Healing of the Paralytic (Mark 2, 1-12)
Homily of His Excellency Selim Sfeir
Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus
Healing of the Paralytic
Mark 2, 1-12
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Jesus again entered the city of Capernaum. It was reported that he was at home, and immediately many people gathered, so many that there was no room even at the door. Jesus was proclaiming the Word to them. Then four men arrived, carrying a paralytic. As they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed part of the roof over the place where he was. They lowered the paralytic on his bed, right in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, "Child, your sins are forgiven." What a disappointment!
Jesus' words were a great disappointment to these people who had worked so hard to bring their sick man to him. They had a specific need, but Jesus seemed to ignore their request and said to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven." All their effort seemed in vain, and they did not get what they wanted. If only they had understood the meaning of Jesus' words, they would have realized that what he was offering their sick man was greater, nobler and more important than any request they could have made to him.
The biblical text often uses the house as a metaphor for the human soul, which houses "the Self". If we apply this idea to this passage, we find ourselves facing ourselves.
We are like these four men, carrying the burdens of our lives, eager to meet Jesus, but prevented from reaching our goal by the world around us. Yet their faith was great. They did not give up, but opened the roof of the house and lowered their sick down to Jesus. Sometimes we, too, struggle to enter the depths of ourselves in order to meet him, for God is present in every human heart. As the apostle Paul says: "though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:27-28)
Disappointment comes when we come before God without understanding his purpose in "our house", and bring him a list of demands that serve our own interests, forgetting that he came not to fulfill our immediate desires, but because "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) The apostle Paul also declares, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1Timothy 1:15)
Sometimes we turn away from the ultimate goal God has for us, attaching ourselves to desires that are sincere but not the purpose of Jesus' coming to us. As a result, our hopes are disappointed when our prayers are not answered according to our will.
Dear brothers and sisters, God's greatest will for our lives is the salvation of our souls, and the miracles he performs around us are not the end in themselves, but the means he sometimes uses to lead us to believe in him.
In this blessed season of Lent, God is asking us, like the four men who carried the paralytic to him, to return to "our house", that is, to ourselves, like the prodigal son returning to himself, without succumbing to the obstacles of the world that prevent us from reaching him, but to "dig through the roof of our lives" and "lower our sin-paralyzed soul" to him. Yes, to come down to him, because he came down to us humbly, because we don't find him haughty, but he wants us to come down to him as Zacchaeus came down from his tree to receive him in "his house", for descent, that is humble repentance, is an essential condition for meeting Jesus in the depths of ourselves.
In this Lenten season, God wants us to accept his gift, which transcends all our material needs. He wants us to accept his only Son as the savior of our lives, forgiving our sins so that we can truly become his children. John the apostle tells us in his gospel: "But to all who received him, to those who believe in his name, (God) gave the power to become children of God." (John 1:12)
† Selim Sfeir
Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus