The Paralytic.

Part One.

The trouble with living a life is that you have to carry it around
with you. All of the memories are there- the joys of playing as a
child, the tears when you scraped your knee. There was the moment
that you were caught in your first little white lie.

We remember the first time that we hurt someone, and if not, we
certainly recall the most recent. We dream of who we want to be and we
slowly forget about who we once wanted to become. The astronaut, the
engineer, the doctor.

But here we have a guy who could not carry his life with him. He was
motionless, stuck. As if he had waded into some quicksand, his body
sunk into a bed.

The story tells us that he was a paralytic. No range of motion below
the neck. Perhaps he was born with cerebral palsy. Maybe it was an
accident at work, maybe he fell from a roof. Maybe his life was going
to fill with irony.

We don't really know, is the thing. What we do know is that he was in
his own life, his own mistakes, his own hopes. He was like you and he
was like me. He had a life that needed forgiveness. Gosh, how he
wanted to be forgiven. How he needed to be forgiven.

The blessing and the curse for most of us is in the running. I can
run out of the front door of my life, I can move up the escalator and
hop on a plane and I can forget about life for a little while. It's
only a band aid. It's a temporary fix. It doesn't solve anything,
but we get to run away.

But not our friend here. He has nowhere to run. In just the way that
our life stays with us, his remained with him-- lying on a bed,
counting the memories, counting the ceiling tiles. And so his life is
laid out there, passed by.

Who notices?
Who has the time to care?
Do you ever feel marginalized?
Do you feel like you don't matter to the world, or at least to someone
else?
He had a body that wouldn't work. He had nothing to offer. It makes
me wonder if anyone ever offered him any of those things that he
longed for. Those things that we all long for.

Part 2.

Somewhere else in the town there is a man who is drawing quite a
crowd. It must have gone the way these things do... He was walking
through the streets, making his way to the house of a friend. Someone
spots him because this guy is something of a county hero. He grew up
in a small town nearby. Just a carpenter by trade. A guy who knew
how to build things, who knew how to make something beautiful out of
just a few scraps of wood. But out there in the world the small town
boy went and made a name for himself. They said that he was healing
people. Women that were deaf were requesting songs at the bar. Men
who were blind were now bird watching on the weekends. Diseases that
your cousins and your neighbors had for years were just sort of
falling off like old scales.

Makes you want to go and see what all the fuss is about, doesn't it?
We're smart people. Let me see it first. Maybe he has some cool
tricks, maybe he is a decent magician. But what does he have to say?
What's in this guy's soul? What makes everyone want to be around him-
to pack out someone's house- to be part of the masses that spill out
of the doors, out of the windows, into the courtyards, down into those
dusty streets?

Part 3.

Thank God for friends. If I hadn't have had my friends, I would never
have made it. Let me rephrase that--- I wouldn't be making it today.
With strong legs and an able back- I still could have only gone so
far. Life is just too heavy sometimes. Life can be too much. It just
doesn't matter who you are.

But here comes a friend of this guy, this guy lying in bed, the one
counting the roof tiles.

He bursts into the room without a knock. Have you heard about Jesus?
He's come back around. They say there is something brewing around
him. People are just falling all over themselves to get to him. Just
to talk to him, Just to touch him. They come out and they're
different.. no. They are changed.

The friend looks off into space. He wonders. He has that look in his
eye. He's working out the idea as he talks. "Hey. What if we could
get you over there? What if we could get you in front of him? I
wonder if he would take a look. Maybe he could do... something..
anything to get you moving again... anything for you to feel the blood
move through your arms.. anything just to see those toes move back and
forth just one more time.."

A glimmer of hope shines in the eyes of our paralyzed patient and the
next thing we know the friend is trying to lift him up. He's laying
flat on his back and this guy is going for the sack of potatoes move.
You know, the fireman's carry is just too much when the potatoes are a
grown man. It doesn't matter how much fire and passion the man has
for his friend's well-being, the muscles don't run on hope. He needed
more help.

So he runs out the door and he finds some other guys. Friends who grew
up with the guy lying in the bed. Guys who used to play games with him
out in the streets. Guys who missed those times with that old friend
around the table, eating and drinking and laughing late into the
night. So they rush back, following close to the first guy. they
found a mat lying in the corner and they all gather round. They hoist
up on the count of one, two, three and down he goes again. This time
ready to move, finally, though with the help of some friends.

They carry him through the streets. Those hot, middle eastern
streets. the sweat begins with a trickle down their backs and then
gathers momentum. Their hands burn as they keep walking, marching,
hoping, believing...finally.

Finally- they reach the house and there are so many people. People
are coming out of every opening. People are swarming like it was
Bonaroo. The whole town is there. The intellectuals, the religious
types, the crazies, the drunks. It's the good, it's the bad, and it is
definitely the ugly-- all in one place- clamoring for a look, hoping
to hear his voice, maybe to just catch his eye, to brush his hand.

Well what are you going to do? They can't get through. Is there a
number to take? Is there a line that we can't see? Is there anyway?
no. There is no way to see him. There is no way to talk to him.

It's hopeless.

Is it hopeless? Is it difficult, yes-- but maybe there is a way. One
of the guys spots the roof. Stairs go up the side and maybe, just
maybe, there will be some kind of opening, maybe there is some way.

So one of the guys, the little one that was quick on his feet- he
takes off to the stairs and springs up the steps two and three at a
time. You see him looking around, looking all around and then he looks
up. He does a little wave. He runs back down and in just a flash- in
just a moment- he is back. There is a small opening! Maybe we could--
I don't know-- Let's give it a shot.

Part 4.

The opening wasn't much to speak of. His heart was bigger than his
ability to perceive reality. Another dead end.

But no. We have come too far. We have fought and we have struggled
and we have carried not just our friend but ourselves to this last
barricade.

Such desperation wells up in another one of the friends that he drops
to his knees and he pounds the tiles that make the roof with his
clenched, bare fist.

And wouldn't you know it? A bit of that tile broke away and fell to
the floor below, probably hitting Saint Peter on the top of his thick
head.

He looks at the others, completely bewildered and without a word they
all fall like dominoes to the floor. They begin to beat at that roof.
They tear at the tiles. They beat and they tear and the sweat falls
into their eyes to blind them. Salty tears begin to well up as they
work their way through. Bit by gritty bit and tile by tile until
finally there is enough space. An opening just large enough to get
this motionless friend down into the room..

And so they gathered some rope and they carefully lower him down. Down
and down until he lays flat. All of his life and dreams are lying flat
at the feet of Jesus.

The boy turned carpenter and now man and celebrity looks down at this
guy on the mat. He looks up at the friends who brought him this whole
way and he...

He what? He forgives him. Forgives him of what? Sins? Oh yes. And
all of those years of hopelessness and all of those years of not
believing that there was a way- to healing? To life. To life that
was full and in motion. To a heart that desperately wanted to come
alive. He forgives him of all the wrongs and all of the pain and all
of the things that we all carry around in these wintery hearts of ours.

The next thing we hear is Jesus telling him to get up now. Rise on
up. Pick up the mat and move around. Stretch your legs. Learn to
paint, write a book or run a marathon. See the world. They hear these
words translate into motion for that once bedridden friend. On a mat
no more. On a bed from now on only to rest from the long sweet days of
living a life touched by the hand of God.

And as they walked home. With a day gone by and hands shaking and
bleeding from the jagged and ripped tiles- with muscles exhausted from
carrying that friend to the end of one life and into the arms of
another---

They smiled and they talked of the sweet truth that it was worth every
bit, it was worth every tile, it was worth every moment to be a part
of this- to see the face of Jesus.

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