This healing of a paralytic is a beloved and striking miracle. We can imagine the house where Jesus was staying in Capernaum packed with people; and then all the commotion when they were lowering the guy through the roof, and even more when he got up, picked up his mat, and walked out!
The text says Jesus was preaching the word, but Jesus Himself IS the Word made flesh, who is proclaiming the Kingdom of God and calling all to conversion!
Before telling him to walk he says, "Child, your sins are forgiven." Maybe we tend to gloss over that too quickly. Why did say that? He knew that would upset the Pharisees tremendously! Yet His first concern at that moment was the paralytic! I propose that Jesus knew that this was the healing that the paralytic himself knew he most needed!
The Greek word for "forgiven" used here, the meaning of this word is strong. It is not a simple excusing. Not, a "don’t worry, no big deal." Rather it speaks of full reconciliation and healing!
The Forgiveness that God offers!
What is sin? Are sins about arbitrary rules that a capricious god or church organization makes up to keep us from having a good time? No, sin, sins, are actions and decisions done in real time that do REAL DAMAGE. When I sin I offend God in part because I hurt at least one person – very often someone else and always myself! Damage to someone else’s life, to relationships – very often important relationships with people close to us! Damage that is often hard or even apparently impossible to heal.
We don’t know the backstory of the paralytic: what was the sin – the hurt he had done, maybe a breach in his family he had caused - that the Lord was simultaneous healing?
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth – he said to the paralytic, "I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home."
This miracle ought to get each of us remembering those hurts and wounds we carry inside and the people we know we have hurt – and with the faith and the persistence of the paralytic and his friends – begging the Lord for the fullness of His Healing Grace.
Divine Healing happens while we walk on a road: the Path of Discipleship, in fidelity, receiving Christ’s gifts: the Word of God, Sacraments, Prayer and the life of love we share together.
