Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Gospel lesson (Mark 2: 1-12).

What kind of God do you want? What kind of God do you have? Some people want a god who is in their control, easily understandable, a holiday decoration or Santa Claus like figure who dispenses out gifts occasionally, but then can be forgotten for days and weeks at a time. Other people want a god who is a crying towel in a drawer. They want to get him out when they want to appear sorry (to themselves or others) for some wrong they know they have done. Some people want a god who is a thunderbolt-dispensing deity, always ready to whack some other heinous sinners, either those sinners in our personal lives or those villainous sinners that lead our nightly newscasts. Other people simply want a god who is distant, distant in memory, distant geographically, distant emotionally. What kind of God do you want? What kind of God do you have? (modified from Messman, 2000, Concordia Pulpit Resource).

What most people do not want is a God who is up-front and personal, a God who is in our face all the time. We like to be able to keep God at some safe distance, not close enough to intrude into our busy lives. But this morning St. Mark tells us how Jesus, God Himself, got right into the face of people, not in some angry, thunderbolt dispensing way. No, Jesus gets right into people's faces and tells them just exactly what they need, even if they don't realize it. Jesus gets right into people's faces and gives them what they need, even before they are ready to receive it. Jesus knows exactly what kind of God each person needs. Jesus is that God each person needs even when they don't realize it.

Over these past 6 weeks of Epiphany, we have watched and heard how Jesus was first appearing to the world. First we saw Magi, coming to give homage to the new King born for the Jews. We saw Jesus' baptism, and how the heavens were torn open. We heard Jesus first preaching "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" We have watched as Jesus first showed his power over the effects of sin in this world, how he showed by his miracles that He could cast out demons and heal fevers and leprosy. Jesus' name was becoming widely known in Galilee, so much so that He had to spend most of His time in deserted places (1: 45) in order to preach the message of God's reign being present

�But now Jesus has come back to town, to big town of Capernaum and his fame has spread so much that the house he is in is packed solid with people striving to hear and see him. Both believers and skeptics had come to hear him. Jesus gets right in the face of both groups. First, five men who trust in his healing power come, four carrying the fifth, crippled man on a stretcher. They were so persistent, so determined to come to Jesus that they actually broke through the roof of the house he was in a lowered the man down through the roof. While the tile roofs of that time were a bit easier to break through and to rebuild than our modern shingles, can't you just imagine the owner of this house? Imagine if this was Peter's house (which it could have been) and how panicked Peter would have been to see these people tearing away his hard work just to lower a paralyzed man down to see Jesus face-to-face.

What kind of God do you want? What kind of fellow believers in God do you want? Many of us want to make our spiritual lives just between us and God, leaving out the faith of others as irrelevant, keeping other Christians at a distance. "It's just between me and God" we assume. "I don't need anybody else!" But it has always been striking that in this story Mark records "When Jesus saw their faith" He then told the man his sins were forgiven. Just as many of us were carried to church before we could walk, just as all of us heard of our Savior Jesus first from the mouths of others, this man was brought to Jesus by others. He could not come to Jesus on his own. The faith others had in Jesus brought him to the place where Jesus could forgive his sins and cleanse him of the effects of this sinful world. So too we continue to need each other to build each other up, to show us the love of Jesus through human hearts and hands.

What kind of God do you want? The four men brought their friend to Jesus apparently to have him healed. Jesus had been healing others with many various diseases (1: 34). But when Jesus first comes face-to-face with this paralyzed man, he doesn't heal him. He tells him what is his first and foremost need: "Son, your sins are forgiven." This man comes face-to-face with God the Son and instead of first being told "Get up, walk away healed" he is told, "you are a sinner." We never want to assume that his injury or illness was a direct result of some specific sin. Jesus cautions his disciples against such thinking (for example Luke 13: 1-5).

But he is told "you are a sinner, but your sins are forgiven." Our English word "forgiven" perhaps doesn't do justice to the word Mark used in the New Testament (aphiemi). The English definition of forgive emphasizes human feelings. Webster defines 'forgive' as "to give up resentment of, to cease to feel resentment against." While that can be an aspect of the word Jesus uses here, He is more clearly saying "Your sins are being sent off, sent away, cancelled, pardoned." Those of you who have a mortgage on your house or business or who have a car loan, imagine if the bank president came to your home and asked to see your loan papers. Imagine you showed him how many thousands of dollars you still owed to the bank. Imagine then that he looks you right in the face and simply takes a red pen and writes across the note "Cancelled." You do not have to repay a cent. In a sense that is what Jesus is telling this paralyzed man. "Your spiritual debts, your sins are cancelled."

Looking him in the face he simply says "You trust me don't you? Trust me that your sins are pardoned, sent away."

But the skeptics, some Jewish scholars, were sitting there, thinking badly of Jesus to themselves. They didn't have the courage to challenge him to His face. They are thinking "He's blaspheming, that is he's speaking harmfully against God. No one has the authority to cancel sins except God."

In a very real sense they were right. No one does have the authority to cancel sins except God, no human, no angel, no prophet. What they didn't understand was that Jesus wasn't just a prophet or human only. Jesus Christ was also fully God, and the only person in the universe who was going to have the authority to fully cancel sin. Now if a bank president went around simply canceling out debts, his board of directors would probably have something to say about it. If he cancelled out debts for purely arbitrary reasons, that would probably be illegal and they could have him fired, jailed, force him to pay back the debts. That is what Jesus did. He was arrested for our debts, our sins. He did write "cancelled" on all of our spiritual debts, not with red ink, but with his red blood shed on the cross (cancelled debt metaphor borrowed but significantly changed from a Portals of Prayer devotion written by Bruce Biesenthal for August 13, 1992).

Jesus, knowing the hearts of the skeptic scholars, challenged the thinking they had not even voiced. To show the authority he had to forgive sins he said "Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic, 11 "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home. 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all"

What kind of God do you want? Do you want one that will get into your face, and tell you you are sinner, and tell you to trust in Him alone to cancel your sin.

Those skeptic Jewish experts didn't want such a God. Do we?

A few minutes ago you confessed your sins publicly here, and I publicly pronounced absolution, that is forgiveness of your sins face-to-face. This same Jesus, God Himself who can cancel out sin through His Words because of his suffering and death, this same Jesus has given those same words of authority to His church. He told his disciples in the upper room after his resurrection (John 20: 23) "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive (cancel) anyone his sins, they are forgiven (cancelled); if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." With Jesus' delegated authority we the church, through Jesus' delegated role to the pastoral office, we the church forgive and cancel out sin according to His Word. After being your Pastor for a year and a half now, I still sometimes shudder at those words of forgiveness I pronounce to you face-to-face, either publicly here or in private, on behalf of the face of Jesus.

So what kind of God do you want? Is there a part of you that would still prefer a God who is distant and uninterested, from whom you could hide your face? Well, praise be to Him, that is NOT the God you have. You have Jesus, up close and personal, calling you by name at Baptism, sharing with you his very body and blood in the sacrament. Unless you reject Him, He will be constantly in your face, calling you to repentance of your plethora of sin and canceling out your sin because of his great love shown for you on the cross. He comes to you in His Word. Let Him into your life through that Word everyday. Let Him come to you and constantly say those Words that can only first proceed from God "Your sins are cancelled." Praise be to the God who is in your face.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)