Trinity 19-Matthew 9:1-8

Look around this church for a moment. Not for long, just a moment. You will see familiar faces young and old. What you cannot see is what each one carried through those doors this morning.

Some of you carry a sin you have never told anyone. Some carry a word spoken in anger years ago that can never be taken back. Some carry an old wound, something done to you, that you thought time would heal, and it has not. These burdens do not show. Nobody needs a wheelchair or a stretcher for them. But they can pin a person to the bed as surely as any illness.

That is where our Gospel begins. Hear the word of the Lord from Matthew, chapter nine, in the King James Version: "And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."

Here is a man who cannot move. Everyone in that room knows what is wrong with him. His body is the problem, and his body is what they want fixed. But Jesus, who sees more than we do, looks at him and sees a heavier burden than the palsy. Today I want us to hear what He says first, and what He does not say.

Notice that Jesus does not begin with "Arise." He does not begin with "Be healed." He begins with a name: "Son."

Before He deals with the sin, before He deals with the legs, He gives the man his dignity back. Whatever this man has done, whatever he has become in his own eyes, he is a son. And then comes the tender command: "Be of good cheer." Take heart. Do not be afraid. And then: "Thy sins be forgiven thee."

Why does Jesus go there first? Because He knows what we so often forget. We think our biggest problem is the one we can see. We ask the Lord to fix the circumstance, the diagnosis, the broken relationship, the bad situation. And He does care about all of that. But He knows that underneath it there is often a deeper paralysis, a soul that cannot get up because it is weighed down by guilt, by shame, by a wound it has never let Him touch.

The scribes cannot bear it. "This man blasphemeth," they say within themselves. And in a way they are right about one thing: only God can forgive sins. Their logic is sound. Their mistake is that they cannot see who is standing in front of them.

Jesus knows their thoughts, and He asks them a question: "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" Anyone can say either one. The difference is that nobody can check whether a sin has been forgiven. You cannot see it. But you can see a man walk. So the Lord says, "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," and He turns to the man and says, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house."

Do you see the order? The healing of the body is the sign. The forgiveness of the soul is the substance. The visible miracle proves the invisible one. Forgiveness comes first, and the healing flows from it.

And the man arose and went home. The crowd marvelled and glorified God, "which had given such power unto men." Brothers and sisters, that last line matters. Christ did not keep this power to Himself. On Easter evening He breathed on His apostles and said, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them." That is why we pray the confession when we celebrate Mass.
When you kneel and hear the words of absolution, you are the man on the bed. The same Lord is saying to you, "Son. Daughter. Be of good cheer. Thy sins are forgiven thee."

Some of you have not heard those words in a long time. Some of you think the sin is too old, or too heavy, or too shameful. Hear me: it is not too much for Him. He is not shocked, and He is not tired of you. He has been waiting to call you "Son" and "Daughter" all this time.

Now go back to one small phrase that is easy to pass over: "Jesus seeing their faith." Whose faith? Not the paralytic's. Matthew tells us nothing about what the man believed. It is the faith of the ones who brought him. Mark and Luke tell us more about them: there were four, and when they could not get through the crowd, they climbed up and opened the roof, and lowered their friend down in front of Jesus. They would not let a closed door, or a crowd, or a roof stand between their friend and the Lord.

Think about that. The man could not walk. He could not climb. Perhaps, in that moment, he could not even pray. And yet he was forgiven, because someone cared enough to carry him.

So I want to ask two things of you this morning.

First: who are you carrying? Somebody in your life is lying on a bed they cannot leave. A husband, a daughter, a friend, a brother who has stopped coming to Mass, someone who is too ashamed or too hurt or too tired to come to Jesus on their own. You may not be able to fix them. You may not find the right words. But you can carry them. You can pray for them by name, every day. You can sit with them. You can invite them, and keep on inviting them. You can be the kind of friend who is willing to climb onto a roof. Jesus sees that faith, and He honors it.

Second, and this is harder: will you let yourself be carried? Many of us are better at carrying than at being carried. We are proud. We do not want anyone to know we are on the mat. But the man in the Gospel had to lie there and let his friends do the work. Perhaps today you are the one who needs to say to someone, "I cannot do this alone. Pray for me." Perhaps you need to let this parish, this family of faith, carry you for a season.

Brothers and sisters, whatever you walked in with this morning, the guilt, the old wound, the thing no one sees, hear the voice of the One who is looking at you right now with great tenderness. He is not looking at your failures first. He is looking at you, His child. And He says what He said that day in Capernaum: "Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee."

Let Him say it to you. And when He has, rise, take up your bed, and go home. Then go and find someone else, and carry them. Amen.