Yes!
Commentary
A few months ago there were two different television commercials that both had to do with a fellow trying to get his female companion to say yes to a wedding proposal. Typical of some of the television advertisements, these were both rather ridiculous but nonetheless interesting. In one, the couple is seated in an open convertible. He tells her that he has something to ask her. She eagerly asks what it is, but he then insists that she look up at the moon. She resists, since she wants to hear what he has to ask her. Finally, he turns her head so that she can see written across the face of the moon the words, "Will you marry me?" The commercial was for a lottery, suggesting that winners could do most anything they want, including writing on the moon in order to get a yes response to a proposal of marriage. In another commercial, one fellow tells his male friend that he is going to pop the question tonight to his beloved. "Have you got the ring?" his friend asks. "Oh, no, I've got something better. You see, I'm in this for the long haul." He then shows his friend a picture of what he will give as a token of his engagement: an air conditioner!
Getting a yes is important when you are proposing marriage. It is equally important in many other situations. How precious is the yes when you learn that your request for a bank loan has been approved so that you can buy a house or car. How precious is the yes when you learn that your application for a new job has been accepted, and the position is yours. How precious is the yes when you ask your friend to forgive you for the wrong you have done him or her. We often treasure a yes answer. It is affirmation, support, promise, and approval.
A bridge among these three lessons can be constructed out of Paul's words in the second reading: "For in him [Christ] every one of God's promises is a 'Yes.' " Let's see where that bridge carries us.
Isaiah 43:18-25
A lot of great sermons have been preached on the powerful words with which this passage begins (v. 18). The "new thing" that God is doing is, of course, the new exodus -- the return of the exiles to their homeland. This prophet seems to have had to convince the doubting exiles in Babylon that God was actually going to do this new thing and bring them across the desert to their native land. So, the whole section of 43:14-28 deals with this new exodus. However, closely associated with the return from exile in verses 22-25 is the matter of Israel's sin. Remember, Second Isaiah begins with a declaration that Israel had paid its dues and been punished enough for its sin (40:1-2). The reading draws a portion from chapter 43 dealing with the return (vv. 19-21) and another portion from a discussion of Israel's sins (vv. 22-25). The reading ends before the matter of God's attitude toward Israel's unfaithfulness gets blurred in verses 26-28.
The heart of the reading could be summarized in terms of how Israel is worthy of God's gracious redemptive act in delivering them from exile. The first verses suggest a comparison of the new exodus and the former one. What is about to happen to the people is even more glorious than the exodus from Egypt, so your attention should be on the now and not on some nostalgic past. In effect, God says, "You thought the exodus was something? You ain't seen nothing yet!" The question in verse 19a furthers the evidence that Second Isaiah's message may have been met with some disbelief. "Can't you see it? This new exodus is happening right before your eyes."
"The way in the desert" (v. 19b) is more than the path from Babylon to Jerusalem. It really has to do with the question of how God is going to bring off this dramatic reversal of the people's condition. The answer is that the whole of creation will join in the event of Israel's return. Just as the people of the Exodus were given water to drink (Exodus 15:22-25), rivers will appear where there had been only dry dust, and God will give the chosen remnant drink aplenty. The animals will join the people in praising God. (See 55:12 where nature -- trees and mountains -- join Israel in celebrating their return.) All of this is done for one simple reason: so that Israel might once again praise their Lord. This was the purpose in Israel's being chosen by God.
The tone of the passage changes abruptly and without warning in verse 22. God now itemizes Israel's stubborn unfaithfulness. In rather typical prophetic form, verses 22-24 picture the people's indifference to God. The result is that they have become a burden for God. They're nothing but trouble! God sounds sick and tired of their obstinacy. Like parents who have reached their limits of patience with their child, God sounds exhausted and drained.
That is why verse 25 is all the more powerful. Verses 22-24 make it appear that God is about to give up on the people, abort the covenant with them, and abandon them to the consequences of their sin. But not so! God "blots out" the stains of their sins and forgets their stubbornness. The expression "I, I am He" (or "I am God ... I am He") is reminiscent of the sacred divine name God reveals to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). This kind of forgiveness is not comparable to human forgiveness, for God is incomparable -- the One who simply is. The divine forgiveness knows no parallel in human experience!
The effect of butting these two fragments of Isaiah up against one another in a single reading is potent. Verses 19-21 promise God's freeing of the people; verses 22-24 portray their sin. The two seem contradictory. Why would God free such an obstinate and rebellious group? Then verse 25 turns the contradiction inside out. It is not the people's worthiness that evokes God's "new thing." Quite the contrary! They deserve to sleep in the bed they have made for themselves. It is strictly God's grace that motivates the liberation of the people from their scattered and demeaning existence.
The promise to the exiles is the promise of the divine affirmation, the sacred Yes. The great "I Am" ratifies God's faithfulness to Israel entirely on the basis of grace. The yes is the affirmation of God's mercy and graciousness.
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
The relationship between Paul and the Corinthian Christians is strained, to say the least. The whole of 2 Corinthians is spotted with evidence that Paul has been severely criticized and even denounced by some in the Corinthian church. We don't have to answer the question of exactly what has happened to bring this estrangement. Scholars continue to work at that task. What we do know is that Paul is trying to straighten things out and clarify his ministry among the Corinthians. So, early in 2 Corinthians, Paul finds it necessary to explain why he has chosen not to visit the Corinthian church on his way back to Jerusalem. He begins this letter on a rather defensive note, as 1:8-14 suggests. The reading is drawn from Paul's longer explanation for his failure to visit the Corinthians personally before going on to Jerusalem.
Apparently Paul as been accused of vacillating on his travel plans because his motives for ministry are less than pure (v. 17 -- making plans "according to ordinary human standards"). " 'Yes, yes' and 'No, no' at the same time" seems to mean that some thought he would do whatever pleased him at the time, regardless of the needs of the churches. (See Matthew 5:37, although that passage seems to mean something entirely different from Paul's use of the words here.)
Verses 18-22 are part of Paul's response to those who have smeared his name and reputation. Reading the whole of 1:23--2:4 gives us the full flavor of his argument. Some say that Paul will say yes or no depending entirely on what profits him at the time. It is somewhat like those people who always seem to agree with you no matter what it is you say. At all costs, they want to keep you pleased with them. Paul turns this issue of the charges against him into a theological matter. In one sense, "As surely as God is faithful" is Paul's oath that he speaks the truth. However, it also suggests that what really matters is God's faithfulness, and Paul and his colleagues have been true to the divine faithfulness. What God communicated to humanity in Christ is not an ambiguous "yes and no" but a clear and unequivocal YES. Christ is the divine affirmation of humanity, and that affirmation is without reserve or vagueness.
Christ is the divine Yes to humanity, and "every one of God's promises is a 'Yes' " (v. 20). In light of God's act in Christ, the divine promises to humans are always to affirm and strengthen us, to bring the best to human existence, and to establish conditions which are healthy and fulfilling for us. Since God's promises are Yes to humanity, our response is "Amen." So be it! The Hebrew root of this common expression implies that we declare our believing consent to what God is saying and doing. Paul is declaring that his ministry, along with those of Silvanus and Timothy, are enactments of an amen to the gospel.
Yet Paul wants to make one thing perfectly clear. He and his colleagues do not earn the people's respect and acceptance. God is the only one who can create the relationship between them and the Christian missionaries. Paul and his associates come and work motivated by nothing more than the divine call. God's means of establishing them among the Corinthians is the Holy Spirit. The Christian missionaries bear the presence of God in the Spirit as evidence of what is coming into being in their ministries, namely, the new and eschatological life. The Spirit's presence in their work is a kind of down payment on what is yet to come. The "new thing" God is doing in Christ is already tasted in the presence of the Spirit. As the Spirit is known now in a preliminary way as the first installment, so in the final days we will know God directly and immediately.
If our ministries are sometimes equivocal, if our motives are sometimes less than pure, and if our work seems tainted with sin and shortsightedness, what really matters is the message Christians bear to the world. That message is God's Yes to us, the sacred affirmation of our lives. Sometimes Christians may get the divine affirmation confused with the threat of punishment and want to frighten others into believing what we believe. However, the gospel message is not a word of threat; it is not essentially a No to us. Rather, it is a confirmation of all that God has promised humans since the Garden of Eden. It is the Yes of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
Mark 2:1-12
In Jesus' ministry the divine Yes becomes specific and concrete. It is not a vague sense of feeling good because we think there is a "force" out there friendly to us. The divine Yes in Jesus' ministry involves addressing very particular and real human needs. So, this healing story links up with the first two lessons to add specificity to the gospel message.
The Gospel reading is another of a series of healing wonders with which Mark begins the story of Jesus' ministry. This one, however, is distinctive in several ways. First, the setting and occasion by which the paralyzed man is presented to Jesus are highly detailed and most dramatic. Imagine getting through the people crowded into a tiny house by climbing up on the roof, chopping a hole in it, and lowering your paralyzed friend down through that hole! These people are really committed to helping their afflicted colleague. Second, this healing story is distinctive because the whole process is interrupted with the protests of the religious authorities. Consequently, the healing story is fused with a story of conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment of the day.
The first phase of the story entails the presentation of the afflicted and Jesus' reaction (vv. 1-5). This story is an example of how the faith of others who surrounded an afflicted person moves Jesus. This group that carts their paralyzed friend off to see Jesus represents the way in which a community of concern and care participates in the divine Yes to human welfare. Without this tiny community, the poor fellow would have had no way of getting to Jesus and hence no access to healing. In the context of the divine Yes, this feature of the narrative reveals to us the importance of the Christian community that acts in loving and caring ways for the healing of others. To put the point directly, these people lugging the stretcher up on to the roof of the house tell the church today what it is to do. We enact God's care for others through providing them access to God's healing love in Christ.
Jesus' words to the paralytic are pivotal in the story and somewhat troubling. In terms of the story, these words occasion the conflict with the religious leaders and bring about the final healing of the man's paralysis. The trouble is that Jesus' words sound as if he is saying that sin is what has caused this fellow's paralysis in the first place. That smacks of the old Deuteronomic ethic we have discussed elsewhere in these columns: Sin results in ailments and misery; righteousness produces health and happiness. We think that there is another dimension to Jesus' words, however, that needs to be considered. In the larger scope of things, sin and evil are behind all human suffering and affliction. In that sense the Deuteronomic ethic is sound. That is to say, the purity of God's creation did not include paralysis, but somehow creation has become distorted by evil. God never wanted humans to suffer the way this man has suffered. However, God does not yet fully reign in this world. So, when Jesus declares the fellow's sins forgiven, he is affirming God's will for humanity. The divine will is that all the evil that distorts and twists creation out of shape be overpowered. In this particular case, God's divine Yes is forgiveness, not only of the man's own sins but of the sin that has reigned in creation up to this time.
However, forgiveness of sin is God's prerogative. Only God can forgive sin. Consequently, the religious leaders are offended by Jesus' words, and we enter phase two of the story (vv. 6-12). Jesus wonders why they are troubled by his declaration of forgiveness. The "which is easier" question in verse 9 really does not suggest that one is easier than the other -- that is, that either forgiveness or curing is easier than the other. What it does do is to link Jesus' healing powers with his power to forgive sins. They are one package. Had he simply healed the man immediately, there might not have been any objection, but since he pronounced absolution of the man's sins first, the religious leaders are all upset. They accuse him of nothing less than blasphemy, which is punishable by death. If Jesus is given the prerogative for healing, he is also given the divine authority to forgive sin.
In verse 10 Jesus' attention turns back to the paralytic, but with the intent of demonstrating the connection between the authority to forgive and to heal. Jesus' words alone are enough to bring about health. He doesn't need to dabble in ancient medicine to effect a cure. His words are God's words of power that bring about what is spoken. The story concludes with the people marveling over what they have experienced. This both confirms the healing -- it is a public event -- and increases the wonderment over the identity of Jesus that Mark has already introduced (1:27).
YES! God forgives human sins and leads humans out of their exile in alienation and brokenness. YES! God heals humans of affliction because the divine plan was never that we suffer pain and blemish. Unlike the fellows who are trying to get their beloved ones to say yes to a proposal of marriage, we do not have to beg and badger God for affirmation. Before we have even asked, God has promised the Yes, offered the forgiveness, and granted the healing. God's basic message to us is never ambiguous but always an unequivocal YES.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 43:18-25
We looked at a portion of this passage, namely vv. 16-21, on the fifth Sunday in Lent in Cycle C. Now, however, we are asked to take a fresh approach.
Verses 18 through 25 are part of the longer poem by Second Isaiah that is found in 43:14--44:5. It is therefore incumbent on the preacher that they be treated within their context. They form part of the message that Second Isaiah delivered to his compatriots in Babylonian exile, sometime after 550 B.C.
We moderns sometimes have a strange view of our relationship with God. For the most part, it is a static view. God is an object "out there," whom we worshipers are bid to seek and to find. And when we find him and feel his presence with us, any change in the relationship is due, not to a change in God, but to our growth or backsliding in understanding and faith. God remains constant, static, there, while our attitude toward him wavers, changes, grows, depending on the depth of our faith at any one time. Thus, any movement forward in the divine/human relationship is largely our doing and not God's.
Such an understanding of our relationship with the Lord is drastically altered, however, if we study the Bible. For God's relation with his people Israel, and indeed with the New Testament church, is not a case of human beings seeking and finding, but of God and his people going along a way together. God is constantly acting, according to the Bible. He speaks words and does deeds and brings about events, moving steadily forward as he invades the stream of history. His are the principal actions. And Israel's life, and that of the church, is made up of their reactions and responses to those deeds of God. Thus, there is recorded throughout the Bible a great historical dialogue between the Lord and the inhabitants of his world -- a way, a walking, a movement forward toward God's goal for all nature and history.
In our text for the morning, we are allowed to see into a momentous interaction between God and his people Israel. As always, God's speaking and action come first. "Thus says the Lord," announces the prophet (43:14; 44:2), and then God utters a promise. He will send to Babylon and release his exiled chosen people from their captivity, by means of Cyrus of Persia's defeat of the Babylonian Empire, as we know from other passages in Second Isaiah's preaching (44:28; 45:1). But the guarantee of that promise is the actions that God has performed for Israel in the past -- actions that are encapsulated in the titles that are given to the Lord.
God is Israel's "Redeemer" (43:14; 44:14) and God's past action of redeeming Israel from slavery in Egypt is recalled, in verses 16-21. A "redeemer" in the scriptures is one who buys back a family member out of slavery (Leviticus 25:47-49), and so the Lord has redeemed Israel.
It was by his act of redeeming Israel that God made Israel a people, and so he is also "the Creator of Israel" (43: 15), the one who "formed" Israel for himself that she might praise him (43:21; 44:2). And in that act of creating Israel and delivering her from the house of bondage in Egypt, God also showed himself to be Israel's "King" (43:15; cf. Exodus 15:18), ruling over the waters of the Reed Sea and over the empire of Egypt. All the past mighty acts of God in the exodus are recalled as guarantee of Israel's deliverance in the future.
Those past mighty acts of the Lord are the source of our titles for God too, are they not? The Lord is our "Redeemer," the one who has delivered us from our slavery to sin and death by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is our Creator, not only because he has made each one of us, but also because he has created us a church by his redemption of us. And certainly he is our King, whom the powers of this world could not conquer and who now reigns as Lord of lords and King of kings, over your life and mine.
In the light of all of that, verse 18 of our text comes like a thunderbolt from the mouth of God. "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old." All of our faith depends on remembering those mighty acts that God has done in the past for our redemption and justification. And certainly if we forget the redemption in Jesus Christ, if the sacrifice of his Son on the cross and his victory on Easter morn drop out of our memory, then we cease to be a church, with no foundation in God's acts and no assurance for the future. "Remember not the former things!" Lord, you cannot be serious!
But you see, we are not a church that lives simply from the past. And Israel was not a people that had only God's deliverance in olden times to remember. No. God is on the move. God presses forward by his deeds in human history. God goes on his sacred way. And so he announces to his astonished people and to us, "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (v. 19). Yes, God did all of those wondrous deeds in our past history. But he's not through acting. Now he's going to do a new act of deliverance for all of his beloved people.
The new act that the Lord announces to the exiles in Babylonia is not only their release from captivity, but also a new wandering through the wilderness toward the promised land (43:20; 44:3), with the dry and terrible wilderness transformed into a place of abundant water and peace.
When we hear that, we must realize that the "wilderness" in Second Isaiah refers not only to actual desert, but that it is also a symbol for the wasteland that is our life without God -- unproductive, dry, threatening, barren. And it is that life -- that barren life of our everyday, that life that someone has called "one damn thing after another" -- that is the life that God is going to transform into fertile promise.
Our text is very clear that neither Israel nor we deserve God's further grace to us. Israel has not even prayed to God in her exile (v. 22), much less sacrificed to him, as so many of us have not remembered to pray from the depths of our separation from the Lord. Instead, we and Israel have simply burdened God with our sins, until he is weary from seeing and hearing them all. That has been the case through all of Israel's history (v. 27), as it has been the case throughout ours.
And yet -- and yet -- this loving, gracious Creator and Redeemer, this incomprehensible King and Lord of our lives, will forgive us once more, and pour out his Spirit upon us, so that not only we but all around us will come to worship him for his love (44:1-5).
Yes, good Christians, the God whom we have known from the past, who gave his Son for our sakes, who redeemed us from sin and death and made us his special people called the church -- that Almighty God moves along the way of life with us, pouring out his grace upon us, creating his new mercies toward us every morning, until we all together come into his kingdom of love and joy and good.
Getting a yes is important when you are proposing marriage. It is equally important in many other situations. How precious is the yes when you learn that your request for a bank loan has been approved so that you can buy a house or car. How precious is the yes when you learn that your application for a new job has been accepted, and the position is yours. How precious is the yes when you ask your friend to forgive you for the wrong you have done him or her. We often treasure a yes answer. It is affirmation, support, promise, and approval.
A bridge among these three lessons can be constructed out of Paul's words in the second reading: "For in him [Christ] every one of God's promises is a 'Yes.' " Let's see where that bridge carries us.
Isaiah 43:18-25
A lot of great sermons have been preached on the powerful words with which this passage begins (v. 18). The "new thing" that God is doing is, of course, the new exodus -- the return of the exiles to their homeland. This prophet seems to have had to convince the doubting exiles in Babylon that God was actually going to do this new thing and bring them across the desert to their native land. So, the whole section of 43:14-28 deals with this new exodus. However, closely associated with the return from exile in verses 22-25 is the matter of Israel's sin. Remember, Second Isaiah begins with a declaration that Israel had paid its dues and been punished enough for its sin (40:1-2). The reading draws a portion from chapter 43 dealing with the return (vv. 19-21) and another portion from a discussion of Israel's sins (vv. 22-25). The reading ends before the matter of God's attitude toward Israel's unfaithfulness gets blurred in verses 26-28.
The heart of the reading could be summarized in terms of how Israel is worthy of God's gracious redemptive act in delivering them from exile. The first verses suggest a comparison of the new exodus and the former one. What is about to happen to the people is even more glorious than the exodus from Egypt, so your attention should be on the now and not on some nostalgic past. In effect, God says, "You thought the exodus was something? You ain't seen nothing yet!" The question in verse 19a furthers the evidence that Second Isaiah's message may have been met with some disbelief. "Can't you see it? This new exodus is happening right before your eyes."
"The way in the desert" (v. 19b) is more than the path from Babylon to Jerusalem. It really has to do with the question of how God is going to bring off this dramatic reversal of the people's condition. The answer is that the whole of creation will join in the event of Israel's return. Just as the people of the Exodus were given water to drink (Exodus 15:22-25), rivers will appear where there had been only dry dust, and God will give the chosen remnant drink aplenty. The animals will join the people in praising God. (See 55:12 where nature -- trees and mountains -- join Israel in celebrating their return.) All of this is done for one simple reason: so that Israel might once again praise their Lord. This was the purpose in Israel's being chosen by God.
The tone of the passage changes abruptly and without warning in verse 22. God now itemizes Israel's stubborn unfaithfulness. In rather typical prophetic form, verses 22-24 picture the people's indifference to God. The result is that they have become a burden for God. They're nothing but trouble! God sounds sick and tired of their obstinacy. Like parents who have reached their limits of patience with their child, God sounds exhausted and drained.
That is why verse 25 is all the more powerful. Verses 22-24 make it appear that God is about to give up on the people, abort the covenant with them, and abandon them to the consequences of their sin. But not so! God "blots out" the stains of their sins and forgets their stubbornness. The expression "I, I am He" (or "I am God ... I am He") is reminiscent of the sacred divine name God reveals to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14). This kind of forgiveness is not comparable to human forgiveness, for God is incomparable -- the One who simply is. The divine forgiveness knows no parallel in human experience!
The effect of butting these two fragments of Isaiah up against one another in a single reading is potent. Verses 19-21 promise God's freeing of the people; verses 22-24 portray their sin. The two seem contradictory. Why would God free such an obstinate and rebellious group? Then verse 25 turns the contradiction inside out. It is not the people's worthiness that evokes God's "new thing." Quite the contrary! They deserve to sleep in the bed they have made for themselves. It is strictly God's grace that motivates the liberation of the people from their scattered and demeaning existence.
The promise to the exiles is the promise of the divine affirmation, the sacred Yes. The great "I Am" ratifies God's faithfulness to Israel entirely on the basis of grace. The yes is the affirmation of God's mercy and graciousness.
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
The relationship between Paul and the Corinthian Christians is strained, to say the least. The whole of 2 Corinthians is spotted with evidence that Paul has been severely criticized and even denounced by some in the Corinthian church. We don't have to answer the question of exactly what has happened to bring this estrangement. Scholars continue to work at that task. What we do know is that Paul is trying to straighten things out and clarify his ministry among the Corinthians. So, early in 2 Corinthians, Paul finds it necessary to explain why he has chosen not to visit the Corinthian church on his way back to Jerusalem. He begins this letter on a rather defensive note, as 1:8-14 suggests. The reading is drawn from Paul's longer explanation for his failure to visit the Corinthians personally before going on to Jerusalem.
Apparently Paul as been accused of vacillating on his travel plans because his motives for ministry are less than pure (v. 17 -- making plans "according to ordinary human standards"). " 'Yes, yes' and 'No, no' at the same time" seems to mean that some thought he would do whatever pleased him at the time, regardless of the needs of the churches. (See Matthew 5:37, although that passage seems to mean something entirely different from Paul's use of the words here.)
Verses 18-22 are part of Paul's response to those who have smeared his name and reputation. Reading the whole of 1:23--2:4 gives us the full flavor of his argument. Some say that Paul will say yes or no depending entirely on what profits him at the time. It is somewhat like those people who always seem to agree with you no matter what it is you say. At all costs, they want to keep you pleased with them. Paul turns this issue of the charges against him into a theological matter. In one sense, "As surely as God is faithful" is Paul's oath that he speaks the truth. However, it also suggests that what really matters is God's faithfulness, and Paul and his colleagues have been true to the divine faithfulness. What God communicated to humanity in Christ is not an ambiguous "yes and no" but a clear and unequivocal YES. Christ is the divine affirmation of humanity, and that affirmation is without reserve or vagueness.
Christ is the divine Yes to humanity, and "every one of God's promises is a 'Yes' " (v. 20). In light of God's act in Christ, the divine promises to humans are always to affirm and strengthen us, to bring the best to human existence, and to establish conditions which are healthy and fulfilling for us. Since God's promises are Yes to humanity, our response is "Amen." So be it! The Hebrew root of this common expression implies that we declare our believing consent to what God is saying and doing. Paul is declaring that his ministry, along with those of Silvanus and Timothy, are enactments of an amen to the gospel.
Yet Paul wants to make one thing perfectly clear. He and his colleagues do not earn the people's respect and acceptance. God is the only one who can create the relationship between them and the Christian missionaries. Paul and his associates come and work motivated by nothing more than the divine call. God's means of establishing them among the Corinthians is the Holy Spirit. The Christian missionaries bear the presence of God in the Spirit as evidence of what is coming into being in their ministries, namely, the new and eschatological life. The Spirit's presence in their work is a kind of down payment on what is yet to come. The "new thing" God is doing in Christ is already tasted in the presence of the Spirit. As the Spirit is known now in a preliminary way as the first installment, so in the final days we will know God directly and immediately.
If our ministries are sometimes equivocal, if our motives are sometimes less than pure, and if our work seems tainted with sin and shortsightedness, what really matters is the message Christians bear to the world. That message is God's Yes to us, the sacred affirmation of our lives. Sometimes Christians may get the divine affirmation confused with the threat of punishment and want to frighten others into believing what we believe. However, the gospel message is not a word of threat; it is not essentially a No to us. Rather, it is a confirmation of all that God has promised humans since the Garden of Eden. It is the Yes of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
Mark 2:1-12
In Jesus' ministry the divine Yes becomes specific and concrete. It is not a vague sense of feeling good because we think there is a "force" out there friendly to us. The divine Yes in Jesus' ministry involves addressing very particular and real human needs. So, this healing story links up with the first two lessons to add specificity to the gospel message.
The Gospel reading is another of a series of healing wonders with which Mark begins the story of Jesus' ministry. This one, however, is distinctive in several ways. First, the setting and occasion by which the paralyzed man is presented to Jesus are highly detailed and most dramatic. Imagine getting through the people crowded into a tiny house by climbing up on the roof, chopping a hole in it, and lowering your paralyzed friend down through that hole! These people are really committed to helping their afflicted colleague. Second, this healing story is distinctive because the whole process is interrupted with the protests of the religious authorities. Consequently, the healing story is fused with a story of conflict between Jesus and the religious establishment of the day.
The first phase of the story entails the presentation of the afflicted and Jesus' reaction (vv. 1-5). This story is an example of how the faith of others who surrounded an afflicted person moves Jesus. This group that carts their paralyzed friend off to see Jesus represents the way in which a community of concern and care participates in the divine Yes to human welfare. Without this tiny community, the poor fellow would have had no way of getting to Jesus and hence no access to healing. In the context of the divine Yes, this feature of the narrative reveals to us the importance of the Christian community that acts in loving and caring ways for the healing of others. To put the point directly, these people lugging the stretcher up on to the roof of the house tell the church today what it is to do. We enact God's care for others through providing them access to God's healing love in Christ.
Jesus' words to the paralytic are pivotal in the story and somewhat troubling. In terms of the story, these words occasion the conflict with the religious leaders and bring about the final healing of the man's paralysis. The trouble is that Jesus' words sound as if he is saying that sin is what has caused this fellow's paralysis in the first place. That smacks of the old Deuteronomic ethic we have discussed elsewhere in these columns: Sin results in ailments and misery; righteousness produces health and happiness. We think that there is another dimension to Jesus' words, however, that needs to be considered. In the larger scope of things, sin and evil are behind all human suffering and affliction. In that sense the Deuteronomic ethic is sound. That is to say, the purity of God's creation did not include paralysis, but somehow creation has become distorted by evil. God never wanted humans to suffer the way this man has suffered. However, God does not yet fully reign in this world. So, when Jesus declares the fellow's sins forgiven, he is affirming God's will for humanity. The divine will is that all the evil that distorts and twists creation out of shape be overpowered. In this particular case, God's divine Yes is forgiveness, not only of the man's own sins but of the sin that has reigned in creation up to this time.
However, forgiveness of sin is God's prerogative. Only God can forgive sin. Consequently, the religious leaders are offended by Jesus' words, and we enter phase two of the story (vv. 6-12). Jesus wonders why they are troubled by his declaration of forgiveness. The "which is easier" question in verse 9 really does not suggest that one is easier than the other -- that is, that either forgiveness or curing is easier than the other. What it does do is to link Jesus' healing powers with his power to forgive sins. They are one package. Had he simply healed the man immediately, there might not have been any objection, but since he pronounced absolution of the man's sins first, the religious leaders are all upset. They accuse him of nothing less than blasphemy, which is punishable by death. If Jesus is given the prerogative for healing, he is also given the divine authority to forgive sin.
In verse 10 Jesus' attention turns back to the paralytic, but with the intent of demonstrating the connection between the authority to forgive and to heal. Jesus' words alone are enough to bring about health. He doesn't need to dabble in ancient medicine to effect a cure. His words are God's words of power that bring about what is spoken. The story concludes with the people marveling over what they have experienced. This both confirms the healing -- it is a public event -- and increases the wonderment over the identity of Jesus that Mark has already introduced (1:27).
YES! God forgives human sins and leads humans out of their exile in alienation and brokenness. YES! God heals humans of affliction because the divine plan was never that we suffer pain and blemish. Unlike the fellows who are trying to get their beloved ones to say yes to a proposal of marriage, we do not have to beg and badger God for affirmation. Before we have even asked, God has promised the Yes, offered the forgiveness, and granted the healing. God's basic message to us is never ambiguous but always an unequivocal YES.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 43:18-25
We looked at a portion of this passage, namely vv. 16-21, on the fifth Sunday in Lent in Cycle C. Now, however, we are asked to take a fresh approach.
Verses 18 through 25 are part of the longer poem by Second Isaiah that is found in 43:14--44:5. It is therefore incumbent on the preacher that they be treated within their context. They form part of the message that Second Isaiah delivered to his compatriots in Babylonian exile, sometime after 550 B.C.
We moderns sometimes have a strange view of our relationship with God. For the most part, it is a static view. God is an object "out there," whom we worshipers are bid to seek and to find. And when we find him and feel his presence with us, any change in the relationship is due, not to a change in God, but to our growth or backsliding in understanding and faith. God remains constant, static, there, while our attitude toward him wavers, changes, grows, depending on the depth of our faith at any one time. Thus, any movement forward in the divine/human relationship is largely our doing and not God's.
Such an understanding of our relationship with the Lord is drastically altered, however, if we study the Bible. For God's relation with his people Israel, and indeed with the New Testament church, is not a case of human beings seeking and finding, but of God and his people going along a way together. God is constantly acting, according to the Bible. He speaks words and does deeds and brings about events, moving steadily forward as he invades the stream of history. His are the principal actions. And Israel's life, and that of the church, is made up of their reactions and responses to those deeds of God. Thus, there is recorded throughout the Bible a great historical dialogue between the Lord and the inhabitants of his world -- a way, a walking, a movement forward toward God's goal for all nature and history.
In our text for the morning, we are allowed to see into a momentous interaction between God and his people Israel. As always, God's speaking and action come first. "Thus says the Lord," announces the prophet (43:14; 44:2), and then God utters a promise. He will send to Babylon and release his exiled chosen people from their captivity, by means of Cyrus of Persia's defeat of the Babylonian Empire, as we know from other passages in Second Isaiah's preaching (44:28; 45:1). But the guarantee of that promise is the actions that God has performed for Israel in the past -- actions that are encapsulated in the titles that are given to the Lord.
God is Israel's "Redeemer" (43:14; 44:14) and God's past action of redeeming Israel from slavery in Egypt is recalled, in verses 16-21. A "redeemer" in the scriptures is one who buys back a family member out of slavery (Leviticus 25:47-49), and so the Lord has redeemed Israel.
It was by his act of redeeming Israel that God made Israel a people, and so he is also "the Creator of Israel" (43: 15), the one who "formed" Israel for himself that she might praise him (43:21; 44:2). And in that act of creating Israel and delivering her from the house of bondage in Egypt, God also showed himself to be Israel's "King" (43:15; cf. Exodus 15:18), ruling over the waters of the Reed Sea and over the empire of Egypt. All the past mighty acts of God in the exodus are recalled as guarantee of Israel's deliverance in the future.
Those past mighty acts of the Lord are the source of our titles for God too, are they not? The Lord is our "Redeemer," the one who has delivered us from our slavery to sin and death by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is our Creator, not only because he has made each one of us, but also because he has created us a church by his redemption of us. And certainly he is our King, whom the powers of this world could not conquer and who now reigns as Lord of lords and King of kings, over your life and mine.
In the light of all of that, verse 18 of our text comes like a thunderbolt from the mouth of God. "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old." All of our faith depends on remembering those mighty acts that God has done in the past for our redemption and justification. And certainly if we forget the redemption in Jesus Christ, if the sacrifice of his Son on the cross and his victory on Easter morn drop out of our memory, then we cease to be a church, with no foundation in God's acts and no assurance for the future. "Remember not the former things!" Lord, you cannot be serious!
But you see, we are not a church that lives simply from the past. And Israel was not a people that had only God's deliverance in olden times to remember. No. God is on the move. God presses forward by his deeds in human history. God goes on his sacred way. And so he announces to his astonished people and to us, "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (v. 19). Yes, God did all of those wondrous deeds in our past history. But he's not through acting. Now he's going to do a new act of deliverance for all of his beloved people.
The new act that the Lord announces to the exiles in Babylonia is not only their release from captivity, but also a new wandering through the wilderness toward the promised land (43:20; 44:3), with the dry and terrible wilderness transformed into a place of abundant water and peace.
When we hear that, we must realize that the "wilderness" in Second Isaiah refers not only to actual desert, but that it is also a symbol for the wasteland that is our life without God -- unproductive, dry, threatening, barren. And it is that life -- that barren life of our everyday, that life that someone has called "one damn thing after another" -- that is the life that God is going to transform into fertile promise.
Our text is very clear that neither Israel nor we deserve God's further grace to us. Israel has not even prayed to God in her exile (v. 22), much less sacrificed to him, as so many of us have not remembered to pray from the depths of our separation from the Lord. Instead, we and Israel have simply burdened God with our sins, until he is weary from seeing and hearing them all. That has been the case through all of Israel's history (v. 27), as it has been the case throughout ours.
And yet -- and yet -- this loving, gracious Creator and Redeemer, this incomprehensible King and Lord of our lives, will forgive us once more, and pour out his Spirit upon us, so that not only we but all around us will come to worship him for his love (44:1-5).
Yes, good Christians, the God whom we have known from the past, who gave his Son for our sakes, who redeemed us from sin and death and made us his special people called the church -- that Almighty God moves along the way of life with us, pouring out his grace upon us, creating his new mercies toward us every morning, until we all together come into his kingdom of love and joy and good.
