Luke 5:12-26 - Homiletics

The power present to heal.

In the setting forth of facts, there is another principle of guidance than chronology. We may group them around some thoughts with the view of illustrating the meaning and scope of the thought. On this principle let us regard the events related from the twelfth verse to the twenty-sixth. What they evidence is the power of the Lord that was working in Jesus as a power of healing. Strange, blessed things we shall see to-day.

I. THE WORK OF SALVATION AS REALIZED IN THE LEPER . ( Luke 5:12-14 .) He is "full of leprosy," a mass of corruption, dying bit by bit. Notice the cry of this miserable outcast. When the father of the epileptic child met the Lord on his descent from the Mount of Transfiguration, the voice of his agony was, "If thou canst do anything, have mercy on us and help us." Jesus replied, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." He had not yet got to the mountain of faith, and the father says with tears, "Lord, I believe; but oh, help me to that mountain-height, help thou mine unbelief." This wretched leper is already on the mountain height. It is not, "If thou canst," but "If thou wilt." The Jewish proverb was, "As God sends the leprosy, so God alone can heal it." God is in this Jesus; therefore he can. Such was the logic. How he had seen the secret of the Lord, we do not know; but the trust was his—it had been sown into his heart in the urgency of his need. Now, mark the response. Sometimes the Lord seems to tarry. But in this case the way is quite ready for the blessing. "We are never told," says Dr. Farrar, "that there was a moment's pause when a leper cried to him." "If thou wilt." "I will." And the touch. To touch a leper was an infraction of law. He had to withdraw into the wilderness immediately afterwards. He did not wish to provoke any violent opposition. But he broke the ceremonial law at the demand of a higher law—the law whose source is the Divine compassion, and whose agent is the power present to heal. The foul body could not pollute the hand; but the hand of the Infinite Purity could cleanse the foul body. "Be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him." How wonderfully this strange thing brings out what is characteristic of the Saviour in his thoughts and ways to the sinner! None is beyond the reach of the love that could bid away at once and for ever that leprosy. No cry can escape the ear of a love that has the answering "I will" ready for the praying "If thou wilt." We have a High Priest who has touched our sin in its exceeding sinfulness. For ever and ever there stands the pledge of the world's Healer "I will: be thou clean."

II. But see THE SAME WORK REALIZED IN " THE MAN THAT WAS PALSIED ." The time is "one of those days that he was teaching." A crowd has gathered so great that "there is no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door." In this crowd there are Pharisees and doctors of the Law sitting by. Significantly it is added, "The power of the Lord was present to heal." A notable instance of this power is supplied; its occasion being the letting down of the pallet-bed, on which was laid the paralytic, through the tiles into the midst of the crowd before Jesus. There is no resisting of such faith. Seeing it, the Healer says—what? "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." Now, as to this fulfilment of the imperial "I will," which proceeds from the compassion of the Lord, remark:

1 . The work which represents the supreme Saviour—blessing. "That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." He will listen to the appeal made in behalf of the palsied man; but there is a palsy hidden and spiritual with which first he must deal, for until it is dealt with there can be no effectual healing. Yes; the true healing begins within. "Create a clean heart." And the point at which the Redeemer lays hold of us is the need of forgiveness. This action of Christ is the first in which he makes himself fully known, the first in which his spiritual authority is declared. And from this moment the organized opposition of scribe and Pharisee dates. "His kingdom ruleth over all." All agencies of relief and kindness are his, and are to be used in his name; but his kingdom is the kingdom of heaven to all believers, because the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins.

2 . The condition on which the power of Christ is realized. "When he saw their faith." Observe, not his faith. No one, it is true, can stand proxy for another as to salvation. There must be the personal touch of Christ; and the narrative, when attentively regarded, shows that Jesus secured this from the sufferer. He helped out the sick man's trustfulness; he established a relation with himself. And then and thus he did exceeding abundantly above all that could be asked. But he does attach value to faith in friends for another friend, in the loving for the loved, in those who have salvation for those who have not. Think of the four bearing the weak and wanting man, seeking the means to realize the blessing for him, their interest wholly unselfish, and unresting until the doure man is really brought to Jesus. Oh, is not this the miniature of the Church of Christ in its intercession and labour for heathendom, for the sick and perishing through lack of knowledge? Should it not indicate the truth to be exemplified in the anxiety of parents as to their children? Should it not remind us of the highest aim of all relatives of friendship or confidence? Jesus does" perceive" this faith. It is the security of blessing unspeakable; for

"So the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."

Were there more of this faith, there would be more abundant sign of "the power of the. Lord present to heal."

3 . The hindrance and limitation of the power of the Lord. 'Pharisees and doctors of the Law sitting by," and the power present. It is always present with the word of his grace. We never need to seek it as if it were sometimes here and sometimes there. But these Pharisees and doctors are not healed. The grace is present for them too, but they do not realize it. They sit by as spectators, critics, censors, watching for grounds of reproach and accusation. "The word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them that heard." Is not this the limitation still? Are there not many in our assemblies who, like these Pharisees, "sit by"? They scarcely believe what is said. As old Matthew Henry writes, "It is to them a tale that is told them, not a message that is sent them. They are willing that we should preach before them, not that we should preach to them." It is this sitting by which checks the work of grace. More and more, as the ministry of Christ proceeds, does the shadow of the Pharisees sitting by fall on it. A withering, desolating shadow. Thou Pharisee of town and village, thou critic, sceptic, thy seat the seat of the scornful. Mighty power to heal may be present, but mighty work of healing cannot be done in thee until the story of the Pharisee of the Pharisees is repeated in thee, and thy self-sufficiency smitten down, thou art cast to the earth, to ask, trembling and astonished, "Who art thou, Lord?"