"Where Our Lord Is, There Is Forgiveness" Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity October 5, 2014 Matthew 9:1–8
Some people brought to [Jesus] a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” Where our Lord is, there is forgiveness. When God is present, forgiveness is the order of the day. In other words, who God is is life and what God does is forgive. God is not everywhere in order to bring forgiveness. He is present in His Son. He brings forgiveness specifically in His Son, Jesus Christ. Where Jesus is, there God is. And where God is, there is forgiveness. Where our Lord is, there is forgiveness. And where there is forgiveness, as we are taught in the Catechism, there is also life and salvation. When you’re in the presence of God, you’re not just in the presence of the Deity. You are in the presence of the one who is life, who gives life, who forgives. Now you may reject this life He gives. You may refuse the forgiveness He offers. But the reason you don’t have the forgiveness is because you have rejected it. In the Gospel reading, the paralyzed man’s sins were forgiven. Period. His friends brought him to Jesus and Jesus forgave his sins. God’s forgiveness is not an abstract love. It is forgiveness in His Son. It is in the Person of Jesus that forgiveness is found. God delivered personal forgiveness to the paralyzed man in the actual person of Jesus who actually spoke to him that forgiveness. Where He is there is forgiveness. There is no forgiveness apart from Jesus. You can be forgiven by someone you sin against. But in your flesh you are corrupt and you have guilt. God forgives you of your sin but His promise is good only in His Son. Where He is, there is forgiveness. Any attempt at ridding yourself of your sin and your guilt apart from Jesus only entrenches you more deeply in your sin. The paralyzed man had a deeper problem than not being able to walk. He was in need of forgiveness. That’s what Jesus gave him. His paralysis is a picture of our inability to move toward God and appease Him. In our sinful flesh we are unable to move, unable to save ourselves, unable to rid ourselves of our sin. God made the move to us, He gave His Son. Where He is, there is our forgiveness. The forgiveness we receive from Christ is received by faith. The faith of the recipient is faith that comes only from the one who the faith is in. The Gospel reading says that when Jesus saw their faith He forgave the man his sins. Where our Lord is, there faith is given. Faith is only as good as its object. Where Jesus is, there true faith is given. Jesus refers simply to faith, not genuine faith. The faith He gives is true, genuine faith. It is that trust which grasps the very person and work of Jesus Himself. His presence and His word that He speaks bring about not only the forgiveness He speaks but the faith which latches on to that promise of forgiveness. “He said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.’” This faith of the paralyzed man wasn’t generic faith. It was personal faith. It was faith in the one standing before him. True faith is faith in Jesus Christ and that means that true faith is only that faith which looks outside of itself. One who has faith in Christ doesn’t point to himself and how great of faith he has. He rather looks to himself and sees that he is spiritually paralyzed, spiritual unable to move and do anything for God to gain forgiveness. His faith is in the God who gives His Son. His faith is in the one in whom there is forgiveness. Where our Lord is there is forgiveness because where our Lord is is coming into the flesh among us. Where He is is coming into our realm and taking our place on the cross. Where He is coming to you in your life the ways He has promised—in your Baptism, in Holy Communion, in the words spoken to you of Absolution—I forgive you all your sins. Faith that looks within is faith that trusts in the fallen sinful flesh. Faith that looks to Christ is faith that is the recipient of what Christ gives, and that is forgiveness. The forgiveness of Jesus is based in His authority. Jesus became a man. Being a man, some did not believe He was anything more than that. Some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” And certainly Jesus would have been had He not been God Himself in the flesh. The scribes showed themselves to reject God since they rejected the means in which God came to us. He came in the flesh, in the Person of Jesus. The issue here is authority. An individual Christian has the authority to forgive a person who sins against him. But there is no authority to forgive others categorically as Jesus did with the paralyzed man. Jesus’ response to the scribes was this, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For 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 then said to the paralytic—‘Rise, pick up your bed and go home.’ And he rose and went home.” Jesus has this authority because He is God. God makes Himself known to us in His Son. God has authority on earth to forgive sins and that is what He has done. Jesus, on the cross, accomplished salvation for the world. Full and free forgiveness was won on the cross by God in bringing His righteous judgment against us on His Son. It is because of this God in the flesh standing before the paralyzed man forgave his sins. It is because of this God in the flesh forgives you in your Baptism and in Absolution and in the Lord’s Supper. This is after all, what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. His will is that we be forgiven. His forgiving us is done in His Son. Where He is there is forgiveness. God’s will is shown to us and made known to us in His Son. Where Jesus was in the flesh standing before the paralyzed man to forgive him, He is in the flesh for us in His Sacraments. Therefore, where Baptism is, there is forgiveness. Where the Lord’s Supper is, there is forgiveness. Our Lord is present in those means in which He comes to us and in which He forgives us. When we are brought to the font to be Baptized Jesus looks at our faith. In that very Sacrament of Baptism He gives the very faith needed in order to be forgiven. It is faith which trusts in the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ Himself. When we are brought to be Baptized it is on the authority of Jesus Himself, not our own. That is how we know that we are forgiven. Our Lord has done it Himself, in the flesh, through the faith He gives us, by His authority. Where our Lord is, there is forgiveness. And where our Lord is, there is also life and salvation—in body and in soul, both now and forever. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
