A NEW REALITY
Mark 2:1-28
Right from the outset Jesus had to battle being pigeonholed. He is not there to teach people how to be better; how to be more compliant with the Law. Something new has happened. The bridegroom is here. A new reality has arrived. But people keep making reference to the old.
At the centre of this new reality is forgiveness and Jesus quickly got people asking, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Exactly. But who can say to this man “Get up, take your mat and walk” and make it happen?
The currency of this new reality is faith, and so we are told, when he saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus sought to help people understand that this new reality means that the old paradigm must change. When forgiveness can be offered to a person who is just lying there, paralysed, not having done anything yet, then the old paradigm of law and punishment, sacrifices and offerings, has been preempted. But it is a change that is very difficult to accept because we have long accepted the notion that man must be restrained; if set free sin will abound. And if man has sinned, then he must pay for his sin. Nothing can change that.
And this is what we need to ask ourselves too, whether we are guilty of pouring new wine into old wineskins. Whether our spirituality is characterised by harshness and discipline; whether our Christian faith is a joyless restraining from sin rather than a passionate expression of love and righteousness; and whether church is listening to a series of things we must do and we are taught to constantly confess our failure to do so.
If this is the case for you, then it is time to listen to Jesus: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”