[ Today's Readings ]
Let us hear Jesus say, "I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home."And let us hear him say, "Child, your sins are forgiven."
Let us surround ourselves with people who can help bring us to Jesus when we ourselves do not have the strength to go to him.
What we have heard and know,
and what our fathers have declared to us,
we will declare to the generation to come
The glorious deeds of the LORD and his strength.
Let us receive the healing of soul and body that Jesus has for us. Let all who hear be united in faith so that it will be a profit to us.
God is calling us onward and upward to the rest he has in store for us. He himself rested after finishing his work in creation. He guided Israel to rest in the promised land. These were both to teach us to long for the final rest of Heaven. That is why the promise of entering into his rest remains. But to arrive their we must first make it through our own work, our own pilgrimage. And to do that we can't be paralyzed by sin.
Therefore, let us strive to enter into that rest,
so that no one may fall after the same example of disobedience.
Jesus himself has the authority to forgive us and to heal us and to send us on out on the journey he has for every one of us. If we realize how paralyzed we actually are, how we are not truly free to live the gospel with abandon, then this healing will astonish us every bit as much as the healing of the paralytic astonished everyone in his day.
They were all astounded
and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this."
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