Houston, we have…hope
Jim Lovell had a problem. Before he would set the record for the most hours in space (pre space station), before he would be one of the first people to see the dark side of the moon, and before he would utter his most famous words, “Houston, we have a problem…” he had another problem: He needed to land his plane.
In 1953, Lovell had been assigned to an aircraft carrier group near Japan. He was flying his first night mission and to see his map at night he had created a new experimental cockpit light. It was one bad situation after another. He was not used to flying and landing at night, his radar signals became jammed, he couldn’t communicate with the carrier because of a bandwidth issue so he flipped on his light to look at his map and find his bearings.
Everything went black.
His new light shorted out his equipment lights. He couldn’t even see his altitude. Yet somehow his loss of everything is exactly what saved him. As he looked out into the pitch black he saw a long, glowing streak. He quickly realized this was the phosphorescent algae that gets stirred up in the wake of a large ship. So what he had, all of a sudden, was a half mile glowing path taking him directly where he needed to be. It wasn’t what he wanted to happen, but it was exactly what he needed to happen.
This week in worship we are looking at a familiar passage that reminds us of the value of friendship. Several friends are trying to bring their crippled friend to see Jesus so that he can be healed. Unable to reach Jesus, they cut a hole in the roof of the house he is teaching in.
“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.'” (Mark 2:5)
There are so many interesting things happening here, even beyond digging through a stranger’s roof. Jesus’ forgiveness in this moment seems driven by the faith of others, not the one being forgiven. That’s interesting to me and exciting that our actions and perhaps more likely our prayers could have such an impact on others finding forgiveness.
The other most interesting thing to me is that Jesus doesn’t say, “You are healed” right away. He first says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Of course Jesus goes on to heal the man in rebuttal to the cynics thinking he had no right to offer forgiveness.
“Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’ So he said to the man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all.” (Mark 2:8b-12)
Healing the man seems to have been less important to Jesus than assuring the paralytic of his forgiveness. The use of his legs wasn’t going to change his heart. His friends had made this huge fuss, and maybe he felt unworthy, even embarrassed that they would work so hard for such a wretch to be rejected one more time by a holy man.
But Jesus gives him what he truly needed before giving what he probably wanted. And Jesus does the same for us today.
Have your prayers been hitting the ceiling? Has your Bible reading felt bland or even hard to get to and prioritize? Maybe it’s time to just sit and listen. Maybe you’re not hearing from God because you are talking over him? Maybe you have gotten wrapped up in your own problems (valid though they may be) and are missing out on finding the solutions because you’re looking at all the flashing lights of your own problems. And maybe what you need is to shut everything off and just look out at all the opportunities that are in front of you. Who knows? There may just be a glowing path leading you exactly where you need to be.
Amen.