The focus of todays readings is the forgiveness of sins. In the reading from Isaiah God says, “But I am the one who forgives your sins. I am your God, and so I forgive all you do wrong, and I forget about your sins.” The Gospel story supports God’s forgiveness. Jesus healed people several times in the Gospel stories by saying, “Your sins are forgiven.” People were so amazed, exclaiming “Who is this man? Only God can forgive sins!” Yes…and we read these accounts and wonder why they never put 2 + 2 together and come to the obvious conclusion that Jesus is God.
In the Gospel according to Mark, a man who is paralyzed is brought to Jesus by his friends so that Jesus may heal him. They cannot get close to Jesus because of the crowds and so they open the ceiling above where Jesus is sitting and they lower the stretcher down through the opening to Jesus. Jesus, seeing how much they trusted him and believed in him, said to the paralyzed man, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.” The man picked up his stretcher and walked out in front of the crowd and they were all amazed.
Mostly we focus our faith concerns very close to ourselves. When we contemplate our spiritual journey we usually think in terms of “me” “I” “my”. We forget, or ignore, the fact that our spiritual journey is not a solitary, lonely walk. Our faith is based on community support. We do not make our journey alone, but have around us a community of people who support and encourage us along the way. The paralyzed man had good friends who went to a lot of trouble to bring him to Jesus so that he could be healed, his sins forgiven. We need to recognize and utilize the support of friends, family and our church community to bolster our own faith strength so that we, too, can come to Jesus to be healed. It is not meant to be a lonely road, but one well travelled by friend and stranger alike. Who would not walk with a friend, or make a new friend, that they meet along the road as they are walking in the same direction? Who would not reach out a hand to help that friend when they trip or stumble? Who would not encourage that friend if they became tired and did not want to continue walking? Do we not need that same support and encouragement?
We are stronger when we are surrounded by our brothers and sisters in faith. We can count on their support in our times of weakness or despair. We are not alone on our journey, we have lots of company along the way! We have a living God who loves us and forgives us and forgets our sins!
The Psalm this week is Psalm 41: Lord Heal My Soul and here is an additional link to the lead sheet.
Have a blessed week! Look around you at church this Sunday…contemplate how you and those around you support, encourage and strengthen one another along the path to our spirituality!