SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME “B”
2009
Some years ago a pastor was being harassed by a woman in his congregation. She started false rumours about him, and then wrote vicious letters about him to the bishop and to others. She had a petition drawn up to have him removed from the parish. After several months of this persecution, the woman moved to another city, and not long afterward she had a change of heart, and repented of the evil she had done, as she finally realized what a terrible wrong she had done, and what needless pain and suffering she had inflicted on her previous pastor. She wrote him a long letter explaining what had happened to her, and how deeply she regretted what she had done to him and she asked his forgiveness. The pastor immediately sent her a telegram with only three words on it: “Forgiven, forgotten, forever.” That is how God treats us when we come to Jesus and repent of sin in our lives.
One of the hardest things for us to do in life is to forgive someone who has hurt us, or wronged us in some way. Even if we do find the courage to forgive, it is often very difficult to forget the hurt we have been caused, and sometimes that hurt can linger in our psyches for months, even years. Perhaps, that may help us appreciate all the more the wonderful gift we each receive from God when we are forgiven our many sins. What a relief it is to be set free from the burden of sin. I often think of the scene in the movie: “The Mission” where a Spaniard, who has been kidnaping natives in the jungles of South America for the slave trade, finally repents of his evil deeds and is forgiven. In the scene, the Spaniard is climbing up a long and arduous mountain path with a group of native people, and he is carrying on his back, as a form of penance, a large sack full of metal pieces, knives, swords, pots and pans, all symbolizing the heavy weight of the burden of his sins. As they near the top of the mountain, one of the native people with him approaches and cuts the heavy bag loose from his shoulder letting it fall hundreds of feet to the earth below. What a powerful image, I thought, of what it is like when God forgives us our sins. A huge weight is lifted from us and we are set free. What makes that possible? It is the fact that, out of love for us, Jesus has paid the price for our sins when He died on the Cross. Jesus’ suffering and death on the Cross is the source of our hope, it gives us our lives back again, restores our friendship with God.. We are forgiven, and our sins are forgotten, forever by God. Once God forgives us, it is as if our sins never existed. They are over and done with forever. What a wonderful blessing it is to be reconciled to God, what a wonderful blessing Jesus gives us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Now even though we have been forgiven by God, we remain human and, though we are sincere in our repentance and desire to avoid sin in the future, because of our human weakness we sin again. I suppose we will never stop sinning entirely as long as we live on this earth and remain weak, and selfish human beings. We need to repent on a daily basis and so today we come here to once again acknowledge that we are sinners who need God’s love and forgiveness. We come here each week and humbly beg God to help us be the persons we ought to be, to help us live better lives in conformity with His divine will for
us. We come here to Mass each week and realize that we are somewhat like the paralyzed man in today’s Gospel passage, helpless, broken, imperfect, and in need of Jesus healing so that we can once again reach our full potential and be His spiritually healthy disciples.
Picture for a moment the vivid scene Mark describes for us in today’s Gospel passage. Four friends were carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher trying to get close to Jesus?
They believed in their hearts that if they could just bring their friend into the Presence of Jesus, He would cure him. However, when the arrived at the house where Jesus was teaching, they found there such a huge crowd of people that there was no room for anyone else even around the door. However, these men were not discouraged. They had great faith in Jesus, and they knew that they must bring their friend to Jesus and He would do the rest. Undaunted by the obstacles they encountered, they carried their friend on his stretcher up on to the roof. They made a hole in the roof and lowered the stretcher down by ropes into the very room where Jesus was teaching. Impressed by their act of great faith, Jesus turned to the man on the stretcher and said: “Your sins are forgiven”. That surprised them, and indeed everyone else there too. It was not what they expected Jesus to say, but Jesus knew that the paralyzed man needed spiritual healing as well as physical healing , and so He did the more important thing first. Some of the scribes were there too, and they were scandalized by Jesus’ words. They said to themselves: “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy. Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Of course, they were right; only God is able to forgive sins, but Jesus, to show that He had the power and authority of God to forgive sins, said to the paralyzed man: “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” Immediately the man was healed; he got up and went outside in the sight of everyone. The people were totally amazed at what they had seen and they said: “We have never seen anything like this.” (Mk.2:12) Today, Jesus teaches us that God wants to forgive our sins totally, to annihilate them, so that neither God nor we will have anything to do with them again. God does forgive, forget, forever.
Imagine how that paralyzed man must have felt after being healed by Jesus? He, and his friends who had brought him to Jesus, were overjoyed. All the people there, seeing what Jesus did and said, were thrilled as well. That should also be our reaction when we receive God’s forgiveness for our sins. In the Bible we see that the prophets of the Old Testament, like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezechiel, and that in the New Testament John the Baptist, and Jesus Himself called for people to repent of their sins. When we repent, when we are truly sorry for the sins we have committed against the Will of God, then we need to go to Jesus and be reconciled through Him with God. Then the burden of sin will be lifted from our shoulders, and the door to all kinds of new possibilities will open up for us. Once we have been forgiven, Jesus restores to us the wonderful gift of new life, of divine life, a life we call sanctifying Grace. The merits of our former good deeds are restored and we are once again in a good relationship with God. It is a gift we cannot earn, a gift we do not and cannot deserve. It is pure gift, freely given to us by the Lord when we repent of sin and are forgiven. So today, here at this Mass, we give thanks to God for forgiving us so many times, through Jesus His Son, Who forgives, and forgets, forever.