St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church

Sermon for Sunday, February 23, 2003

Seventh Sunday After Epiphany




Feeling Caged

Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already - you can see it

now! … I am the God who forgives your sins, I do this because of who I am.

 

Prayer

 

We don't have to look too far to find people who are trapped. In our newspaper we read of people trapped in a war situations. We read reports of the suffering, and the hunger, and the grief and the dying as people in many places in our world. There are those trapped in uncertain economic situations, and drought and hunger. They don't know where their next meal is coming from, or where they will be sleeping that night. Maybe they don't know how they can possibly pay the bills, or find enough money to buy the essentials to keep a family going.

There are people who are trapped in ill-feeling. Maybe there is ill-feeling between members of the family, maybe there is bad blood between neighbours, maybe there has been a long running feud between once good friends that has never been resolved.

There are those who are trapped in fear. There are those whose daily lives are filled with fear - the wife of the alcoholic husband, the child who is afraid of what will happen to him/her when mum and dad split up; the elderly person whose failing strength is afraid of what will become of him/her in their last days.

There are those who are trapped in the past. They are haunted by memories of the past that they can't let go. Maybe something for which they cannot forgive themselves, maybe trapped in grief over the loss of someone dear to them.

In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 2:1-12) we hear of a man trapped in a paralyzed body. Put yourself in the place of this man. How would you feel knowing you’d never  climb a hill, take a walk along the beach on a summer’s evening, run up and down a football field, or carry out a normal days work? This man is permanently trapped in a world that is reliant on everyone else.

No one knows how this man got to be paralyzed and we can probably assume like any normal person he had seen all kinds of doctors and tried so many programs and cures. In fact, it doesn’t matter what we are trapped in we try to find someone who can cure us, or help us; we try to find some way of escape.

Those who are trapped in war or cruel governments try to escape to safety. Those who are economically suppressed try to go somewhere they will be better off and secure. Those trapped in fear of their abusive partner seek a way out. That’s natural and normal.

Four friends of the paralyzed man hear about Jesus coming to their neighbourhood. They knew how much their friend wanted to be released from his paralysis. So they picked up his stretcher bed and carried him to the house where Jesus was staying. When they got there they couldn’t get even close to Jesus.

The house and the street outside were packed with people wanting to get near enough to hear what he had to say. Now these friends weren’t fair-weather friends who easily gave up. They were determined. They climb up on the roof and started to tear it apart shingle by shingle until they had a hole big enough to lower the paralyzed man.

This must have been quite disturbing to the owner of the house who was watching his roof being destroyed. But there was the man lying on his stretcher right in front of Jesus. Jesus looked at the four men on the roof. He saw their love for the their paralyzed friend.

He saw their courage and daring as they went to such extremes for their friend.
He saw their faith in God’s power to heal. Jesus turned to the man and said, "My son, your sins are forgiven." Then after Jesus had calmed those who said that he had blasphemed because only God can forgive sin, he said to the man, "I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home!"

The man had never felt anything in his legs before. He felt new life in his once dead legs. He stood up for the first time. He could walk, without any physiotherapy. The gospel writer tells us simply, "While they all watched, the man got up, picked up his mat, and hurried away."

Jesus had intervened in the life of this paralyzed man and he left the house that day a "new" person. He went away not only with a renewed body, but also renewed  spiritually, as well. This is the "new thing" that God spoke of through the prophet Isaiah when he said, "Watch for the new thing I am going to do." The "new thing" that Jesus brings is healing and help for those who feel caged. What are the things that have us cased? What is it that us need God to free you from?

Do we need to be set free from a past that nips at our heels with angry memories of past failures? Do past failures continue to haunt us and make us discouraged about our abilities and our self-worth. Are there sins in our past that we have confessed but we are not fully convinced that God or those who love us could have possibly forgiven us? Is there something someone has done that we have never gotten over?

God says to you: "Watch for the new thing I am going to do." Jesus went to Calvary just because we have been caged. He suffered and died there because he knew that there is no way we could free yourselves from sin and the mark that it leaves on our life. His death means we are forgiven. His dying means you are released from the crippling effect that sin and past failures have on us.

Are you trapped in some kind of bitterness? Someone has offended you, you have been upset by something someone did or said and you have kept that bitterness in your heart for years and years.

Are you trapped in the temptation to do the same old sins over and over again and you seem helpless to stop? Selfishness, jealousy, abusive language, grumpiness and being hard to get on with. No matter how many times you say "that’s the last time" there always seems to be a next time.

Maybe you are trapped in loneliness, or the emptiness you have inside because you have lost someone you love, or to be set free from constant worry and feeling depressed about life’s problems.

Maybe you are one for whom life at the moment is not a bed of roses because of illness and uncertainty about what the future holds for you. Maybe you are trapped in the fear of dying and what will happen after you take your last breath. Jesus healed that man trapped in paralysis.

He took care of his body, renewing it and giving him a whole new life free of the worries and the uncertainty that the paralysis brought him. Jesus also renewed him spiritually when he said, "My son, your sins are forgiven."

Jesus is concerned for the whole of us – both body and soul - and so when we find ourselves trapped in something that we seem to be helpless to do anything about, he is the one who can really help.

If something traps you that is making life unpleasant; if you are trapped by something that you would rather be without, then Jesus is the one to turn to for help. Jesus has the power and authority to help us - to forgive us, heal us, and to strengthen and encourage us to see a particular difficulty through.

This I strongly believe, as I have experienced this personally. At the first Easter God said: Watch for the new thing I am going to do. And it certainly was something new. God rescued his people who were cased in sin and death. He rescued his people by sacrificing his own Son on a cross. The new thing that God did was to offer us forgiveness through the death of Jesus, his Son.

He died to freed us from the consequences, the things the caged us. Jesus truly is the way, the truth and the life that leads to our heavenly home. Without Jesus we would be trapped forever in our sin. Without Jesus we would have no hope, and knowing Jesus, we know hope.

The Good news is that at our baptism God said to us, Watch for the new thing I am going to do’. Through those few drops of water God gave us a new life – a life where all our sins are forgiven. Through those few drops of water God gave us the promise of a new life in heaven forever after your journey on this earth has been completed.

Through those drops of water at our baptism God gave us a new life to be lived out right now as we give up our selfish ways and follow Jesus and show love and kindness to those in our family, at work, in your neighbourhood.

Through those drops of water at our baptism God promised to be there for us when life takes a turn for the worst, when illness, grief, fear or despondency set in.

Through the water of baptism God brings comfort and newness when we are discouraged, and distressed about the power that sin has in our life. "Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already - you can see it now! … I am the God who forgives your sins, I do this because of who I am."

What is your particular need right now? God says to you, "Watch for the new thing I am going to do." If you want to walk on water, you have got to get out of the boat. Just like the paralyzed man in the gospel text who had to be carried on his mat by his friends. We all need help from dedicated friends.

Our mat may be an inability to trust, or paralyzing fear. The only way out and get near to Jesus is to let trustworthy friends see the mat of our brokenness and ask them for help, which becomes the connecting point for deeper relationships. God meets our need graciously, and lovingly.

He wants to be the Lord of our lives and be there for us when we are trapped and cage by circumstances of life beyond our control. God wants to be our God and invites each and every one of us to come to him in prayer with our needs and trust him to help in time of need.

 

The Bible promises,

"God is our shelter and strength,

always ready to help in times of trouble" (Psalm 46:1).

Amen.

Rev. Samuel King-Kabu

February 23, 2003


Prepared by Roger Kenner
St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church - Montreal
February, 2003