A Meditation for Thursday after the First Sunday in Lent

By The Rev. Paul D. Wheatley, Ph.D.

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” (Mark 2:5)

In Leonard Cohen’s 1992 song “Anthem,” he sings, “Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There’s a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” Although Lent proceeds in solemn, more subdued tones, with its focus on fasting, temptation, sin, and our frail mortality, the reading from the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark is a story of transformation from frailty and sin to new life that begins with a crack that lets some light in. The inciting incident of the story is a literal crack that comes from above, a tearing open of the ceiling to let down a man whom four friends could not carry to Jesus otherwise, due to the crowd in the house. It’s a story of persistence and ingenuity by these four friends on behalf of their paralyzed companion that gives way to a dispute between Jesus and some scribes, and a miraculous healing, ending with a sense of wonder and amazement for all: “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:12).

The contrast between the friends of this paralyzed man and the scribes are significant for understanding the force of this story. Starting with the scribes, once Jesus announces the man’s forgiveness of sins, they are filled with questions about Jesus’s authority. “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” they say to themselves (Mark 2:7). The healing that follows answers their doubts directly: “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). It is a familiar story that demonstrates Jesus’s authority to forgive sin (something we take as a matter of most basic faith) in reference to Jesus’s power to restore a paralyzed man to walking upright (something we may have never seen Jesus do, but may trust on faith that he can do).

However, if I’m being honest I can be much like the scribes in this story. It isn’t that I doubt Jesus’s divinity or his ability to heal. I believe Jesus to be God the Son, able to forgive sins. I have heard modern stories of healing in Jesus’s name, and these keep an ember burning that anytime I anoint someone for healing or pray for someone to be delivered from illness God just might do it.

Nevertheless, in my Lenten observance, I notice as I catalog my “manifold sins and offenses” which I “from time to time most grievously have committed,” that I hold onto those sins longer than I should. I don’t try to keep doing them and fail to repent of them, although that process can be long and hard, filled with false starts and regressions. Rather, after I’ve taken these sins to the Lord in confession, I have a difficult time believing that I’m really, truly, fully forgiven. I look for a penance that can match my sin’s grievousness, as though the penance itself brings the forgiveness, not the blood of Jesus Christ. In short, I doubt that when I hear words of absolution that the sins are fully absolved. Like the scribes, I can doubt Jesus’s authority to forgive sins, whether expressed in sacramental reconciliation or in my personal prayers for forgiveness.

The story of Jesus healing the paralytic is much more than a proof of his authority to pronounce forgiveness to a group of naysaying scribes. It is a story that speaks to the inkling of doubt in every believer that nothing more than a word from Jesus is needed to forgive our sins. For those baptized into Christ, Mark would assure us, forgiveness is freely given, overflowing for all who would seek it.

The story itself is filled with gentle reminders of the story of Jesus’s baptism. At his baptism, Jesus saw the heavens torn open, the Spirit descending like a dove, and he heard a voice saying, “You are my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:10–11). The crack in everything that lets the light in has cracked heaven itself open to pour out the Spirit on the one who “will baptize with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8). Likewise, these four companions tear open the roof for their friend to descend to Jesus. This time, however, Jesus doesn’t see the Spirit descending; He sees their faith. The faith of these companions was enough for Jesus to declare the same thing to this man that he heard from heaven about himself, “Son…” (Mark 2:5; cf. 1:11).

St. Paul describes baptism as the rite in which we become sons of God through the gift of the Spirit: “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal 3:26–27). “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6), to which he adds in Romans, “that very Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:16).

Jesus, who could perceive the disputes of the scribes in his spirit and see the faith of the friends, needed no word of confession or act of reparation to declare the paralytic’s sins forgiven. On the basis of his friends’ faith, Jesus took the initiative by his authority to do what only God can do. At his death, the Temple veil tears from top to bottom, cracking open that the light would come into our hearts. The paralytic, unable to walk to Jesus or enter the house of his own authority, hears these words of forgiveness followed by so much more. Jesus commands him not just to walk, but to arise, “stand up,” using the same Greek word Mark would later use to announce Jesus’s resurrection: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised” (Mark 16:6).

As we progress through our Lenten pilgrimage, we can gather our sins and weaknesses and tear open the roof to lower them down to Jesus in confession. We can gather our friends and neighbors who seem no longer able or willing to walk themselves into church, and we can extend an invitation to join us for the Sacred Triduum or Easter Sunday morning services. And we can bring all of our needs to him in faith that Jesus can not only forgive our sins and theirs, but he can crack open our hearts and raise us all to new life at the Easter feast, where we can say, “We have never seen anything like this!” (Mark 2:12).

The Rev. Paul D. Wheatley, Ph.D. (University of Notre Dame) is assistant professor of New Testament and Greek at Nashotah House and a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. He has served ministries and churches in Dallas, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, New York, Mexico, Greece, and China. He is the husband to Catherine, and father to Winnie, Beatrice, and Rosie. The readings for the preceding devotional may be located here from Forward Movement.