NOTES for Luk 5:17-26

How often we fail to see a miracle taking place before our very eyes. We find natural causes for what is happening. Is it really simple to say to a person, “Rise and walk,” if he is stricken with paralysis? But people do not understand that a miracle is needed here; it seems to them that this is not so difficult. One need only call a doctor, and the doctor will cure him. Yet people often refuse to notice that the doctor’s work is blessed from above and that, therefore, every time it is again a miracle. Still less are these people willing to acknowledge that any person has divine authority to forgive sins. But even those who believe in the forgiveness of sins—even we Christians—do not fully understand what it is. We take it too lightly: we offer our repentance and are entirely certain that our sins are forgiven. Here the Lord gives an answer to both groups, the skeptics and the believers: the forgiveness of sins takes place through the power of a miracle, through the power of an immense effort. For every miracle is labor for the Lord. In other words, we should learn to see the miracle, and then an understanding of Christ’s divine authority will come. But it is a special kind of authority, not an authority that can simply command sins to be forgiven at no cost to itself, but one that participates in forgiveness through the power of a miracle.