We have seen strange things today!

 

Healing the Paralytic, fresco, 14th century.  Visoki Dečani Serbian Orthodox Monastery

And it happened when He was in a certain city, that behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean."  Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed."  Immediately the leprosy left him.  And he charged him to tell no one, "But go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as a testimony to them, just as Moses commanded."  However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.  So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.

Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem.  And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.  Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him.  And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.  When He saw their faith, He said to him, "Man, your sins are forgiven you."  And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies?  Who can forgive sins but God alone?"  But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say,'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise up and walk'?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- He said to the man who was paralyzed, "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house."  Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.  And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today!"

 

- Luke 5:12–26 

 

Yesterday we read that, as the multitude pressed about Jesus to hear the word of God, He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets.  Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little from the land.  And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.  When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch."  But Simon answered and said to Him, "Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net."  And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.  So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.  When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"  For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.  And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid.  From now on you will catch men."  So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.  

And it happened when He was in a certain city, that behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean."  Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed."  Immediately the leprosy left him.  Leprosy, my study bible explains, was one of the most dreaded diseases of the time.  It brought great physical suffering as well as total banishment and isolation from society.  It is also symbolic of our sin.  

And he charged him to tell no one, "But go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as a testimony to them, just as Moses commanded."  However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.  So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.  According to commentary by St. Cyril of Alexandria, Christ gives the healed leper the command to "show yourself to the priest" in order to convince the priests by a tangible miracle that He is superior to Moses.  The priests hold Moses to be greater than Christ, yet Christ heals a leper immediately and with His own divine authority.  But when Miriam (the sister of Moses) was struck with leprosy, Moses had to seek mercy from above, and still she was only healed after seven days (Numbers 12:10-15).  Let us also make note of Jesus' response to the greater demands placed upon Him by the great multitudes that start to gather to Him after the healing of the leper:  He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.

Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem.   Matthew's Gospel indicates that this story takes place in Capernaum (Matthew 9:1).  By now He is so well-known that the religious leaders from all over Israel are coming to hear Him:  Pharisees and teachings of the law . . . who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem.  They are, in some sense, the regulators of the faith, and they come to see and hear Christ's ministry for themselves.

And the power of the Lord was present to heal them.  Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him.  And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.  When He saw their faith, He said to him, "Man, your sins are forgiven you."  And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, "Who is this who speaks blasphemies?  Who can forgive sins but God alone?"  But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, "Why are you reasoning in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say,'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise up and walk'?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- He said to the man who was paralyzed, "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house."  Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.  And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today!"  My study bible comments that, as shown by the healing of the paralytic, faith is an indispensable condition for salvation.  It notes, importantly, that faith is collective as well as personal, as it is the faith of the friends of the paralytic which helped in his healing ("When He saw their faith . . .").   There are three signs of Jesus' divinity which are shown in this story.  First, He knows the secrets of hearts (see 1 Samuel 16:7, 2 Chronicles 6:30).   Second, Jesus forgives sins, which is a power that belongs to God alone, as the scribes and Pharisees say.  Finally, Christ heals by the power of His words:  "I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." 

 

 I am intrigued by the people's response.  The text says, "And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today!"  That's quite a combination of reactions:  they were all amazed, they glorified God, and they were filled with fear.  How does a person experience all of those things at once?  This is the reaction to Jesus and His extraordinary display of healing power -- He heals the paralytic with a command, a word.  Hidden in this particular healing is the revelation of Christ as the Logos, the One who heals with a word, who gives a command and it must be followed.  Even the demons, we've read, are subject to Christ's commands not to speak (see this reading).  We can't necessarily discern which specific elements in today's reading caused the people to be amazed, or to glorify God, or to be filled with fear.  But this combination of all three is not unusual for Jesus.   While we are used to hearing the stories of the healings done by Jesus, we must take these effects in the people as telling us whatever Jesus is doing is not "normal" at all!  It is not expected, it is unanticipated, unheard of.  And then we come to the people's interesting expression:  "We have seen strange things today!"  It sounds a little bit tame in English, especially to stir up such an extraordinary combination of reactions.  But the Greek word translated as "strange things" actually implies that bizarrely contradictory combination of emotional responses by the people.  This word is "παράδοξα/paradoxa" -- which, clearly enough, is the word from which we derive the English word "paradox."  And a paradox is precisely what Jesus is:  hence, the responses that seem to contradict themselves, for this is the logic of paradox.  Strong's Concordance gives the definition of the Greek word as "contrary to opinion or expectation," and this usage continues in modern Greek as well.  It defines something that is outside of experience, contradictory to expectations, bizarre, and, yes, strange.   Those contradictory responses of the people:  to be amazed, to want to glorify God, and also to be filled with fear, all tell us a story about how strange and paradoxical their experience of Jesus is, for all of these things are contained in the reality of Jesus and the effects of the manifestation of Jesus' power, authority, and holiness in the world.  Everything intersects in Him and in what He does in ways that are simply outside of "normal" human experience.  It cannot be explained by anything we know, in ways we understand.  Possibly our own acceptance that Christ's work and presence will always be paradoxical is something important that we need to remember, and to keep in mind when we read the Gospels.  The healings and spectacularly paradoxical "works" that Jesus does are not performed in order to entertain, to make us wonder, to impress us with magic tricks, or for any other reason besides Christ's response to faith.  The presence of the holy and extraordinary is there in Jesus, for He is, as the demon identified Him, the Holy One of God.  He is the Christ, the Son of God.  He is the Logos.  These works of Christ are all "signs" of that reality, and hence they are paradoxical and strange to us.  We live in an age of all kinds of paradoxical and strange developments which can be explained through science, technology, psychology, communications, and a whole host of factors we have come to expect when we analyze events and new developments.   We are so used to being able to "rationally" explain the events of our world using particular types of analysis that many people have simply decided that the holy and extraordinary -- what we might call the spiritual world -- simply doesn't exist at all.  But anyone who has had their own experience of the holy knows that this cannot be the case, for an encounter that drives us to faith still cannot be explained away by our reasonable expectations and analysis.  Simply the fact of consciousness itself, the tendency for human beings to replace  proper worship with quite inappropriate objects of worship and "worshipful" behaviors, in this period of chucking aside the concept of holiness and its paradoxical nature, has prompted many modern thinkers to rethink atheism -- as it becomes more clear that throwing away the spiritual results in serious social and personal problems.  Let us understand our need for God, and that God and holiness come of necessity with mystery:  with things that cannot be explained away outside of the paradoxical and extraordinary.  Let us remember what it means to find the presence and work of God in the world, and in ourselves.