Jesus saves
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Jesus Saves: Talk No 1: Frank Nelson Good Friday 2011
Driving along a country road you couldn’t help but notice the graffiti splashed in white paint across the sandstone rocks: Jesus Saves.
Jesus saves. The cliché understates the importance of the concept of salvation. Jesus saves. Easy enough to utter those two words, not always so easy to unpack them in a way which is both intelligible and true to the biblical record. Over the next two hours we hope to offer some thoughts on different ways, different models, different metaphors, in which we might understand these two words: Jesus saves.
Mark McIntosh, whose book Divine Teaching has been the object of study for some in the Cathedral over past months, suggests it is helpful to ask four questions about salvation. What are we saved from? What are we saved for? By what means are we saved? How wide is the scope of salvation? They will function as useful pegs as we continue. Jesus saves: From? For? How? Who?
The concept of salvation is very broad. In the Bible it can, and does, include the idea of being saved from shipwreck, rescued from slavery or imprisonment, surviving imminent catastrophe such as war, having our sins forgiven and so being restored to relationship with God and each other.
One doesn’t have to read very far into the Gospels to see that healing is an important part of the saving work of Jesus. Stories of healing abound. Listen to this well known story.
Mark 2: 1 – 12
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’
The first question – what are we saved from? – is easily answered in this story. The paralysed man is able to walk again. He is saved from a life of dependence on others, perhaps pain and depression at not being able to live as full a life as he would like. Here is the classic healing story. Someone is ill or has some infirmity. Jesus heals. Jesus saves. (The words appear able to be used interchangeably).
What we are saved for is not so immediate? In the previous story in Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus heals a leper, the healed man immediately goes and tells everyone what has happened to him. In a very real sense he spreads the good news that a new healer is in town. The fact that the attention and publicity hindered Jesus’ work seems to have escaped the man’s notice. During Lent we have read some of the great dialogues in John’s Gospel, including Chapter 9 which tells of the man born blind. In the course of conversation Jesus suggests the blindness is not because of anyone’s sin, but so that a healing can occur through which God will be made known. (John 9: 3). A similar thought is present in Matthew’s account of the healing of a blind and mute man. While the people immediately recognise the work of God in the healing, the Pharisees, ever quick to find fault and with their own blind spots, suggest Jesus is in the employ of Beelzebul! This invites the reader to answer their own question: Who is Jesus?
Going back to the healing of the paralytic we see the interplay between healing and forgiveness. In the context of the time, illness was thought of as being caused by sin. If we put a hyphen into our English word disease, we see the close link between illness and sin. Dis-ease caused the individual to become separated from God – through sin, and from family and community – through the ailment. All of us will have experienced that strange sense of unfamiliarity after being off sick for a week or more. It’s as if we are out of touch with a world that has moved on.
The means of saving in this model, which explores the concept of healing, is through the forgiveness of sins. That itself caused considerable dis-ease amongst the Pharisees who immediately accuse Jesus of blasphemy for daring to claim what is God’s alone. At least in the eyes of the Gospel writers the healing of the paralytic fully justifies Jesus’ claim to forgive sins, and thus points people to God. Which is the point of John’s Gospel. He tells us how he has carefully selected certain stories and incidents in order to point people to belief in God (John 20: 30ff) – a belief that offers eternal life.
The healing of people by Jesus appears, at first reading, to affect only the individual. In our modern medicine of treating each particular ailment in isolation, and having ever more specialist medical people apparently unable to see the body, the person, as a whole – it is not so easy to see the importance to a community of a blind, or lame, person being healed. The impact must have been huge. Another pair of hands for the harvest or road-building, a family no longer dependant on the charity and goodwill of others.
Fortunately we are beginning to be more holistic in our thinking and understanding. Even some government departments appear to be talking to each other for the good of the whole, rather than simply focusing on their own little piece of the picture.
Jesus Saves – a paralysed man from his paralysis, isolation and dependence on others, through the forgiveness of sin and restoration to wholeness. The Gospel writers are convinced that Jesus is the Son of God despite, because of, the Cross. This healing, this salvation, is open to all people.
One other thought: It will be obvious to all that not all our prayers for healing are answered. A wise doctor once said to me that when he prays God sometimes heals physically, often mentally, always spiritually. In the end our physical death is healing as we enter into the presence of God’s glory.
Prayers We need your healing merciful God: give us true repentance. Some sins are plain to us; some escape us, some we cannot face. Forgive us; set us free to hear your word to us; set us free to serve you. (ANZPB pg 458)
Lord Jesus Christ, by your cross and passion you redeemed the world: to all who face long-continued suffering grant patieince, courage, and an unshakeable trust in you love; help them to offer their weakness with thanksgiving to you; strengthen them to go on seeking your perfect will, that having endured with you they may also live and reign with you, now and for ever. (An Anglican Prayer Book, South Africa, pg 496)
Hymn CP 96: Jesu, lover of my soul: Tune, Aberystwyth
