a good God Who loves mankind” and is a “merciful God Who loves mankind” just as the Church prays in many of her litanies. The God Who brought all things into existence from non-being is indeed good and gracious, loving both the righteous and the unrighteous. Indeed, just as a physician tends to the sick and not to the healthy, so has He not come to call the sick and the sinner to repentance (Mt. 9:12-13; Mk. 2:17; Lk. 5:31-32)?
What is curious and at the heart of the debate here is how our Lord heals the paralytic spiritually first, that is, He forgives him his sins. He does more than simply declaring him absolved, but He actually absolves him which, as the scribes rightly think to themselves, only God Himself can do. It is the prerogative reserved for God alone. Now, because our Lord (Who is God-in-the-flesh) knew their thoughts, which only God can do, He proceeds to manifest His divine nature by healing the newly forgiven man of his other sickness, that is, his paralyzed body. He does this to clearly demonstrate that He is God (much to the chagrin of those scribes who are sorely scandalized by Him). It is highly unlikely, however, that Jesus would have simply walked away from the paralytic after remitting his sins had the scribes with their evil thoughts not been present. Again, our good and merciful God does not desire any to be lost nor does He desire that fallen and broken humanity remain in the bondage of sin, death, the devil, and sickness. But, in order to teach, to manifest, and to demonstrate to us the deeper things of the Mystery of His Incarnation and our redemption, Jesus uses this scene to fully show that, true to their thinking that only God has the power to absolve, that the Son of God Himself shares in that divine nature as “true God of true God” (Nicene Creed). Thus, declaring thereby to those who can believe and have faith, that He is true God and true Man. What the multitudes saw and were afraid of or awe-struck by was that God shares His divine power and authority with men! The scribes were right: no priest serving in the Tabernacle or Temple ever absolved anyone of their sins nor could they. They could only hear the sinner’s confession and receive the sacrifice offered up by the sinner for his or her sin. But, with the coming of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ a new age dawned upon this old world!
The ability to forgive sins continues to divide Christians, just as surely as it consternated Israel’s religious leaders. The Protestant Reformation challenged the sacramental nature and understanding of the apostolic Church and, in a sense, sided with the scribes in this case: only God can forgive sins. And, because that is the case, so the argument goes, I don’t need to go to confession to confess my sins to a man when I can easily do so in the privacy of my soul to God alone.
There are a number of problems here on several levels with this reasoning, some of which may be legitimate such as the fear of divulging something secret and personal, and trusting another man with that information. And yet, some of us go to counseling and do that very thing with another person or some of us get things off our chest by telling a friend (maybe a friend or two), many times without even giving it a second thought. But, when it comes to God and the Mystery of Reconciliation [Confession] we take a totally different tack and suddenly, if not inconsistently, relegate it to, “Well, that’s private; that’s between God and me.” Why is that?
Holy Orthodoxy has always seen and treated the whole person – body and soul – just as we have been taught by our Lord and His Apostles who did likewise as they received from Jesus. It is our Holy Tradition to do so, evidenced by the Mystery of Holy Unction, when the Church anoints us “for the healing of soul and body.” Both soul and body – spiritual and physical – are a unity from creation, each benefitting the other or, conversely, each negatively affecting the other (Ps. 37 [38]:1-22). If the soul finds health and wholeness via the forgiveness of sins, the body likewise receives the blessing. To what extent, however, remains to be seen. We know that not everyone receives full and total physical healing in this life. That remains for the Resurrection of the body and soul. However, Sacred Scripture does not exclude the power of one, that is, the healing of the soul in the Mystery of Confession and Absolution from positively touching to whatever extent God sees fit, the body, and vice versa. St. James in his Epistle links the spiritual and physical. He says,
Is anyone among you suffering ill? Let him keep on praying. Is anyone cheerful? Let him keep on chanting. Is anyone among you infirm? Let him call for the presbyters of the Church; and let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the one who is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be one who hath committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. Keep on confessing your transgressions to one another and praying for one another, that ye might be healed. The entreaty of a righteous man hath much strength when it is energized. . . . Brethren, . . . know that the one who turneth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall cover a multitude of sins (Jm. 5:13-20).
The Bishop of Jerusalem and Brother of our Lord sees a connection between the healing of the body and the healing of the soul: anointing with Holy Unction and Confession unto the forgiveness of sins. A soul turned from the error of sin by way of Confession and Absolution will be saved from death, he says, and a multitude of sins covered. Thus, the prayer of a “righteous man,” that is, the prayer of the Church of Jesus Christ, avails much.
Not all physical malady is directly tied to our sins, as may be the case in today’s Gospel. Jesus certainly didn’t see that in other cases (Jn. 9:1-12). However, there are times when that is the case such as in the case of the healing of another paralytic (Jn. 5:1-15). Whatever else may be said, we are assured that all our physical maladies are tied to The Fall with some finding their origin in our sins or being exacerbated by our sins. In the case of the other paralytic, Jesus commands him after healing him, “’Behold, thou art made whole. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee’” (Jn. 5:14). When our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ came down from Heaven “for us men and for our salvation” (Nicene Creed), He does so to save the whole man – body and soul – to heal the whole man physically and spiritually. Salvation touches the whole human being created in the image of God after God’s own likeness (Gn. 1:26-27; WS 2:23). It will not be until the Resurrection of all the dead at the Second Coming, however, when body and soul are re-united that the fullness of such salvation will be known, both in soul and in body. Whereas the soul always receives healing in the Mystery of Confession and Absolution while the body, to greater or lesser extent, also receives grace.
And so, it should not come as a surprise to us that such power and divine authority has been bestowed on man to forgive sins. At no time in the Gospels when our Lord sent out His 12 Apostles, and later the 70, does Jesus confer on them this power and authority to “forgive sins.” Rather, they are to heal, to teach, to preach, to exorcise demons, and to call to repentance, announcing that the Kingdom of God is present, but He does not give them His power or authority to absolve (Mt. 10:1, 7-8; Lk. 9:1-2; 10:9; 24:46-48). This, beloved, does not come until after His Death and Resurrection. In that famous post-Resurrection scene in the Upper Room on Pascha evening when our Lord comes to His gathered Apostles through closed doors we hear Him clearly ordain them. “’Peace be to you,’” He says, “‘even as the Father hath sent Me forth, I also send you.’ After He said this, He breathed on them, and saith to them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit: if ye forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if ye retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (Jn. 20:21-23).
The Apostles, from this point forward, embody Jesus Christ to the world, linked directly and inseparably to His saving and sanctifying mission: as His Father has dispatched Him so He sends them with His divine authority and power to exercise the forgiveness of sins or, in the case of stubborn impenitence, to retain sin until such time as real repentance should occur. His breath is that of the Holy and Life-creating Spirit, the very Spirit breathed into the first made man so that the Apostles are now enlivened by God to give life to the sin-dead (Gn. 2:7).
For what purpose save the purpose of absolution or retention would Jesus do such an odd and strange thing on the very evening of His Resurrection? Of all He could’ve chosen to do or to convey that most holy and bright evening, He confers on them His Holy Spirit and the absolution of sins. Not only can they now call sinners to repentance, but by His grace they can do something about it: they can enact redemption by the remission of sins because they are clothed with power from on high (Lk. 24:46-49; Ac. 1:1-12). This power, this authority, does not belong to them, but to God alone on Whose behalf they exercise it for the sake of sinners. This is the healing Jesus Christ has come to bring upon the earth to which the Church and her Apostles bear witness through Word and Sacrament throughout the Book of Acts (Ac. 2:38-39; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38-39; 26:18). Absolution in the Name of the Lord is no less a healing than if a sick man or woman or child rises up from their hospital bed made well and whole by the medicine of man blessed by God!
Behold, child, Christ stands invisibly before thee to hear thy confession. Be not ashamed, neither be afraid, and hide nothing from me. Rather, do not fear to tell me all that thou hast done, so that thou mayest receive forgiveness from our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, His icon is before us. And I am only the witness, that I may bear witness before Him of all that thou dost tell me. If thou hide anything from me, thou shalt have the greater sin. Take heed, therefore, lest having come to the place of the Physician, thou depart unhealed (Mystery of Confession and Repentance).
“Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power [authority] to men.”
Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
PROPERS:
Rm. 12:6-14
Mt. 9:1-8