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He Did What?

             Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”

 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?  Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”  Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man. (Matthew 9:1-8)

Take a deep breath and relax. I’m not going to suggest that unless we’re performing miracles, we’re not ministering like Jesus did. Now, take another deep breath because what I am going to suggest is harder. Ministering like Jesus did requires that we be willing and able to step outside of the norms of society.

As far as we know, this guy never sinned against Jesus, the man. They may not have ever met. But He publicly forgave the man. I wonder what had happened before this event. Did someone say something about forgiveness? Was this the first time Pharisees were present? Was this guy known to be some sort of horrible person? We know he had four friends who were willing to help him, if only so they didn’t have to keep helping him.

We don’t know the answers to those questions. What we know is that Jesus decided to do something outrageous and countercultural. This isn’t God stepping out of His predictable behavior. He often chose misfits (e.g. the younger son or a woman). How long did He “struggle” to maintain a straight face?  “Here it comes, folks!” And in saying He forgave, He was telling the Pharisees the answer to the question they asked, “Who is this…?”).

And if we are going to follow Him, there will be times when we will have to be countercultural, whether it’s fun for us or not. Jesus doesn’t come across as mean in this passage. It’s more like He’s playing an intellectual game with them and I suspect they know the rules as well as He does. In other words, in our ministry, our goal should not be to crush someone or force them to submit, but to coax them, and if that takes doing something outside of their status quo, so be it.

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