Luke 5:17-26

Luke repeats the theme: the power of God on Jesus’ ministry. 

Why did Luke choose this miracle along with the healing of the leper? The healing of the leper was about removing shame through healing. This healing is about the forgiveness of sins in situation of shame. 

Big Ideas:

Importance of Community

The Authority of Jesus to forgive. 

-People doing anything necessary to get to Jesus. 

We need a healthy dose of desperation for Jesus. It doesn’t take much for us to put Jesus and the community of Christ in the back burner. 

Mark tells us this story happens in Capernaum. Jesus may have gotten a house in Capernaum since he no longer was going back to Nazareth. 99% of houses didn’t have tile roofs in Galilee. It is likely that since Luke is writing to Greek readers he is contextualizing for his audience. This does not water down the truth of the message. 

1. Importance of Community 

Jesus sees their faith knit together- the man and his friends. The individual’s need became the need of the friends. This was super rare. Most crippled people became beggars and had no one to take care of them. We need each other! Hyper-individualism is dangerous! I need someone who will carry me when I need to be carried and vise versa. We don’t empathize with each other’s wants, needs, struggles, and triumphs. We pick them up. They are ours as well. This is practical: mowing lawn, bringing food, watching kids. And it is spiritual: praying, worshipping on their behalf. 

Jesus could have stopped the friends at any point because what they were doing would have taken awhile and been really obvious. But he let it play out to show the full effect of the community pursuing Jesus together. 

2. The Authority of Jesus to Forgive

Jesus forgives the man…that’s not what he came for. The Pharisees start thinking Jesus committed blasphemy, but He didn’t. He did not dishonor God/misuse His name or call people to worship another god. They are offended because only God can forgive sins. It was a very clear claim to deity by Jesus. 

Does Jesus mean that it’s easier to forgive sins or heal? No one can prove that sins have been forgiven. Healing would be proved/disproven in the moment. On the other hand no man can forgive sins so it would be impossible for anyone other than God so that would be more difficult. 

If two impossible statements are made and then the visible one happens it can be assumed that the invisible one happened also. 

“Son of Man” is used to mean strong, terrifying, warrior messiah and Jesus explains that He is actually here to forgive. He has authority to judge and to forgive. 

There was a common belief in Judaism that God withheld miraculous healing unless they have repented and had their sins forgiven first. If this person is healed without their sins being forgiven then they were not healed by God, but rather a demon. Jesus did things in the exact order they would expect the Messiah to do things in.