In today’s first reading from the book of Genesis, God tells Abraham to kill his only son Isaac “whom you love” and offer him as a burnt offering. We can’t even begin to imagine such a thing. Why would God tell Abraham to sacrifice his only son? Isn’t He supposed to be a God of love? How could a loving God tell a father to kill his own son? If you remember, Abraham and Sarah could not have children and Isaac was a gift from God in their old age, but now He wanted to take his life back.
The only clue as to why God would tell Abraham to do such a thing, lies in the words that He used to describe Isaac: “whom you love”. It seems that God was jealous. He thought Abraham loved Isaac more than he loved Him. This beautiful gift of life that God had given Abraham had become more important to him than God, or so He thought. And, can you understand why? Sarah and Abraham probably gave Isaac a lot of extra attention because he was an only child. Isaac was so precious to them because they thought they would never have a child of their own. But, God was jealous of Abraham’s love for Isaac, so he tested Abraham to see who he loved the most, Him or Isaac?
God seems almost human in the readings today. That is all any of us want, is to be loved and God is no different. He wants to be loved too. We are supposed to love Him more than anyone else in our lives, even our own families. There should be no one that is more important to us than God. But, is that really true for us? Is God the most important thing in our entire life? We say so, but do our actions speak as loud as our words? Can God accuse us of loving someone more than Him? The battle of love in Abraham’s heart gave way to the genuine sentiments of his heart, which proved he actually did love God more than Isaac. He didn’t sin by loving Isaac too much, because He loved God more than his son.
That might not have been the case for the young paralyzed man that was brought to Jesus on a stretcher in today’s gospel. There was something this man loved more than God, because Christ said to him “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Sin is always a form of selfishness, or thinking of one’s self more than God or other people.
We do not know the circumstances of why this young man was paralyzed but it is possible that it was a construction accident, or he was playing around with his friends and caused an accident. Maybe someone died because of what he did, but he lived even though he was paralyzed. Maybe he had a lot of guilt over what happened, over whatever it was that he did. This is pure speculation, but Christ had compassion on him for whatever reason this man felt guilty. Perhaps when Jesus saw the faith of the people that carried him, it touched his heart. Maybe they had already forgiven this young man, but he could not seem to forgive himself. We do not know what it was, but Christ noticed the sins and the guilt inside of him more than his broken body. Christ always seemed to have the ability to look into a person’s heart and know the true state of their soul, of what they really needed in order to be healed.
Jesus wanted to heal the paralyzed man’s soul because his broken heart and sins were more important than the man’s broken body, because he told him to “take heart”. Jesus encouraged him that there was hope for healing the brokenness inside of him, and he said the words that he needed to hear the most: “your sins are forgiven”. What a relief he must have felt to hear these words, just like it is for us too when we go to confession. Sometimes our sins seems so serious that nothing can ever make them right again, but somehow Jesus always does. He heals the brokenness inside of us too, every time we go to confession.
The miracle that Jesus performed at the end of today’s gospel was performed as much for the scribes and other people gathered around the paralyzed man, as it was for the man himself. The miracles that Christ performed was usually for the benefit of everyone in the community and not always just for the person he healed. In this case, Jesus proved that he has the authority to forgive sins, by healing this paralyzed man. We should trust that Christ can forgive us as well. Sometimes people still feel guilty about a sin they committed in the past for a long time, even after they have gone to confession. The guilt will still continue to haunt them, even though they intellectually know their sin has been forgiven, it is hard for them to let go of the guilt.
Today might be a good day to place our own past in Christ’s capable hands and let it be, trusting that Jesus forgave whatever sins we committed in our lives too and do not let them tug at our conscience any more. It isn’t enough to believe that Jesus has the power to forgive sins, we must also trust that he actually did so.
