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Mark 2:9-12
[Jesus said,] “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!”

To ponder
It’s this strange experience of being let go by someone that enables you to let go of yourself and come to be something bigger than you thought you were, realizing that it’s someone else who made that possible for you. That’s what I mean by being forgiven. - James Alison, “The Forgiving Victim”

Please just let me pick up my mat and walk
I don’t know which is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” or “Stand up and walk.” But I know which is easier to hear: “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.” In this command I have something I can do, an action I can take. I get to claim some agency for the fact that I’m no longer down and out.
When Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven,” I am completely vulnerable to his verdict. To make matters worse, to be forgiven means that I did something that needed forgiveness. It’s excruciating to be seen for what I am in that way. Because we don’t like feeling powerless, we sometimes reject the one forgiving us. But in doing that we forfeit the gift that makes us into something bigger than we ever knew we could be.

Prayer

God, I’d rather be my own god, picking up my own broken life and walking away on my own. But if that were the case, I’d be down forever. Thank you for your forgiveness, which enables me to get up and carry on, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

(from: “A Story to Tell: Devotions for Lent” Bekki Lohrmann, Harvard Stephens Jr., Lydia Posselt, David L. Miller; Augsburg Fortress, 2020)