Praying with icons - March 1, 2026
- Mar 1
- 1 min read
The healing of the paralytic
We often think of those living in the 1st century Palestine as being simple people governed by naive beliefs and superstitions. But their view of the world is not that different from the way we often view events in our world.
Many people today have a very real belief in luck, fate, as if power over creation operates arbitrarily. And our goal is to somehow put ourselves in the path of such power.
We become victims of superstition, and we're not much different than the paralytic we meet in this icon. The man is curiously not curious about who Jesus is or where the power has come from.
The Jewish authorities, for their part, do not seem to question the idea that Jesus has drawn
power from God to heal this person. In their view, Jesus has somehow managed to get this power, but by using it on the Sabbath, he has violated the very will of God.
This is a kind of veiled charge of sorcery.
Jesus answers them by pointing out that God never surrenders control over his power.
God always works through his word, the fact that God's action is identical to Jesus' action
demonstrates that the work Jesus does is the very life-giving work of God.
If God does all that he does through his word, then Jesus must be that word.
So our icon invites us to examine, where do we see power at work in our world?
And who or what is the source of that power?
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