LW Baptist
By Rolland Coburn
Pastor
God’s love is no speculation; we have God’s living word, Jesus, who met people’s needs with compassion (Luke 5:12-39).
In a Galilean city, a man was ill with leprosy. Seeing Jesus, he begged face-down, “Lord, if you will, you can cure me.” Jesus touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” Immediately the leprosy disappeared. Jesus forbade him to tell others, but “go have the priest examine you, make the cleansing offering Moses commanded, and be a living testimony.” Jesus’ reputation spread more. Multitudes gathered to hear him and be healed. So he’d find places alone to pray.
On a day he was teaching, Bible teachers came from every Galilean village and Judea and Jerusalem. The Lord’s power was for their healing. Men came carrying a paralytic on a stretcher to Jesus. Finding no opening, they lowered him and his stretcher through the roof before Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” The scribes and Pharisees questioned, “Who is this blasphemer? Only God can forgive sins.” Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, answered, “Why question in your hearts? What’s easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Rise and walk?’ But so you may know that I, the son of man, have authority on Earth to forgive sins.” He told the paralytic, “Rise, take your stretcher and go home.” Immediately rising, taking his sickbed, he went home, “glorifying God.” Astonishment and awe moved everyone to praise God: “We’ve seen wonders today.”
Departing, he observed Levi the tax collector working. He called to him, “Be my follower.” Leaving everything, Levi rose and followed him. At home, Levi made him a feast, and many tax collectors and others came. The Pharisees and their scribes grumbled, “Why eat and drink with sinners?” Jesus replied, “The healthy need no physician, only the sick. I’ve come to call to repentance sinners, not the righteous.”
They said to him, “John’s disciples fast often and offer prayers, also the Pharisees’, but yours eat and drink.” Jesus responded, “You cannot make wedding guests fast with the bridegroom. When the bridegroom’s taken from them, they’ll fast.” He told this parable: “No one tears a patch from new clothing to put on old, or he’ll tear the new, and it won’t match the old. Nor is new wine put into old wineskins, or they’ll burst, spill and be destroyed. New wine requires fresh wineskins. Nor does one drinking old wine desire new, saying, ‘The old is good.’” We too had to see we needed cleansing, our sins forgiven, our smugness countered. So he saved us, calling us to point others to his pardon.
LW Baptist Church meets on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. in the Amphitheater.
