Friends

Advent 2025, Day 12

Luke 5:17-26

            This is what the world looks like when you’re paralyzed: you lie in a pit, always looking up. Always watching as the world circles around you, in and out of your sight, people doing all the things you are denied. You may share in life only when others stop to tend to you, to make your existence possible. Otherwise, they move along above you while you lie like a stone, your mind condemned to race along inside this trap of a body, your heart swelling with the passions that find no outlet. 

            To be paralyzed is to be incapable. You cannot move. You cannot act upon your joy, your grief, your rage, your longings. To be paralyzed is to be always at the mercy of others. Always carried. Always tended to. And, it seems to you, always a burden. 

            I wonder what the man in our story is thinking as his friends push their way through the crowds, jostling his bed. He lies there, looking up at faces annoyed by their attempts to get close to this man everyone is talking about. Is he embarrassed? Angry? Afraid? Numb? Hopeful? I wonder if he protests as his friends climb onto the roof, then lift him up. What does he do while they tear the tiles away, raining dust down on the people below?    

            It is hard to accept a love like this. A love that carries you along when you are unable to live for yourself, a love that insists on seeking your healing whether you want it or not, a love that loves you when all you can do is lie helpless.  Sometimes receiving is the most difficult thing in the world. 

            Whatever he is thinking, he doesn’t have much choice as he is suspended in the air, watching the excited faces of his friends above him, hearing the gasps and cries of those below. Here he is, on full display. He is held by the strength of these friends who bring him right into the presence of Jesus. And then the Healer himself is looking down at him, and I’m guessing the look on Jesus’ face is not what this paralytic expected to see. It never is. 

            Stop and ponder Jesus’ words. When he sees the faith of the friends, he says to the man, “Your sins are forgiven.”

            Jesus sees the real problem here. The true paralysis. We don’t get to hear what the man’s sins are, but we can imagine. If it were me? I’d be bitter. Resentful. Hopeless. Jealous. Full of despair. And this, not the physical paralysis, becomes Jesus’ priority. He sees the love of the friends—love that has acted in faith regardless of the response of the man on the mat—and he honors them. If the man does not see what these friends have done for him, Jesus certainly does. 

            I wonder how long the man lies there feeling the weight of those words washing over him. All the sin that has built up behind the dam of his paralysis, exposed and done away with at the same moment.

            This is the moment of his true healing. And it is because of the faith of his friends. Imagine if he had leapt off his bed and walked out of there, still full of his rage and inner anguish. What good would his physical healing have done him? 

            The healing we seek is not always the healing we need. These friends have the faith that Jesus will do what is necessary. I love this story for the man’s sake, but even more for theirs. 

            Sometimes Jesus comes to you in the form of a friend who will not let you lie in your misery. Sometimes you are the friend who gets to see a miracle—at least, if you’re willing to do a little carrying. A little digging. 

            Are you the one paralyzed? Maybe your healing won’t be what you think.  Are you the friend? Have a little faith. And keep loving.