{"id":6506,"date":"2020-06-21T17:12:57","date_gmt":"2020-06-21T07:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6506"},"modified":"2020-06-21T17:17:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-21T07:17:30","slug":"how-great-is-your-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/how-great-is-your-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"How Great is your Faith?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

How Great is your Faith<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Fr David Shehata<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Passage Luke 5:17-26<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paralytic Man is read in the gospel of Luke 5, but also in Matthew 9 and Mark 2. It is very commonly confused with the miracle recorded in the gospel of John which recounts a paralytic man that was 38 years old and sat by the pool of Bathsaida. This is usually because Jesus says to both, \u201crise, take up your bed and walk.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are key differences between the two. They are definitely not the same person and when we look at the differences, there are a multitude of benefits that reveal how Christ treated them according to the depth of their faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus was in a house in the gospel of Luke and the man was brought to Him, while in John, Jesus sought out the paralytic man. The man in Luke had friends around him while the man by the pool of Bethsaida had no one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can come across as insensitive that the Lord – who is all-loving, all-powerful, all compassionate – would allow this man and his friends to go through so much trouble to reach Him. St Mark recounts the extent of the difficulty they had when he writes, \u201cmany gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door\u201d<\/em> (Mark 2:2). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He emphasises a house that would have had so many people that they were flooded out the door. There was no room, so the four men looked upon this situation and decided to enter through the roof; \u201cAnd when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was\u201d <\/em>\u2013 Luke 2:4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we pause at this verse and put ourselves in this situation. If I was one of the four men in this situation or the paralytic man himself who had come to see Jesus in faith because I have heard of what He has done for others, how do I react to the obstacles in my path?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This applies to every time we want to spend time with God, but find an obstacle along the way. I am making my way to church, I have planned ahead and booked a spot because of the current Covid restrictions. I find rain, storm, cold\u2026 what next? Do I wait for the next mass?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or I come to pray at night at my designated prayer spot but just before I get there, I find the room is cold and I remember the warmth of my bed\u2026 what next? This is a question we ask ourselves. What would I do in this situation; when Christ is so close but there is an obstacle in my way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I presume\nthat it\u2019s just not God\u2019s will for me to go to church on that day? There is nothing\nwrong with waiting, Jesus will still be around when I eventually pray the next\nday, or the day after that. There are so many ways to justify turning back at\nthe first obstacle we see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in Mark, the four friends saw that they could not enter through the door so they created their own entry point through the roof. It seems irrational and beyond the logic of society to enter through a closed roof instead of an open door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not the faith of one alone in this situation but the combined faith of the five men. They had to carry the man to the roof, they had to uncover some of the tiles so that they could lower him into the house. The greatness and difficulty of this task was exemplary of the greatness and unwavering faith of these five men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The understanding of Jews at the time was that in major disease or illness was the result of sin. Either their own sin or that of their parents, just like in the gospel of John when the disciples asked Christ in front of the man without any fear of whether he would hear them or not, \u201cWho sinned, this man or his parents?\u201d This is an insight into the culture at the time. The paralytic man was seen as a sinner, deserving of his punishment of paralysis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The life of\na paralytic would have been extremely difficult, they had no social security,\nwere unable to work and moreover, they were blamed for the state they were in.\nNo one had compassion on them and they were likely to grow irritable and resent\nsociety. This man showed willingness to become a public spectacle, to be judged\nand condemned as a sinner, for a chance to reach Christ and be healed. This was\nall irrelevant to him compared to what he was about to gain. His gain in this process\nwas far greater than any criticism and social stigma. This is a lesson in faith\nwe can all learn from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How many\ntimes do I sacrifice time with God for momentary praise or pleasure? How many\ntimes do I, in my own life, say that I will speak to God later? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Lord sees the faith of the paralytic man and his friends, He says, \u201cyour sins are forgiven.\u201d This is so powerful and gives us insight into the nature of Christ. The Lord prioritises the man\u2019s sins over his paralysis. This was the more important of the two in the eyes of the Lord. Heavenly healing lasts for eternity, while healing of the flesh is irrelevant to the hereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps we\ncan learn to prioritise similarly; to work harder on the forgiveness of my\nsins, to work harder in speaking to my father of confession, to work harder in\npartaking of the sacraments and finding time alone with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God wants to approach Him similarly as Fr Yacoub Magdy points out \u2013 \u201cthe trust of the beggar, compels the giver.\u201d<\/a> We learn to approach the Lord in unworthiness, in helplessness and that compels God to come to our rescue, for He is our only hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot\nsay we have finished breathing for the day, so we can not say that we have\nfinished praying for the day. Prayer is a continual and ongoing relationship\nwith the Lord. The four men approached the Lord and encountered an obstacle but\nthey kept striving to reach Christ by any means possible. They persevered with\ngreater effort so that they would see the Lord and have the life changing\nencounter that they hoped for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One reason\nwhy the Lord ensured on that day that He would be so far out of reach was to\nhighlight the extent of their faith on that day to benefit those that witnessed\nthe miracle and even to us, 2000 years later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question we then ask ourselves is how much effort do I make to meet the Lord? Is it beneficial to me? I need to keep asking, I need to keep seeking, I need to keep knocking, until I encounter the Lord, whatever it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo not be foolish in the requests you make to God, otherwise you will insult God through your ignorance. Act wisely in prayer, so that you may become worthy of glorious things. Ask for things that are honorable from Him Who will not hold back, so that you may receive honor from Him as a result of the wise choice your free will had made. Solomon asked for wisdom (3 Kg 3:8-14) \u2013 and along with it he also received the earthly kingdom, for he knew how to ask wisely of the heavenly King, that is, for things that are important.\u201d<\/p>St Isaac the Syrian<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We\nhave the King of Heaven and Earth before us and He is willing to give us all\nthat we ask for. Ask, and ask for big things. Don\u2019t ask for meaningless things\nthat you would never put before a king. Even if you don\u2019t receive immediately,\nkeep praying for your begging will compel the Hand of God to give. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Great is your Faith Adapted from a sermon by Fr David Shehata Passage Luke 5:17-26 The Paralytic Man is read in the gospel of Luke 5, but also in Matthew 9 and Mark 2. It is very commonly confused with the miracle recorded in the gospel of John which recounts a paralytic man that … Continue reading “How Great is your Faith?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,341,35],"class_list":["post-6506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-faith","tag-persistence","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6511,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6506\/revisions\/6511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}