Some skeptics have suggested that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God or the Messiah, and that the Christian church throughout the centuries has "read in" these claims to the Gospel accounts. Indeed it is rare to find a place in the four Gospels where Jesus is depicted as directly claiming to be what later church leaders decreed: the only Son of God.

Addressing this notion, C.S. Lewis points out that Jesus certainly acted as if he knew of his unique relationship to God. After all, Lewis said, Jesus went around forgiving other peoples' sins. It is one thing to forgive someone if they hurt you. It is another thing to forgive someone if they hurt someone else. Jesus, Lewis concludes, forgives others' sins as if he were the one being sinned against.

In today's Gospel reading a paralyzed man is brought to Jesus to be healed. "Child," Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven."

As if to prove C.S. Lewis' point that in forgiving the sins of others Jesus is assuming a role only God could play, the religious leaders are scandalized. "Now some of the scribes were sitting there asking themselves, 'Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming. Who but God alone can forgive sins?'"

Jesus goes on to heal the paralyzed man, and connects physical healing and spiritual forgiveness with the compassion of God. What he does not do is try to correct the critics and deny that he is claiming to do the work of God by forgiving the paralyzed man. When the man stands up and walks away after his encounter with Jesus, the rest of the crowd is shocked. "They were all astounded and glorified God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this.'"

"Remember not the events of the past," God speaks through the prophet Isaiah in today's first reading. "The things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!" We need to be open to God working in ways we do not expect. A key failure of the religious leaders of the first century was their inability to recognize the presence of God in Jesus Christ. We must always be open to the possibility that God might enter our own world and our own lives in ways that we do not expect.

Of course, perhaps what we expect the least is for God to work to forgive our sins. God wants to free us from the paralyzing effects of our fears and our insecurities --- the tendency to turn elsewhere for what we need. We may seek money, popularity, beauty, career success or some other substitution for the love of God as a source of fulfillment and happiness. Getting these things can be exhilarating, and losing them can be devastating.

If you're like me, when you turn away from God you tend to think that you are unworthy to return. The good news of today's Gospel is that this is not true. Jesus shows us that God wants to forgive our sins, and to empower us to rise and walk away from the "things of long ago" that might prevent us from accepting that forgiveness.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.