Currently my church is going through a series based on this verse from Isaiah 9:6 which is a prophecy about the coming of Jesus as we enjoy this Christmas season!

It reads: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (NIV)

Last week was focused on the ‘Mighty God’ aspect, and I found the points made to be so interesting, as I am experiencing some pretty significant shifts in my own relationship with God right now.

The Pastor focused on an additional passage in Mark 2:1-12 to help illustrate his points. (See image below!)

In verse 5, Jesus says to the paralysed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’ and our pastor asked us if we would be happy with that? If you had come all this way to reach a man who had healed so many others, in the desperate hope that you might be able to walk and become a part of society rather than a poor beggar, would you be happy with that?

I admit, I don’t think I would be. Many times in our day-to-day lives we hope and pray for help and healing (or maybe you pray for lots of miracles like me!), but this verse is showing that Jesus himself declared that a healed relationship with God was more important than his ability to walk. It is a hard truth to handle, and one that takes a bit of time, but I understand it to mean that no matter what we experience in our lives (injury, disability, loss, pain, fear, and even death), that a relationship with God is more important.

For limited humans such as you or me, this is also hard to hear. Yet, we can also see that if the God of the universe believes that to be the best way to live, there must be some truth to that. Trusting God and his plan for the world is hard, and strange at times, but something I’m coming to realise is that if God is truly God (capital-G omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent) hen his way is the best, whether I believe it to be or so. Lucky for us, it does seem to be pretty good, and he’s graceful and forgiving when we don’t get it right!

So, relationship with God is the most important thing in the world. Cool, but what does that mean? Well, first it means that we are separated from God by sin, and that a bridge had to be made to reunite us with God. A bridge that came in the form of Jesus (Mighty God) limiting himself to come and live as a human being amongst us.

Another important thing to point out about verse 5 is that Jesus said this with no hesitation (he said a lot of crazy stuff, but this was super crazy to the religious leaders of the time!). The religious leaders at the time were quite powerful, and they knew a lot about Jewish religious texts, so their knew for sure that the only person who could forgive sins was capital-G God.

By saying ‘your sins are forgiven’, Jesus was literally claiming to be God with the ability to forgive others. As seen in verses 6 and 7, the religious leaders were horrified.

Verse 8 gives us some more evidence that Jesus was legitimately God because he knew in his spirit what these religious leaders were thinking, without them telling anyone. I don’t have the ability to read minds, but that does seem like a feature an omniscient God-person might have.

In verse 9 however, we get to the crux of the issue in the Christian story. Jesus poses this question to the religious leaders: “Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?”

Now, I don’t know about you, but neither of those options seem pretty easy to me. To truly forgive someone for their sins, you have to know them. That’s part of the reason why confession is so important in Catholicism (though that’s not what I practise). Even if you thought that forgiving sins might be the easier option, could you confidently say you knew all the ‘sins’ of the person in front of you? And what power do you have to remedy their pain, or the pain they might have inflicted on others in their sin? Not so easy after all.

And the second option, which seems even more impossible ends up being so easy for Jesus that he simply does it himself a moment later! Jesus proves here that he has the power to do both things with ease because he is God himself.

Yet, I would argue that in this question, Jesus is trying to show us that of the two options, the second one is easiest for him.

Jesus healed a woman because she touched his cloak and believed in faith. He then went and raised a girl from the dead by telling her to wake up. Healing people is so easy for him, and he proves this countless times.

But losing his life was the cost of forgiving our sins. The greatest reveal of his power was his victory over sin and death, wherein Jesus took on all the suffering we deserved for himself.

When we read on to discover how he was tortured, crucified, and raised from the dead to suffer this fate in our place, we realise that forgiveness for sin is not so easily won. Jesus experienced immense pain because ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23). When we sin, we separate ourselves from God, and if God is the source of all life, then we are left outside of that gift. Death is the only alternative.

This is why a relationship with God is more important, because as the most powerful being in the universe, Mighty God can do anything to help us. One of the hardest parts to grapple with is when and why he doesn’t. I admit I don’t always have a reason for this. Sometimes its not part of the plan, sometimes there are other spiritual forces at play, and sometimes the suffering is truly preparing us for new, bigger, and better things.

Jesus challenges us in so many ways. He is confusing and paradoxical, and his teachings have shaped and reshaped the world in so many ways. Unfortunately, humans get it wrong far more often than we get it right, but Jesus is there through it all anyway.

Another point my pastor made was how we allow our current circumstances to dictate our perspective on God, rather than allowing his perspective and wisdom to shape our lives. In this modern era of a comfort-first mentality, we want to believe that God will intervene directly in our suffering to restore our comfort. We hate being uncomfortable and will do almost anything to alleviate suffering. Yet, in his time as a human, Jesus suffered like we did, with hunger, tiredness, injury, discouragement, anger and annoyance. He was even afraid, and cried out to God to take away the suffering set before him. But he suffered it anyway.

There is a lot to be learned from Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Most importantly, we learn that the true power of our Mighty God is not in his ability to change your circumstances (though he has the power to do so), but in the power of his incredible, sacrificial act of love in dying for us. In him, we have transformed from victim in sin to victor over sin.

We have access to the mighty creator of the world, he came and lived as one of us and died so that we would never have to suffer true separation from God. The choice is yours though, and always will be. Whatever you decide, God will give you, so choose well.