Your sins are forgiven you...

[AI translation] This story has what every human being needs most. This story is the most beautiful example of the triumph of divine grace. It reveals to us the essence of the gospel. How in the person of Jesus the mighty God bends down to the wretched man, how in the person of Jesus the Living God speaks to us, helps us, lifts us up, heals our lives! Let us see, because it is about us, about Jesus' encounter with us, with you and with me.It is a very strange encounter: someone is taken to Jesus. A cripple, a sick person, a paralytic. There he is, lying helpless at the feet of Jesus. An unknown man. We know nothing about him, we don't even know his name. It is not important. One case of human suffering, pain, misery. Not a word, not a complaint, not a cry for help, Jesus, have mercy on me, help me, heal me. No! He just lies there on the ground, motionless. No need for anyone to speak, the situation itself, the misery itself, is crying out for help, the whole situation is a cry to heaven! The way she lies there helpless is the loudest cry for help without words.
Perhaps that is why the man is anonymous, so that each one may substitute his own name for his situation, each one may know himself in it. In any case, I would now like to continue the story in such a way that the man laid before Jesus is you and me. So it is about us! The man in the story was brought to Jesus by four other friends or acquaintances, and perhaps you were brought here by someone else. Someone called you: come to Pasaret! Or maybe it was just force of habit that brought you here. That's how you got into the habit of going to church on Sunday mornings long ago. Maybe it wasn't your heart that brought you here, but your feet, or maybe curiosity that brought you here to hear a good sermon. No matter who or what brought you here, you are here, in the presence of Jesus. You are sitting or standing before Jesus as the man in the story. You are just as pathetic and miserable a person as the man with the gut punch. Not everyone is as miserable as the man in the story, but everyone has a physical or spiritual affliction that weighs on them. A burden, a problem, a pain that weighs down on his life as cripplingly as this man's illness. We are all sick. Some of us have a sick family life, others have a sick heart or soul. Some people have a sick relationship with their fellow human beings, some have a fundamental illness somewhere in their lives. Everyone is in pain. As I know you, or many of you, I know how much misery, how much brokenness, how much unresolvedness there is in someone's life. What sorrow or lies, what physical and spiritual depths one or another lives in, who now sits here beautifully as if there is nothing wrong with them. I too know how much wickedness, deceit, secret sin, can be visited upon someone of whom no one thinks. And what you yourself must know about yourself! How can even Jesus see you and me?
I don't believe that His eye can see any difference between you and that man with a good heart. He is only a type of the disability, the helplessness of human life. Before Jesus, we are all a bundle of misery. Like a great heap of misery, crying silently for help. Behold, you are the man of whom this story is about! You, with your own pitiful fate, with your life in need of divine help, you are here before Jesus, meeting Him! I say this most emphatically, that with your own misery you are here before Jesus, because I know that Jesus came into this world because of our lives. The person of Jesus means that God in the invisible heavens has heard our loud or silent groans, our cries of pain. He came personally, visibly, to meet the afflicted. To look closely into his eyes, to say something to him, to help him. Now he is here before the benumbed Jesus. You and Jesus meet here. Everyone is on tenterhooks, waiting to see what Jesus will do. What he's going to say, how he's going to help the wretched man. All at once He really speaks through our Word, mightily, majestically, royally, divinely: 'Your sins are forgiven you' (Mark 2:5).
Let's be honest, that's not what these people there were expecting. Nobody expected this. Everyone expected something else. They may not have said it, but they felt a certain disappointment in their hearts. They carried the patient there because they hoped Jesus would help him! He would heal him, deliver him from this impossible situation! They came to Jesus as someone who takes the last chance. If they don't succeed, it's over, there is no hope! That's why they had to come with the patient at all costs. Here only Jesus can help. And Jesus says that his sins are forgiven. There was no question of sins! Who asked him to do this? That was not the purpose of their great effort. Okay, okay, so this patient's sins are forgiven, but what good is it? Behold, he still lies here helpless as before! Let us take the patient on our shoulders again, let us take him home as a hopeless case forever! Does not Jesus speak to the problem when he forgives those who suffer from a physical affliction? Is there no misunderstanding here?
Oh, but that is exactly how it is today! What are we church Christians waiting for from Jesus a thousand times more than forgiveness of our sins? The least of our demands on God is the very thing He wants to give us, the very thing He wants to help us with: forgiveness of our sins. When we sit here on Sundays with our ruined, abandoned, weary, depleted lives, let's be honest, we don't expect Him to give us a freeing word for our sins. Oh, our sins, great and small, no longer hurt! They are no longer unpleasant, we no longer consider them such a perilous thing. We've become accustomed to it, we've grown into it, it's become our nature. We have come to terms with them, we have come to terms with the fact that this is who I am. Then we'll just deal with that little sin with the "Good God" somehow. Our real problem is not sin, but something else entirely. It's not the sin issue that we need Jesus' help with, but the housing problem, or the need to get that 200 forint raise paid! Or that the illness we are showing symptoms of is not the one that everyone is so afraid of these days. Or in resolving the crisis in the family. Or that the threats to our livelihood are removed. We fear a toothache more than a little sin. That's the help we expect and ask God for, and that's the help we've come for. We are waiting for Him to encourage us in this world full of fears. To comfort us, to pull us out of the ditch, to help us in our daily worries and troubles. And then He says: "Your sins are forgiven you". That's not the problem! That is not our problem!
"Yes, it is!" says Jesus. This is your problem: sin! Your sin! Your sins! That's your real problem and misery! A great trouble is a sickness, a terrible misery is a stroke, a stroke paralysis! But, my son, says Jesus, you have a greater, a more dangerous, a sadder, a more important, a deeper trouble! Your sins! The small or big sin that is already part of your nature! The one you've become so comfortable with, that you've been hiding inside! Which you may love in secret! Or what you hate yourself for, and so you hide it! It is the cardinal sin of your life, which only you know, and which, if they found out about you, might get you thrown out of your job! Maybe your neighbor will never say hello again! Yes, yes, that old theft, secret fornication, or that fetal homicide. Or that tax fraud, or that lying! All those little and big vile things that lie behind your well-bred manners, your smooth, smiling face: your real, fatal trouble. My brethren, I would like to emphasize this very seriously: every sin, however common, however commonplace, however beautiful, however ugly, however kind, however hateful, however not under the indifferent influence of forgiveness, of God's forgiving grace, every such sin is a greater evil than cancer! A greater misery than a stroke of gout! A greater calamity than a bleeding wound!
A greater tragedy than financial ruin! For it is not the most terrible tragedy if someone dies of cancer or a stroke of gout, but if someone dies of unforgiven sin! What good is it if you condemn me to health and wealth? God's greatest help to you is not to live twenty, thirty, forty years longer on this earth, but to live forever! Jesus sees our life, our destiny, in a larger perspective. Not only to the death line, but also to eternal life! That is why he says to this great sick man, who is almost at the point of death, "Your sins are forgiven you". For sin, even the smallest, is a deadly poison, a deadly contagion, which only one thing can neutralize, neutralize: forgiveness! If God says to someone through Jesus, "Your sins are forgiven you". It is sin against which nothing works. No injection, no pedagogy, no spiritual cure, no yoga practice, no strong will, no self-discipline, no prayer! Nothing but forgiveness! There is nothing to do with sin but to surrender to God's forgiving grace and live. That is why Jesus had to suffer and die so much to speak like this. It cost Him a terrible price to make forgiveness of sins true.
Do you hear, do you feel that he is really saying it to you now? To you personally, directly! Maybe that's not why you came, maybe that's not what you wanted to hear. Maybe you are disappointed. But Jesus is getting to the very root of your life, your problems, all your troubles! Can you finally hear with your heart what he is saying? Do you really need, do you really accept what he gives you: forgiveness of sins? This is the only real help you need! Without it, you can't have good health, a nice apartment, a raise, a life without danger. But without it, there is no eternal life and no peace in your heart! Oh, Jesus speaks no evil of any man when he says, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." It doesn't mean that the pastor has said the formula for the forgiveness of sins again, now all is well. It's all right, let's go home! The greatest thing in the world is that God is willing to forgive you too! But that is not enough, this forgiveness must be accepted! We all hear forgiveness, but it will only be yours if you personally reach out your hand of faith, receive it, and thank Jesus! It is an invisible spiritual move, but the forgiveness you accept will not remain invisible in your life! You cannot hide the fact that you have received it! Because where there is forgiveness, there is renewed life! Where Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven you", He also says, "Arise, take up your bed, and go home" #Acts19.11. Imagine the joy this man with a stroke of goodness must have had at home when he went home! Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is paralysis, there is a miracle, there is joy and peace! There life begins again! There is what we read here, "Every man dreamed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw such a thing!" #ApCsel19.12. Those who have known him so far look up in amazement and say: Wow, what happened to this man? What happened is that he met Jesus and was forgiven of his sins! Oh, if that could happen to you! So let us sing the familiar hymn. Listen to the words and let this song be a personal confession of your soul before the Lord!
Upon the Lamb of God I'll lay down my sin.
And my soul shall find peace at the foot of the cross.
I will bring my heart to the Lord with all my heart,
I'll cleanse all my filth
In the blood of Jesus, In the blood of Jesus.
Broken and empty I give myself to him,
To make me new, to fill the void.
All my troubles and sorrows I give to the Lord,
He bears all my burdens,
He wipes away my sorrow, He wipes away my grief.
Standing on an eternal rock My soul rests;
I rest in my Father's house' In the grace of Jesus.
I worship His name now above all things;
Jesus is my King,
Answer my prayer, answer my prayer.
I want to be like him, Humble and gentle,
To follow my Father's command
I'd like to dwell with him, Where the heavenly host
In glorious harmony
Eternal prayers chant, Eternal prayers chant.
Canto 459 v. 1-4.
Amen
Date: 23 August 1959.