In the next few weeks as Lent begins, we're going to look into questions of healing and forgiveness and what it means to say that "Jesus saves." Today's text provides a paradigm for these questions, so rather than plunge into any of them too deeply now, let me raise several issues that this text provides for us.

First, Jesus does not immediately focus on the physical healing of the paralyzed man, but on the forgiveness of sins. Are the two connected and, if so, how?

Second, Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man or the Human One, and says it is the human one that has authority to forgive and power to heal. Is Jesus the unique Son of Man or is he saying something about all of us "human ones?"

Third, it is not the faith of the paralytic that is noted, but the faith of his friends, who go out of their way to help him.

In today's reading from Mark, we find that Jesus, having done a whirlwind tour of preaching, teaching and healing around Galilee in the first chapter of the book, is back home in Capernaum. But word immediately gets out and the crowds arrive at his house to hear what he has to say and to get healed. The hordes extend beyond the house even, with people swarming the doorways and leaning in the windows. So one group of folks quickly realize that in order to get their sick friend close to Jesus, they'll have to take some desperate measures. Four of the group climb up on the roof and begin digging a hole.

Imagine the crowded room below, Jesus at the center teaching, when suddenly, the mud bricks of the roof above begin crashing down! What a mess! What audacity! How dare these four destroy property, disrupt the teaching of a new prophet, and create such havoc for those below. But they persist, until the hole is big enough to allow a person on a pallet to be lowered down into the middle of the house.

These friends go to great extremes for their paralyzed friend and Jesus takes note of their actions. Not to press charges against them, but to commend them. Because of their faithfulness, the man is healed.

However, Jesus does not immediately focus on the man's paralysis. His first words are, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The stir that moves through the room is palpable. This is blasphemous: to assume the power of God, to offer forgiveness! Jesus can sense the reaction at once, the raised eyebrows, the pursed lips, the stiff backs, particularly among the religious leadership in the crowd.

So he responds to the unspoken disapproval: "Which is easier to say? 'Your sins are forgiven' or 'Take up your pallet and walk?'" The obvious answer is that it would be easier to pronounce forgiveness, since the result is less measurable. If he says the latter and the man doesn't walk, his failure is immediately evident to all present. So he obliges the audience and commands the paralytic, "Take up your mat and go home!"

As Jesus says this, he gives this caveat, "I'm doing this so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins." The healing that occurs in the body of the man, then, points to the ability for healing to occur within, as well.

But who is this Son of Man, this Human One? Well, volumes continue to be written on this subject, since it was one of Jesus' favorite ways of referring to himself, so I won't resolves that issue right now. Technically, it is an idiom meaning simply, "human beings." In the Hebrew Scriptures the title was also used to refer to a particular group of prophets. It is interesting that Jesus would prefer to use this description of himself. It points to a lower estimate of who he is than we in the Christian Church often use. He pointedly does not call himself Messiah or Christ or Son of God, except in the general sense in which we are all children of the Creator.

Which leaves us, then, with the clear implication that whoever has God's authority can bring healing both internally and externally and, in fact, human beings have been given this authority. The gospel of John states this quite explicitly in Jesus' final words to his disciples. In Matthew's gospel Jesus tells Peter that whatever is loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven, the implication being that human beings have the ability to bring about what might be considered the supernatural. The early church took this authority very seriously and became known for their powers of physical healing and spiritual reconciliation.

Which brings us back to Tom and the elders who prayed for him. For the first time in their lives they were asked to actually use the power that Jesus said we each have. So they did and the results were incredible.

We all know deeply faithful Christians who have prayed for years for particular kinds of healings and not found the cure which they were seeking. We know young Christian mothers who have left behind children when they died too young. We know Christian parents whose daily prayers did not save their children from suffering.

The power of healing remains a mystery, beyond the scope of science, beyond the scope of our understanding in the church. Why do some people find physical relief and others not? Do we worship a capricious God?

I am sure we don't, but I can't claim to answer the questions of why or how healing occurs. Here is what I can say based not only on Scripture, but on my own experience and the experience of many regular folks I have known like Tom:

Prayer is a powerful source of healing. Everything we read about Jesus indicates that healing was a central and essential part of his ministry. And Jesus insisted that we each have access to the power of the Spirit in our own lives.

Healing does not always take the form of the cure we are seeking, but often occurs in other ways. And when Jesus looked at people to heal them, he looked at the whole person -- not the leg or the arm or the eye or the back. He looked at their souls, their relationships, and their communities. Jesus saves. But Jesus doesn't always save us from what we wish we could be saved from.

And Jesus rarely acts alone. Like the audacious friends on the roof, we are called to be the faithful community in search of health. As we come to the table of God today and as we begin Lent on Ash Wednesday this week, I invite you to consider the healing and saving grace we all seek and that our world so clearly needs.