Never forget.  Never forgive.  That is the tagline for the movie, Sweeney Todd, which opened just before Christmas.  Sweeney Todd is a tale of a barber who lived in 19th century London.  A corrupt judge deported Todd to a penal colony in Australia on a trumped-up charge so that he could possess Todd’s beautiful wife and baby daughter.  Fifteen years later, Todd returns to London to find that while he was gone his wife fell into despair and poisoned herself.  The corrupt judge took custody of Todd’s daughter and now plans to marry her.  Sweeney Todd is a musical, and one of the songs is titled Epiphany.  In the song Epiphany, Sweeney Todd vows, “I will have vengeance.  I will have salvation.”  Vengeance as a means to salvation.  A stunning thought here in this sanctuary, here on this day that the church celebrates as Epiphany.  For the barber Sweeney Todd, epiphany meant hitting upon the concept of vengeance as a way to ease his pain, to free him from his grief.  What does Epiphany mean for us?

A quick answer to that question is that the term epiphany means a sudden revelation, something that leads us to a new understanding, to an “aha” moment.  The great symbol of Epiphany is the light of a star, a star that motivated three wise men to leave their home in Persia – now Iraq – and travel to Jerusalem, and then to the village of Bethlehem, in the belief that at the end of their journey they would find a king – the newborn King of the Jews.  The light of that star revealed the Christ child to those men, and each year at Epiphany we remember how they then revealed to the world that Jesus is Lord and King.  That is a quick answer to the question, “What does Epiphany mean?”  But, there is more to be found, more to be learned as you and I search for our personal answers to that question.  And to other questions.  In the coming weeks, we are going to be pondering a whole series of questions:  a series of questions that Jesus posed.  We will be moving through the Gospel of Mark, stopping to consider some of the challenging questions we will hear Jesus ask along the way.

The Gospel of Mark begins with a bang.  Marks contains no manger scene, no angels, or shepherds, or wise men.  Instead, it begins by introducing us to John the Baptist and quickly telling us that John baptized Jesus, who then spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan.  Then Mark launches right into Jesus’ ministry.  First, we hear Jesus tell Simon and his brother Andrew, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people,” then call James and his brother John to come along, as well.  Soon, we find Jesus teaching in the synagogue, and Mark tells us that the people who heard Jesus “were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority.”[i]  (Hold onto that, that point about Jesus’ teaching “as one having authority”; it will come up again.)  While Jesus was still in the synagogue, he performed a healing, and once again the onlookers remarked that Jesus acted “with authority,” marveling that, “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”[ii]  This is the first in a string of healings that Mark’s gospel recounts.  We find number 5 in that string in our Second Lesson.  Jesus has been traveling from town to town, preaching and healing people of a variety of ailments, and now he has returned home.

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them.  Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way?  It is blasphemy!  Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — he said to the paralytic — “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”  And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

We are only at the start of chapter 2 of Mark’s gospel, and already we find people crowding in to see him.  Why have they come?  What are they hoping to see, or hear, or experience, or receive?  Within the crowd is a group of people who have brought to Jesus a paralyzed man.  Mark does not tell us why they have brought this man to Jesus, or whose idea it was to come.  He gives us no idea what this group expected or wanted or hoped, telling us only that they were so determined to get this man into the presence of Jesus that they were willing to destroy the roof on Jesus’ home to do so.  And Jesus responded to that determination.  Our translation says that “Jesus saw their faith,” but a fuller translation of the original Greek is that “Jesus saw their faithfulness.”  Jesus did not have to look into the hearts of these folks to know what was there.  He could see it in the thatch and sticks and dried mud that came raining down into his home, followed by a man lying helpless on a mat.  Jesus saw the group’s faithful determination and immediately told the man on the mat, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

We do not know what the group who brought the man expected or wanted or hoped, but we can venture a guess that it was something other than, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  And so, we have to wonder, wasn’t this a big disappointment, especially for the man on the mat?  Weren’t they all hoping for something else?  When Jesus started his ministry in Capernaum, he spent an evening at the home of Simon and Andrew, with the whole city gathered around the door.  He cured people of all kinds of diseases, and the next day he began a journey around Galilee, healing people wherever he went.[iii]  Now, these folks have gone so far as to tear the roof off Jesus’ home to get this man in front of him, and Jesus’ only response is to say, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  The man’s friends are left speechless.  The whole crowd is left speechless.  No one says a thing.  It must have appeared that Jesus had done nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  “Son, your sins are forgiven”?  What does that mean?  The guy is still lying on the mat, for crying out loud!  He still cannot move!  Why doesn’t Jesus actually do something?

Have you ever asked that question?  Have you ever asked, “Why doesn’t Christ actually do something?”  Heal the cancer, ease the grief, restore the relationship, straighten the body, resolve the dilemma, halt the war, conquer the addiction, secure the income, end the hunger, cancel the worry, remove the pain, remove the pain, remove the pain.  “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  That’s nice, but why doesn’t Christ actually do something?

There was one group of people in the room that day who recognized that Jesus had done something.  Jesus had told a man that his sins were forgiven, and there were some scribes sitting around who knew that this was a big deal.  They knew from their study of scripture that God is the one who forgives sin.  We heard that in our First Lesson, in which God declared through the prophet Isaiah, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”  The scribes could recall how God told Moses that he was “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”[iv]  The scribes did not say it out loud, but Jesus could see the wheels turning in their heads, knew that they were wondering, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  Who, indeed.  And so, Jesus posed the first question that he will ask in the Gospel of Mark.  Jesus asked, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?  Which is easier:  to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?”

Once again, we can give a quick answer to the question.  The quick answer is that it is far easier to tell a paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven than to tell him to stand up and start walking.  How can anyone know whether “your sins are forgiven” had any effect?  “Stand up and take your mat and walk” is another matter.  There was a whole crowd of people waiting to see whether that would happen.  But, in asking the scribes “which is easier,” Jesus was asking something of deeper import, with far deeper implications.  For some time now, Jesus had been traveling around Galilee healing people of all kinds of maladies.  No one was ready to arrest him for that, no one was declaring him a blasphemer for that.  After all, Jesus was not the first healer the people had seen, and he would not be the last.  If Jesus had merely turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up and take your mat and walk,” that is what the man would have done.  Everyone would have shouted, “Hurrah,” the scribes would have gone on their way, and the crowds would have continued to grow.  But, when Jesus told the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” he moved into a very different role.  He stopped being just one more holy man, one more healer there to put on a show.  In pronouncing, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” Jesus provided a moment of epiphany.  An epiphany, a sudden revelation, an event that could lead people to a new understanding of who Jesus was.  Because, you see, what the scribes were pondering in their minds was right:  No one can forgive sin but God alone.  It would be blasphemy for Jesus to claim the authority to forgive sin, unless he was Immanuel, unless he was “God with us.”

And so, the first question Jesus has for us is, “Which is easier, to provide forgiveness for sin, or to heal a body?”  And that question pushes us to ask two others.  First, it pushes us to ask ourselves whether Jesus was, indeed, Immanuel, God with us.  Was Jesus merely a fellow who talked kindly to women and children, told interesting stories, and had the ability to heal people of their physical ills?  Or was Jesus truly God incarnate, God come to live among us and reveal to us his why he created us and how he would have us live?  Second, Jesus’ question pushes us to ask ourselves who we want him to be.  Do we want the Jesus who will merely heal our bodies, solve what we consider our biggest problems, and let us continue our lives without his interference?  Or do we want Jesus the Christ, who calls us to follow him and fulfill his will, even when it is not the path we would choose?  Do we want the lord of some people’s imagining, the one who exacts vengeance and provides “our side” with military or political or economic victory?  Or do we want the Christ who reaches out to all and provides compassion and grace to those who are least worthy and most in need?

Who did Jesus reveal himself to be, what did the world witness when God became Immanuel, when God was manifest among us in a tiny baby who grew to be the carpenter, the teacher, the healer, the forgiver of sin?  Who do you and I want him to be?  What does Epiphany mean for us?  Amen.

Copyright 2008 © Leslie R. Stacks. All rights reserved.