Month: December 2014

Dear Friends,

It really was a very crazy scene. The crowds were swelling around Jesus. He was teaching. He was healing. He was casting out demons. And anyone who was anyone was there to see it all. Luke says the crowd grew so large that “one day as [Jesus] was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there” (5:17). There were so many of them pressed in around Jesus that some men, carrying their paralytic friend, couldn’t get him in to see Jesus. So they did they only reasonable thing they cold think of. They climbed up on the roof of the house, broke out the pick axes, shovels, sledgehammers, and dynamite and opened a hole in the roof. Then, using ropes, they lowered their paralytic friend right down in front of the crowd next to Jesus and “when Jesus saw their faith, he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven'” (vs. 20). And the man who had once been paralyzed leaped into the air dancing around. The pharisees and teaches of the law began to cheer. Even the Chief Priest got involved hoisting the man into the air so he could body surf the crowd of followers of God. It was all going great until he accidentally knocked old Caiaphas’ hat off his head. In a moment the crowd went silent staring in fear at what he might do, but Caiaphas only laughed and picked his hat up off the floor. Who could be angry on a day like this? A man who as paralyzed now can walk. At least that is how we want the story to go, but it didn’t go that way. The reality of a man who would never walk again miraculously walking was quickly lost in a theological technicality. Jesus had not played by their rules. Jesus has not set a man free in the way they knew God set men free. Time and time again the devout would fail to see that the good news was being preached to the poor, prisoners were set free, the blind recovered their sight, the oppressed were released, and the year of the Lord’s favor proclaimed (4:18-19) all because he wasn’t doing it properly.

The good news is, after 2,000 years, we finally know better. Or, maybe we don’t. Several years ago I read Billy Graham’s biography. The one thing that stood out to me was the amount of vitriol and hatred that was directed toward him early in his ministry, and one some levels continues to this day. The truth of people being saved and set free did not matter. He was not doing it the right way.

What about you? Have there been times when you have been quick to criticize another because it made you uncomfortable or didn’t fit your understanding all the while missing the miracle that just happened in front of you?

Blessings,
Pastor Stephen