As for you, your sins are forgiven
10 DECEMBER (Lk 5,17-26)
Jesus is a specially observed person. Pharisees and scribes come from every part of Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem, to listen to him and to verify the orthodoxy of his teaching. Never might they say anything about miracles. They are clear, public, irrefutable signs. On the words instead, no. It is the word that attests to the truth of a prophet, not his miracles. If the Word of Jesus is found not in accordance with the Law of Moses, for sure he will be declared a false prophet and taken out of the way.
These men do not go to Jesus with a pure, simple heart, ready to listen; to conversion and to repentance. They go out to him with a determined will to find evil, even when this does not exist. The do not go with right intentions, sincerity, honesty of mind, willingness to accept the true and the good that comes from God. Their intent is the one of the contrast, the trap, the opposition and the fight. They are there to spy on Jesus and entangle him in every word that comes out of his mouth. Theirs is a sad presence, because it is the presence of who has already decided that no one, not even God, must enter into their religious system. This cannot be scratched by anyone. It must remain as it is: an instrument of death and not of life, of exclusion from God and not of approach to him.
From the roof, a paralytic man, lying on a stretcher, is lowered before Jesus. As soon as Jesus sees him, addresses him a word that we all wished to hear: “Man, you sins are forgiven.” With one word, skipping all the procedures laid down in the Book of Leviticus, all its long rituality, Jesus makes this man pure. This is the extraordinary novelty that Jesus brings into the relationship with God: in the name of God, without anything else, a man forgives the sins of a man; restores him in his friendship with his God; fills him with peace, gives his life back to him, resurrects his soul and infuses joy in his spirit. With a single word. Nothing else is asked, but repentance and the will to sin no more. Man is a real instrument of forgiveness.
One day as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him for healing. And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to bring him in and set (him) in his presence. But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “As for you, your sins are forgiven.” Then the scribes and Pharisees began to ask themselves, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” He stood up immediately before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, glorifying God. Then astonishment seized them all and they glorified God, and, struck with awe, they said, “We have seen incredible things today.”
For the Pharisees and the scribes present it this is a real curse. No one can forgive sins. Only God can do that. Their hearts are locked in their miserable myopic vision of God. Their minds are unable to rise and think big. Their spirit is imprisoned in an impractical tradition for the salvation that the Lord decided to operate on our earth. We need to move from a particular, limited salvation to a universal, cosmic salvation. In this salvation nobody must go to the temple of Jerusalem anymore. This will be destroyed and annihilated together with the ancient priesthood that is lived in this place. Jesus thus makes the impossible possible.
The novelty of the gift of salvation also requires the novelty of forms and methods. You cannot live a universal salvation in a finite, particular and restricted structure. You cannot pour the water of the sea into a bucket. This is the great work of Jesus: the creation of a new route for the remission of sins.
Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints, make us with a pure and open mind.