Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God…he has come to save you. The above words from the prophet Isaiah are among some of the Scriptural verses that sum up the events that we are celebrating these days. They are words of hope and encouragement, words that men and women long to hear on a daily basis. They are words that, while not belittling the darkness of the present, nonetheless afford the hearer a glimpse of the future. And a bright future it is for the glory of the Lord will be illuminating it. It is a future with the Lord.
The above words constitute the good news of salvation, a salvation that is brought by no one else but by the Lord himself. They are words that must have resonated inside that crowded house into which was lowered the paralytic whose healing we read about in our Gospel reading today. Even though Jesus’ exact words were ‘ Your sins are forgiven,’ he must have uttered them with the above words from the prophet Isaiah in mind. Jesus saw the faith of the men who lowered the paralytic from the roof top. But it was to the man lowered that he focused his attention. He immediately sympathized with him. ‘ Be strong and fear no longer,’ he must have said inaudibly, ‘ Today your God has come to save you.’ God’s promise uttered through the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled that day for the paralytic. By forgiving him his sins, Jesus took away any fear that held him hostage. He was now free to courageously take up his place in the presence of the Lord as a true son of God (as a paralytic, he was believed to have been cursed and as such could not be a recipient of God’s blessing). And by healing him, Jesus concretized God’s promises for him. No longer were the Lord’s words mere promises. The words took flesh in his being when Jesus healed and made him whole again. Truly, the time of his salvation had come and his God had visited him.