In the famous story of the healing of the paralytic in Luke 5:17-26, a group of men cut a hole through the roof to lower a paralytic in to see Jesus. “Seeing their faith,” Jesus says “saying the paralytic’s sins are forgiven, Jesus is accused of blaspheming—for only God can forgive sins. In response, he asks, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say ‘Rise and walk’?” He then proves his point that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” by telling the paralytic to pick up his stretcher and go home—which the former-paralytic promptly does.
This story in Luke 5 illuminates two related aspects of the Church: its ability to effectively intercede for us for God’s forgiveness, and the efficacy of those intercessions even despite its imperfections.
This message of intercession is revealed after carefully probing of Jesus’ words in verse 20. He says, “When he saw their faith” Jesus says “your sins are forgiven.” (5:20) Because in English, “your” is can be either singular and plural, the text is unclear to whom Jesus refers to—the paralytic, his friends, or all of them. Fortunately, Spanish is more precise in this matter, and the text reads ,“Al ver su fe, Jesús le dijo: 'Hombre, tus pecados te son perdonados.'” (Luca 5:20) First, Jesus refers specifically to “Hombre” (man) singular, not “hombres” (men) plural. Second, Jesus says “Tus pecados—” and “tus” is used to address a single person, not a group.
So why does this rather mundane linguistic analysis matter? It matters because it means that after seeing “their faith—” the faith of the men who brought the paralytic, Jesus forgives the sin of someone totally different. Not only is this intercessory prayer at its finest, but it opens the door both for the forgiveness through intercessory prayer—even for those who do not have the wherewithal to ask for forgiveness for themselves. Perhaps the application to those who willingly reject God’s proffered grace is arguable, but this result is really extremely important if we care about those who may not have the mental capacity to ask God for forgiveness, such as young children or the mentally disabled.
The second interesting point is that in response to faith, Jesus’ first act wasn’t to simply fix the worldly problems of the paralytic, but to forgive the paralytic’s sins. In fact, it seems Jesus only reluctantly healed the paralytic with the goal of proving that he could forgive sins. At the time, the Jews believe that physical disability and illness was God’s punishment for one’s own sin or the sins of one’s parents. To the Jews, then, causing the paralytic to walk was not merely sending an unrelated message that would basically amount to, “See, see? I am powerful. Now do you believe what I say?” But, rather, in keying into the directly related message forgiveness of sins, it was an unmistakable and irrefutable sign of Jesus’ authority over sin to the Jews of the time.
In his actions, Jesus demonstrates that what is important—grace and salvation—are often not accompanied by visible signs. Indeed, the fact that he only did so in the face of doubt perhaps indicates they shouldn’t be. Yet, don’t we constantly demand signs of our Church? We might not demanded the same miracles the Jews did 2000 years ago, but when we see a priest, Bishop, Cardinal, or Pope, not visibly demonstrating our vision of godliness, we presume God is not present, and the legitimacy of the Church is destroyed. Just as the Jews did 2000 years ago, we demand our own “modern” sign of God’s presence, and when it isn’t forthcoming, we echo the scribes and the Pharisees and say, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies?” (5:21).
Of course, God understands that we are just as human as those who doubted him 2000 years ago, so God sends us the sign of a (soon to be) saint like Mother Theresa every once in a while to remind us that His Church is indeed graced with His presence. But, just as Jesus’ original forgiveness of the paralytic was not dependent on the accompanying physical sign, neither is the grace God dispenses through the Church, nor our faith dependent on our believing in the holiness of any individual member of the clergy. This is why we pray every Sunday before the Eucharist, “Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church.” Just as the faith of the paralytics friends cleansed the sins of the paralytic, the faith of our Church cleanses ours—no matter if the signs we are hoping to see aren’t there every time.
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