Matt 9:1-8. Paralysed.
Everywhere Jesus goes he is met with the needs of people and their demands. After he teaches the Sermon on the Mount, he is met by a leper, then a centurion with a suffering slave. When he goes to Peteramprsquos house, crowds gather for healing and exorcism. When the crowds became too great he crosses the lake, calms a storm on it, and casts out demons from the two men demon possessed among the tombs onshore. The townspeople are so shocked and terrified that they plead with him to leave, which he does, crossing the lake again. No sooner does he get to his town than a paralysed man is carried by his friends to him for healing. When he heals him, his words scandalize some spectating teachers of the law and he confronts them.
Jesus is busy, always on the move, teaching, healing, woken up to calm a storm, told to go away, told he was blaspheming. He was right when he said, ampldquoFoxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his headamprdquo (8:20). But heamprsquos never paralyzed with fatigue or doubt or anxiety. He perseveres in his mission, drawing on strength only God can provide.
Me, I get paralyzed. I am in daily need of having my sins forgiven so that I can get up and walk and carry out the duties of my roles. I think lustful thoughts, distracting me from work. My eyes linger on adverts when Iamprsquom supposed to be reading an article on the computer. Worse, I judge others by standards that I fail to keep.
A student on the basketball team showed up twenty minutes after the bus had left for the game and expected us to get her to the game somehow. I held my tongue from saying what I thought while the office ladies simply stared at her dumbfounded and said nothing. I could find no sympathy in my heart for her and any of a dozen reasons she might have had for being late. My personal dislike of her because of her constant demands and her failure to be responsible for herself paralyzed any consideration from me and stopped my mouth from saying anything at all, not even some teaching sentences about the need for fulfilling her responsibility to the team and herself. I just didnamprsquot care and I wanted her to go, like the townspeople of the demon-possessed men wanted Jesus gone.
Have I ever had an incident in my life like that girlamprsquos today? Of course. But did I let my experience of failure and Godamprsquos mercy teach me a better behavior? Not a bit.
Another student, who will be graduating this year, burst into the office with a document to be sent to a university with his application. Too late. His face fell and his body slumped as he said, ampldquoI forgot!amprdquo This time I could say something. ampldquoBut this is your life.amprdquo He left the office sadly repeating, ampldquoThis is my life.amprdquo
Like these students I judged unkindly, I too failed in a task I was responsible for this week, which was to look over the first mokjang report of my new assistant mokja and get it back to him with edits so we could send it for translation before uploading it on the church homepage. I let other things get in my way. I didnamprsquot do what I was tasked to do. Just like my students, who needed friends to get them somewhere on time, I needed friends to carry me to Jesus because I was paralysed.
The lesson for me concerned my salvation. I have a friend in Jesus. He carries the weight of my sin and in him I can trust because he doesnamprsquot get paralyzed. He fixes paralysis with forgiveness.
Application: Get the mokjang report to my assistant tomorrow, asking his forgiveness.
Lord, thank you for never being too tired or too busy to receive my prayers, my requests and my petitions. Inspire me to do better tomorrow and not presume upon your lovingkindness.
