Your sins are forgiven!

[AI translation] This story is about what every human being needs most. This story is the most glorious 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 Jesus, the living God speaks to us, helps us, lifts us up, heals our lives! Let us see: this story is about us, about Jesus' encounter with us, with you and with me!There is a strange encounter here: someone is taken to Jesus. A wretch, a sick man, a man with a stroke. Here he is, lying helpless at the feet of Jesus. An unknown man, we don't even know his name. We know nothing about him, but perhaps that's not important. A case of human suffering, pain, misery. He himself says not a word. He does not complain, he does not cry out for help, Jesus, have mercy on me, help me, heal me! No. He just lies on the ground, motionless. He doesn't even need anyone to speak, the situation itself speaks. The misery itself cries out for help. The whole situation is one big cry to the sky! The way he lies there helpless is the loudest cry for help without words!
Perhaps it is for this very reason that the man has remained anonymous, that each one may substitute his own name for his situation, each one may know himself in it. In any case, I would like to continue the story in the sense that the man who has been laid before Jesus is you! And me! It's about us!
The man in the story was brought to Jesus by four other friends or acquaintances. Maybe someone else brought you here too. Someone called you, someone said, "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. Maybe it wasn't your heart that brought you here, but your feet. Or maybe it was curiosity, wondering what the church would be about. Or a desire to hear a good sermon. No matter who or what brought you here, you are here before Jesus, like the man in the story. And you're just as miserable and wretched a person as that man with the gut punch. Not everyone's life is as miserable as that man in the story, but everyone has their own physical and spiritual ailments, burdens, problems, pains, which weigh on their lives as cripplingly as this man's illness.
We are all sick. Some people have a sick family life, others have a sick heart or soul, some have a sick relationship with their fellow human beings. Everybody is in pain. As I know you, or many of you, I know how much misery, brokenness, unresolvedness there is in someone's life. What sorrow or lies, what physical and spiritual depths one or another lives in, who is now sitting here beautifully as if there is nothing wrong with them. I know how much wickedness, deceit and secret sin can ensnare someone that no one would ever suspect. And what you must know about yourself! How Jesus sees you! And me! I don't think His eye can see any difference between you and that good-for-nothing man. He is only a type of the disability, the helplessness of human life.
Before Jesus, we are all like a heap of misery, a heap of misery crying out soundlessly for help! Well, you are the man of whom this story is about! With your pitiful fate, your life in need of help, you are here before Jesus, you are meeting Him! I say most emphatically that you are here before Jesus with your own misery. I know that Jesus came into the world because of our lives! The very person of Jesus means that God in the unseen heavens heard the loud or silent groaning, the crying or silent pain of our lives, and came in person, visibly, to meet the afflicted, to look them in the eye, to say something to them, to help them! Now here he is before the benighted Jesus! You and Jesus are now meeting!
Everyone is on tenterhooks, waiting to see what Jesus will do, what he will say, how he will help the poor man. And suddenly he really speaks, in a mighty, majestic, royal, divine way: "My son, your sins are forgiven you." (Mark 2:5) Let's be honest, that's not what those people there were expecting. Nobody expected that. They may not have said it, but they felt disappointment in their hearts. He would heal him, deliver him from this impossible situation. They came to Jesus as someone who takes the last chance. If they can't do that, there is no hope! That is why it was so important to get the patient here! I had to! Only Jesus could help! And now Jesus is saying that your sins are forgiven. There was no question of sins! Who asked Him to do this? Wasn't that the purpose of all this effort! All right, all right, this patient's sins are forgiven, but what good is it? He still lies there helpless! We can take him on our shoulders again, take him home as a hopeless case for ever.- Does not Jesus speak to the problem when he forgives the sins of a man in physical misery? Is there not some misunderstanding here?
That is exactly the case today! What do we churchgoing Christians expect from Jesus a thousand times more than forgiveness of our sins? The very least we ask of God is what He wants to give us, what He wants to help us with, to forgive us of our sins! When we sit here on Sundays with our ruined, half-finished, weary lives, we don't expect - let's be honest - Him to say a liberating word for our sins. Oh, our minor or major sins are no longer painful, no longer unpleasant, no longer considered so dangerous, we are used to them, we have grown accustomed to them. They have become our nature, we have come to terms with them, we have come to terms with them: this is how I am, and then we will deal with this little sin with "God". It's not the sin that we ask Jesus to help us with, but rather, for example, to solve our housing problem, or to finally pay us the 200 forint raise. Or that the illness of which we are showing symptoms should not have a dangerous outcome. Or in solving a crisis in the family, or in getting rid of the problems that threaten our existence. Yes, this is the help we are looking to God for, and this is the help we have come for. We are waiting for Him to encourage us in this world full of fears. Comfort me, help me with my daily worries, my troubles, pull me out of the doldrums. And then He says, "Son, your sins are forgiven you. We fear a toothache more than our sins. That's not the problem! That's not our problem!
Yes it is! Says Jesus! This is your problem: your sin. This is your problem and your 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, more dangerous, more miserable, deeper trouble: your sins! That sin, big or small, which is already part of your nature, which you have come to know so well, which you may secretly love, or which you hate yourself for and hide, is the chief sin of your life, which, if it were known about you, might get you thrown out of your job, might no longer be welcomed by your neighbour. Yes, that secret fornication, or that foeticide, or that tax evasion, or that lie, all the little and great wickedness that lies behind your well-bred manners, your smiling face: that is your real, fatal evil!
Brothers and sisters, I would like to emphasize this: every sin, however habitual, common, cherished or detested, if it is not covered by the forgiveness of sins, is a greater evil than cancer, a greater misery than a stroke of gout, a greater peril than a financial bankruptcy. It is not the most terrible tragedy if a man dies of cancer or of a stroke of gout, but if a man dies with unforgiven sins! What good is it if you condemn me to health and wealth? God's greatest help to you is not to live twenty or thirty years longer on this earth, but to live forever! Jesus sees our life, our destiny, in a larger perspective. Not just to the death line, but also, all of eternal life. That is why he says to this very sick man, already on the brink of life and death, "Your sins are forgiven you".
For the smallest sin is a deadly poison, a deadly contagion, which only one thing can 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 prayer, no strong will or self-discipline! Nothing but forgiveness! Jesus alone has the power to do that on this earth! Only He can say, "Your sins are forgiven you". Behind that word is the cross! Jesus had to suffer and die so much to be able to speak like that. It cost him a lot to make the forgiveness of sins true.
Can you hear, can you feel Jesus saying this to you? Maybe this is not why you came, maybe this is not what you wanted to hear, maybe you are disappointed. But Jesus is getting to the very root of your life, your problems, your troubles. Will you finally hear with your heart what he is saying? Will you finally accept what he has to give, forgiveness of sins? This is the only real help you need. Without it, you can have good health, a nice apartment, a raise, a life free from danger, but without it, there is no peace in your heart and no eternal life! Jesus does not speak for anyone's trouble when he says: "Your sins are forgiven you".
But beware now! It doesn't mean that the pastor has said the forgiveness formula again, it's all right now, let's go home! The greatest thing in the world is that God is willing to forgive even you! But that is not enough! You must accept this forgiveness too! Everyone sounds like forgiveness, but yours will only be if you ask for it! If you reach out your hand of faith, take it for yourself, and thank Jesus. Although it is an invisible spiritual move, the forgiveness you receive will not remain invisible in your life. You cannot hide the fact that you have received it. 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" (Mark 2:11). Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is relief from paralysis, there is a miracle, there is joy and peace, there is life beginning again! There what we read here happens: "Everyone was amazed and glorified God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this'" (Mark 2:11): Wow, what happened to this man! What happened to this child? Imagine the joy at home when this previously sick man went home! What happened? That he met Jesus and his sins were forgiven! Oh, if only that could really happen to you now!
So let us sing now in response to the Word. Let us listen to the text and let this song be a personal confession of our souls before the Lord!
Upon the Lamb of God I'll lay down my sins, And my soul will be at peace at the foot of the cross. I'll bring my heart to the Lord with all my heart, And cleanse it from all filth
In the blood of Jesus, In the blood of Jesus.
Broken and empty, I give myself to him, That he may make me new, He may 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 everlasting 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 meek, Faithful as he, to follow my Father's commandments. I would dwell with him, Where the heavenly host In glorious harmony'
(Canto 459, verses 1-4)
Amen
Date: 23 August 1959.