HEALING IS FORGIVING

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mk 2:1-12


Jesus, in the Gospel today, said to His critics, “Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts? Which of these is easier to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk?’” When He said thus, He did not mean it was easier to assure the paralytic the forgiveness of his sins because doing so required only a few words and therefore a shorter sentence than convincing everyone that the paralytic had been healed by ordering him to rise, to get his mat and to begin walking. Jesus’ point was that it was easier for the paralytic to be forgiven from his sins even when it was seemingly difficult for the same man to be released from his handicap. The Prophet Isaiah, in the First Reading today, tells us why. Isaiah delivers the divine message to us: “Thus says the Lord: No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. I it is, I it is, who must blot out everything and not remember your sins.”

Without meaning the God desires healing less than forgiveness, it is easier to obtain His forgiveness because He has already forgiven us. All we need to do is confess our guilt, ask for mercy and accept His forgiveness through our Savior, Jesus Christ. That is the Good News! St. Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians, telling us that “however many the promises God made, the ‘Yes’ to them all is in Him,” assures us that God is not fickle-minded with His word of forgiveness.

It was more important to be reconciled with God rather than be restored to physical health. Although our physical well-being is important to God, our salvation is paramount. Vitality comes from within. When we are right with God, the rest follows. Vital signs are precisely signs of what cannot be seen: the human soul.

Among the group of people mentioned to have harbored ill thoughts about Jesus’ healing of the paralytic were the scribes. Not seldom does Jesus call the scribes, together with the Pharisees, “hypocrites.” The scribes and the Pharisees give more importance to what is outside rather than to what is truly inside a man. Their obsession with externalities made them fall so easily into hypocrisy. They are overly concern to appear physically whole while in truth many of them are spiritually ill. The healing of the paralytic was a parable that they, among others, must first learn. We, too, are its students.

Let us ask for forgiveness. Let us beg for healing. Healing will come through forgiveness.