The key question in today’s Gospel is about forgiveness and who has the authority and the power to forgive sins. Some of the Jewish scribes maintain: “Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus has just healed a paralytic lowered before him by his four friends: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus notes not only the faith of the paralytic but also the faith of the four men who lowered him down before Jesus. Jesus saw “their” faith and healed the man.
Some scribes accuse Jesus of blasphemy: ““Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?” Jesus challenges them by both healing and forgiving the paralytic. Jesus wants them to know “that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth.”
While God alone and Jesus as the Son of God have the authority to forgive sins, all of us have the power and the authority to forgive one another. Sometimes forgiveness is easy but sometimes it is very hard, especially if we have been hurt deeply. Forgiveness is not a switch that we can just turn on to forget all the hurt and pain we may have suffered. The path to forgiveness is experiencing the love and forgiveness of God. The experience of the overwhelming love and mercy of God can empower us to make the first step to forgiving one another.
Jesus teaches this way of forgiveness in his response to Peter’s question: “Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22). Jesus’ answer is not just that we must forgive seventy-seven time. In the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant Jesus teaches that our power and ability to forgive comes out of our experience as “debtor…owed…a huge amount” and were forgiven. God says to us: “I forgive you.”
Image: “Jan Luyken’s Jesus 2. The Paralytic Lowered through the Roof. Phillip Medhurst Collection” by Phillip Medhurst is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.