30.1.25 Luke 5:18-26

Prepare

Heavenly Father,

As I come before you today, I surrender this time of devotion into your hands. I lay down all my cares, worries and burdens before you, knowing and trusting that all things are in your hands. Lord, help me to take captive every anxious thought, releasing it into your loving care.

Calm my mind, still my heart and show me how to rest in your presence. Teach me to be still, to listen and to find peace in knowing that you are in control. I place my trust in you, knowing you will guide me and, as the psalms assure me, that your right hand will hold me fast.

Thank you for the gift of this day, which now lies open before me. This day will not come again. Help me to use it well.

And now, as I open your precious Word, send your Holy Spirit. Speak, help me to hear your still, small voice and help me to obey. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Read Luke 5:17-26

One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. Some men came carrying a paralysed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, “Why are you thinking these things 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 paralysed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”  Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

Reflect

Today we are considering another of Jesus’ healings. This time of a man who is paralysed. It is hard to conceive of a more complete incapacitation than paralysis, yet after encountering Jesus with the help of his friends, the man is able to walk and to carry his mat.

Where are you in this story? Who do you identify with? Perhaps with the man who was paralysed? We can often feel emotionally or spiritually paralysed as we wrestle with a difficult decision fearful of what may happen if we take this or that course of action. Perhaps Jesus is calling you to hand that decision to him? I recall a university tutor saying to me ‘I never cease to be amazed how God transforms a situation, and how we feel about a situation, often in ways we could never have imagined, when we place it fully in his hands in prayer.’

Perhaps you identify with the man's friends, who stop at nothing to see him healed. They carry him through the crowd, climb onto the roof, tear it open, and lower the man right in front of Jesus. Jesus says it is their faith, the faith of all the men, which leads to this healing.

Ours is a faith lived in community. We are called to show up when others have given up. Sometimes we need to carry others and sometimes we need to allow ourselves to be carried.  We are called not just to pray for others, but to be Jesus’ hands and feet. Who you standing beside today? Who are you really rooting for and fighting for? What are the obstacles that you could help to tear away?

Or maybe what really touches your heart in this passage is Jesus’ words, ‘your sins are forgiven’. Jesus addresses the man’s spiritual need before his physical need,

Recrimination and guilt eat away at the heart, and the peace which floods us when we know that we are truly forgiven brings healing to the soul. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. Yet what use are we to Jesus and to others, if we are crippled with self-recrimination?

As Scripture says in 1 John1:9 ‘If we confess our sins, He, that is Jesus, is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’  He takes all that defiles us, all the mistakes to the cross and robes us in His righteousness. We enter the arms of God the father and, when God looks upon you, He doesn’t see the sin and the mess. He sees a beloved son or daughter, robed in the beautiful righteousness of Christ.

Be

As we move into a time of reflection and prayer, let's start by seeking forgiveness using of the prayers of confession used by the Church if England.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you and against our neighbours, in thought, word, and deed, through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who died for us, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may s serve you in newness of life to the glory of your name. Amen."

And be assured that, once we confess our sins, they are gone. They are set as far from us, as Scripture puts it, as the East is from the West. We are washed completely clean.

Become

As for what we seek to become, perhaps we should ask God, what we are called to overcome. What are the barriers, the tiles on the roof,  which stop you living this Christian life in all its abundance and fullness, which stop you serving and giving to the full.

Lord, we take authority over these barriers in the name of Jesus, help us to tear them down, give us faith, determination and courage, help us to break through and set us free.

Do

take a moment to reflect on the utter determination of those men to help their friend, to bring their friend to Jesus. He needed them to fight for him.

Ask the Lord whom He is asking you to help carry. Perhaps he is calling you to pray for someone now, to give them a call to ask how they are, to perform some active service which they cannot carry out for themselves, to advise and help them as they battle with officialdom to get the help they need, or to help them take the next step into faith, or a deeper faith in Jesus through your witness, love, encouragement and perhaps an invitation to church of a church event,

Practice

Perhaps you need to find a picture of a roof, and reflect upon it whenever you face what seems to be an insuperable problem or barrier. Commit it to Christ and, for He can make it disappear or give you the strength and support from others in our community needed to tear it down.