Making a Hole in the Ceiling (Luke 5:17-26)

The following is my manuscript for the sermon that I preached on Sunday, September 6 at Woodmont Christian Church. As always, this is not exactly what I said, but it’s the gist. You can check out the online version of the service below.

In November of 1982, the SMU Mustangs defeated the Texas Tech Red Raiders when Bobby Leach caught a bouncing across-the-field lateral on a kickoff return and sprinted 91 yards to the end zone. An NFL assistant coach by the name of Alan Lowry saw that play and kept it in the back of his mind in case he ever needed to call up that kind of miracle. A little over 17 years later, it was time. The Buffalo Bills had just kicked a field goal to take the lead with 16 seconds left in their first round playoff matchup against the Tennessee Titans. The odds of getting through Buffalo’s special team to the end zone seemed slim. The Titans needed to get creative. They needed the play that Alan Lowry saw in Texas many years before. 

If you are only passingly familiar with the Titans, you know what happened next. Lorenzo Neal fielded the kick, handed it to Frank Wycheck. Wycheck began running to his right, then turned, and tossed the ball across the field to Kevin Dyson who ran 75 yards for the touchdown and the victory. It was not only one of the most memorable endings ever for the Titans, but one of the all-time greatest finishes to a game in NFL history. Even I—who did not remotely care about the Titans at the time—can still remember where I was when I saw the Music City Miracle. It’s just a reminder that sometimes when your back is against the wall, you need to get creative and amazing things might happen.

There were once four individuals who were hoping for something amazing; not for themselves, but for their paralyzed friend. They had heard about this teacher, a rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus, who had the power to heal people. They had hoped that maybe he might be able to do something for their friend. So they put him on a mat and they carried him to the house where they heard this miracle worker had set up shop. Yet when they got to the place, their hearts sank. The building was slammed full. A massive crowd had gathered around Jesus filling every nook and cranny of the room and spilling outside the house. There was seemingly no way for them to get through all of those people and get their friend to Jesus.

What now? I have to wonder what kind of conversation transpired at this moment. Did these friends consider waiting until the crowd thinned out? Was one of them ready to pack it up and head home? Did they argue about how they should have tried to get to the house earlier? We don’t know. All that we do know is that there was a sense of urgency among this quartet. 

They did not know if they would ever have another chance like this. Jesus traveled from town to town and he may not have passed their way again. Their backs were against the wall. If they wanted their friend to have this encounter with the miracle worker, this might be their only shot. Eventually someone in the group decided that if they were going to get inside then they were going to have to get creative. The idea was going to cause a bit of a disruption, but this was their friend and he was worth the risk.

Now imagine that you are on inside of that house. Luke tells us that Jesus was surrounded by Pharisees and teachers of the law; these are some individuals who were on the higher rungs of the social ladder. Jesus was teaching at the time. We don’t know exactly what he was saying, but at some point the people in the crowd had to start hearing noises above them. They glanced at each other with that look that says, “Did you hear that too?” The shuffling and murmurs grew louder and more consistent until there was a definite ruckus on the roof. Whoever was causing the commotion, it sounded like they were tearing things apart up there. Suddenly, a shaft of light broke into room. Everyone stared up in shock and scandal. They saw four faces dripping with sweat peering down at them. Then those faces disappeared and are replaced by a mat that is lowered down into the house and on it a man who was placed at the feet of Jesus.

Luke does not record the crowd’s response to this brazen act, but you have got to think that there was some consternation concerning this new hole in the ceiling. Who do they think they are? The nerve of them to tear a hole in someone’s roof? It was not proper. It was not what civilized people do. These rabble-rousers were causing a scene. How dare they? Were they going to fix the roof? Could they not have gone through the proper channels to get to Jesus? Perhaps made an appointment to talk to him at a later time? I just feel like there had to be a few people that did not like what they saw at all.

But what Jesus saw was faith. Now often we think of faith as a confession of belief. The element of belief is certainly part of what was happening here, but it went far deeper than “Oh, I believe in Jesus.” As Robert Tannehill put it, this faith meant “trusting that God can help through Jesus and doing all that is necessary to secure that help. It is the opposite of passivity and shows itself in courageous action.” It was a faith that was willing to do the work, to get creative, to get its hands dirty because there was the possibility of a life-changing encounter with God on the other side.

I also wonder if Jesus saw a little bit of what he was about in their courageous action. After all, what is incarnation—this idea that God humbly comes to earth in the guise of a human being—other than heaven tearing a hole in earth’s ceiling? God lowered God’s self down into the mass of humanity in the form of a poor, vulnerable person. It was a gambit, but it was a gambit worth taking because it meant that creation could have this beautiful encounter between us and God. And Jesus continually tore the roof off all sorts of things in his ministry, in what he did, in who he loved, in how he showed us what God was like. This tearing-up-the-roof life of Jesus still resonates today to the point that we meet on this Sunday morning to talk about it and hopefully orient our lives around it.

Of course, the deeds of these four friends and of Jesus were courageous acts driven by love. These four individuals loved their friend so much that they were willing to risk whatever consequences came from tearing up a roof. God loved the world so much that Jesus was given to us even though he eventually experienced suffering and death. 

Love makes a scene. Sure it has its quieter moments as well, but love compels people to make lavish proposals and stay up all night on Christmas Eve to put together an intricate toys or drive across the country to be with a friend or spill out into the streets when it sees a neighbor hurting. Faith driven by love moves us to courageous action.

Jesus saw that courageous action and said something that no one in the crowd above or below expected, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” That was not what the four friends on the roof came for and it was certainly not something that the religious leaders thought Jesus was qualified to proclaim. It is strange. Jesus offers spiritual healing to a man who is quite obviously there to be physically healed. I can hear one of the friends on the roof say, “Come on, man, read the room.”

Jesus seemed to understand something that the room did not. Throughout his ministry, Jesus seeks to minister to all aspects of an individual. He heals the sick and helps the paralyzed dance. He restores the dignity to those who have been ostracized by their community. He offers forgiveness to those whose journeys have taken them into dark places. Fred Craddock notes that we often think of a person as composed of body, mind, feelings, and soul and perhaps thinking in terms of those divisions keep us from understanding that Jesus’ ministry was to the whole person. 

Jesus understood that a person who could walk but was still weighed down by sin—those ways in which one misses the mark—could not truly move forward. In fact, Jesus seemed to understand that the barrier to this man’s wholeness was this misalignment of his soul and not his perceived disability. After all, Irenaeus said that the glory of God is man fully alive and one can be fully alive if they are sick or in a wheelchair, but it is hard to be fully alive carrying guilt and regret wherever one goes. It is hard to be fully alive when your relationships with God, yourself, and others are hurting.

In the midst of this conversation over whether this rabbi from Nazareth really has the authority to forgive sins, Jesus finally says, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.” That is just what the man on the mat did. He stood up for the first time in who knows how long. 

The crowd that did not let him in when he was on the mat, made a hole for him to leave. And this man glorified God the entire way home because he had been healed soul and body. Everyone on the roof and in the room—even the religious leaders who had debated with Jesus—was swept up in awe of this miracle. In that moment they were all caught up in the electricity of a person fully alive and in response they all glorified God.

So as I conclude this morning, let us all ask ourselves: Are we fully alive? That doesn’t mean: Are we happy? Or is everything good? This is a weird and difficult season. I’m not going to list why. We all know the reasons why. But are you taking care of your heart, soul, mind, and body? Are you seeking the God that cares about every single part of you? Do you have a community that will carry you on a proverbial mat and help you? Are you that friend for someone else? Because we need all of that. We need God, we need to take care of ourselves, we need community.

And, yes, this season is difficult. It might feel like our backs are against the wall. So perhaps more to the point: Do we have that kind of courageous faith that is going to tear a hole in the ceiling for love of God and love of neighbor? Life is too short for us to wait for these kind of things. We have to be creative. We have to put the work and get our hands dirty. How are you pursuing and seeking to connect with God in your everyday life? Do we believe that God does help us through a relationship with Jesus and try to do what is necessary to secure that help?  Because our faith is not supposed to be this passive thing where we just go to church once a week, get filled up, and then go about our business.

We need to seek after this one who tore open the ceiling of the sky to be with us and wants us to be fully alive. We need to move ceilings and heaven and earth for the people in need around us from members of our congregation who are sick to our neighbors who feel like the system does not treat them as equals to those who are hungry or have been devastated by a storm. There are so many people on mats that need someone to love them. 

Being fully alive does not happen by accident. Like it did for these four friends, it requires intentionality and it requires some creativity. Let us hold their bold example in our minds, because when we find ourselves tearing through the ceilings for God and for one another, it’s a pretty miraculous sight to behold.