It sucks to have your preconceptions shattered. The earth is flat; no, it’s round. Our race is superior; oops, it’s not. Global warming is a conspiracy concocted by tyrannical leftists; oops, there goes the polar ice cap.
Meanwhile,
back at the house with the man-made skylight…
Read
Luke 5:17-26
The
man comes for healing and gets that, and forgiveness too. The Pharisees, threatened and scrutinizing,
hear Jesus declare forgiveness of sins for the paralyzed man. Their blasphemy sensor is screaming. How dare Jesus forgive this man’s sins? That is something God, and God alone, can
do.
The
Pharisees are right of course. Correct
as usual, King Friday. For Jesus to
forgive sins is tantamount to his declaring himself God.
Later
Judaism would teach that God does not help sinners or liars. If that man is paralyzed, he must have done
something to deserve it, sinner that he is (or at least his parents, see the
gospel of John chapter 9, verse 2). And
they were quite confident that God does not appear in human form.
The
Pharisees were quite certain about a lot of things. It sucks to have your preconceptions
shattered, unless you have power and you can silence the truth tellers.
Luke
presents a Jesus who forgives sins, who is divine, who is God made man. The divinity of Jesus is the plain teaching
of the New Testament.
And
because Jesus is God, he has power to forgive sins, yours included. He is able to fill that God-shaped vacuum we
feverishly try to fill our hearts with anything besides him.
Come
to Jesus on your own terms and your preconceptions will be shattered too. It may be preconceptions about Christianity,
or about Christians when you get up close.
It may be preconceptions about yourself: you didn’t deserve to be
violated the way you were. You are more
deeply loved than you ever dared to imagine.
It will certainly be preconceptions about Jesus. He’s good.
He’s powerful. He’ll change your
life. But you can’t control him. Aslan is not a tame lion.
