Sunday of Saint Gregory Palamas
Mark 2:1-12
At that time, Jesus entered Capernaum, and it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door; and he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak thus? It is a blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “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.” And he rose, and immediately took up the pallet and went out before them all; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
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Today’s commemoration of Saint Gregory Palamas, on this Second Sunday of Great Lent, acknowledges a fundamental truth of Orthodox Christianity, articulated and defended by Saint Gregory: that our God who is completely other than us, his creation, is completely transcendent can indeed be known.
This apparent paradox is similar to what we honored last Sunday: that a God who cannot be described in an image nevertheless the eternal Word of God, the second person of the trinity, Jesus Christ can be depicted on icons.
How these seemingly incongruent situations are true can be both complex and simple. Simply stated God wants to be known by us, and he calls out to us and reveals himself to us through his acts to make himself known. Today’s Gospel provides a wonderful example of how this is so.
Jesus is confronted by a paralytic man whom he and his friends undertook great determination to meet Jesus—lowering the man through a roof—in order to seek healing. However, before Jesus healed the man’s paralysis, he announced that the man’s sins were forgiven. This act of forgiveness was seen as blasphemous by the Jewish experts on the Law of Moses who were witnesses at this scene. Yet Jesus knowing their condemnation of him, announced:
“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.”.
Jesus, the Son of God, through the healing of the man’s body made known to all what he accomplished “invisibly” first through his healing of the man’s soul. It wasn’t some created power that healed the man, but God’s divine mercy and love.
It is God’s desire, his will, that he wants us to know Him. This is affirmed in Scripture and the teachings of Jesus. Saint Gregory defended that God does not want us to limit our relationship with him as one knows a subject intellectually. But God wants us and calls us to have a relationship with Him.
And so, the lesson for us today is that in order to know God we must live according to his will of love, by a life of prayer and attention to others. Knowing God is walking with God, but we can only walk with Him when we leave the paralysis our sins behind through life of repentance. Therefore, we can know God in his forgiveness and mercy, and we are called to do this as well.
