Have you ever felt like knowing God seems way too difficult?
Have you ever felt like theological doctrines about God are just too big to wrap your head
around?
Have you ever wondered what this whole Christian life thing has to do with your actual, everyday
life?
Hey everybody this is Steve and God is inviting us to know Him, face to face.
In this week's Gospel, Jesus heals a paralytic, but not just physically.
And in this week's Epistle, helps us see Jesus as both higher than the angels yet also, in
a sense, lower.
Links, as always, are down in the doobley-doo.
And remember to check out the intro videos we made for both Mark's Gospel account and
Paul's epistle, to help you better understand the readings.
So here we are, getting ready for the second Sunday of Great Lent.
And you're going to notice something interesting about the Gospel readings for the next few
weeks.
As we moved from the Lukan cycle to the Triodion, we spent a few weeks with Matthew, and then
we turned to John last week.
But now we're going to stick with the Gospel according to Mark for the rest of Lent.
As we cover in the intro video, about half of Mark's Gospel account is dedicated to Christ's
death and resurrection.
About half of the Gospel revolves around what leads up to the Cross, and what follows *from*
the Cross.
And that rings true for where we are in the calendar.
We're in it now: we're on our way to the Cross.
The cross, of course, is so amazing because it was the Son of God who was nailed to it.
The Son of God who became human and died on it.
The Son of God who, despite being invisible and unknowable, revealed Himself to us in
His meekness, His gentleness, His unconditional love.
You see, the second Sunday of Lent is dedicated to St Gregory Palamas.
You may remember that we covered St Gregory in an episode of Be the Bee with our friend
Sister Vassa a few years ago.
St Gregory was involved in a theological controversy back in the 14th century.
The question was basically whether it was possible to have an experience of God; to
know God.
Or whether He was completely unknowable.
St Gregory answered the question by explaining the difference between God's essence and energies.
In His essence, His divine nature, God is unknowable.
But in His uncreated energies, sort of His activities in the world, we can experience
God and know Him.
It's this weird...paradox.
That God is both transcendent and closer to us than we are to ourselves.
Both unknowable and yet personal - someone we can know and experience and enjoy communion
with.
This week's Epistle doesn't quite approach this question from that angle, looking at
essence and energies.
But it does explore this question of who exactly Jesus is.
This week's epistle reading comes from the very end of chapter 1 into the beginning of
chapter 2 of the epistle to the Hebrews.
In chapter 1, Paul explains that Jesus isn't merely an angel.
He's divine: true God of true God.
"He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and He
sustains all things by his powerful word."
(Hebrews 1:3)
Yet in chapter 2, Paul explains how the one who is higher than the angels became lower
than the angels.
How the very Son of God became one of His own creation, one of us.
So that He could save us from death and grant us life.
"Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, He himself likewise shared the
same things, so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death,
that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear
of death."
(Hebrews 2:14-15)
Paul is offering this beautiful mediation on the way Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lowers
Himself in His humility and love.
The way He lowers Himself to actually raise us up.
Paul quotes from Psalm 8 to describe this beautiful lifting up of humanity.
Psalm 8 glorifies God for being so incredibly great: He's the creator of the heavens, the
sovereign of the universe, someone unimaginably glorious and wonderous.
And, in contrast, there's us.
People.
Physical beings, animals, made of the dust of the earth.
Why would God...care about us?
As the Psalmist writes: "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals,
that you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with
glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet."
(Psalm 8:4-5)
While we humans are something relatively insignificant as compared to God, God loved us so much that
He crowned us with glory and honor.
The Son of God took on flesh and became one of us.
And we could see what used to be invisible (the glory of God), and what used to seem
impossible (the glory of humanity), in the face of Jesus Christ.
And we again see this tension between what's seen and not seen in this week's Gospel.
Four men brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus.
Their faith was so great that they not only carried him all the way to Jesus, but they
crossed all kinds of barriers to get to Him.
When they found that the house Jesus was in was too crowded to meet Him, they lifted their
friend onto the roof, cut a hole in the roof, and lowered their paralyzed friend down so
He could meet Jesus face to face.
Jesus sees this man.
He sees the faith of his four friends.
And He says something completely unexpected:
"My son, your sins are forgiven."
(Mark 2:5)
Now, if I was the paralyzed man or one of his friends, I probably would have been super
disappointed.
My guess is that they found Jesus so their friend could be healed, not forgiven.
But the Scripture doesn't tell us that they were disappointed.
Probably because we've already read that they were people of great faith.
But we do read that the scribes, experts in the Old Testament law, heard Jesus say this,
and...
Well, they were not happy.
"Why does this man speak thus?
It is a blasphemy!
Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
(Mark 2:7)
What follows is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture.
Jesus knows what's going on in the hearts of the scribes.
And He calls them out on it.
"Why do you question thus in your hearts?
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise,
take up your pallet and walk?
But 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, rise, take up your pallet and go home."
(Mark 2:8-11)
And of course, the paralyzed man obeys Jesus: he gets up, and he goes home.
Jesus sees this paralyzed man being lowered through the ceiling and He doesn't immediately
heal His paralysis.
Instead, He *immediately* heals his life.
He *forgives* the man's sins.
When the scribes doubt Him, and accuse Him of blasphemy, *that's* when Jesus heals the
man's body.
And Jesus says that He does this, not because it was the most important thing; He'd already
done that by healing the man in a deeper sense.
No, He does this so that people would know and experience Him as God, as the One who
heals both body and soul.
He does this so that people would know He is the God that Paul writes about, the God
who is higher than the angels and yet becomes one of us so we can become His brothers and
sisters.
So that people would know He is the God that Gregory Palamas writes about, the one who
(though transcendent and unknowable) made Himself known to us.
By acting in our lives.
By giving us life.
By loving us.
It was a love that was made supremely visible on the cross.
Which is exactly where we're headed.
We've covered a lot of ground today.
And to help work through what this all means for each us, we'll end as we always do on
Live the Word: with 3 questions.
First, when you can't bring yourself to Jesus, who are the people that carry you?
The paralyzed man had his four friends, and they did all they could to make sure he saw
Christ.
Who do you have in your corner?
Maybe it's a parent.
A friend?
Maybe your priest is especially good about walking you to the Lord when you don't have
strength yourself.
Consider reaching out to these people and thanking them for everything they done for
you when you can't do it for yourself.
Second, what are the obstacles getting between you and Jesus?
The four men face all kinds of obstacles that prevent them from bringing their friend to
encounter Jesus.
There's a crowd, a roof, the skeptical scribes.
What obstacles are you are facing?
Maybe it's a habitual sin?
Maybe it's the fear of what other people might think?
Maybe you have your own inner voice that sounds like the scribes?
Maybe you wonder if this guy Jesus is the real deal?
Can He really help you, can He really heal you?
Whether it's doubt or fear or circumstance, what's keep you from encountering Christ?
Third, as you sit in this tension between God's knowability and unknowablility, what
happens in your heart?
Do you feel overwhelmed by this?
Do you feel a little bit of disappointment, or even despair, because maybe haven't really
had an experience of God?
Maybe you have no problem with these beliefs about God, but really struggle when it comes
to letting these doctrines take root in your heart.
Or maybe you've experienced God's action, but still aren't sure exactly how to organize
or make sense of that.
How are you living in the tension of God's simultaneous transcendence and closeness?
We'll be back with a new episode on Monday.
And my buddy Christian will have a short response video up on Thursday as he wrestles with these
questions.
I hope you'll read the Gospels and Epistle passages we covered today.
And, whether it's with family or friends or a Bible Study group, I hope you'll talk about
what we've covered and wrestle with what God has for you, in your life.
Most importantly, I hope you'll celebrate with us this Sunday and every Sunday, to hear
the beautiful Scripture readings proclaimed during the Divine Liturgy and to learn how
you can Live the Word.
Thanks for watching.
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