The Way Up Is Down

In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.

May the blessing of the Father who calls us, and His Only Begotten Son who saves us, and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies and transforms us be with us all, that we may hear His word and bear fruit—thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Amen.

Introduction

My dear beloved,

Every child knows the game. You stack one block on another, and another, and you hold your breath. Higher. Higher still. And then, near the top, it leans.

We grow up, and we never stop stacking. A career. A reputation. A family that looks right from the outside. A spiritual life we can be proud of. And if we are honest, beloved, much of it is built from fear. Fear of being small. Fear of being found out. Fear of needing anyone.

Scripture knows this game. At Babel, people said:

“let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens.”

Genesis 11:4

And the Bible tells us, quietly:

“the Lord came down to see.”

Genesis 11:5

Hold on to that: the Lord came down. Because this morning I want to take you off the plain and up onto a roof in Capernaum.

Optional for children and youth

Have you ever been stuck, and someone came and helped you? Today four friends carry a man who cannot walk to Jesus. When the door is blocked, they find another way.

“When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’”

Mark 2:5

1. Four Friends and a Roof

Saint Mark tells us Jesus has come home, and the house is full. No room, not even at the door. And outside, four men are carrying a fifth, a man who cannot walk.

Imagine him. The text does not say how long he has lain on that mat, but we can imagine what long weakness teaches a person. To say thank you. To say sorry. To feel like a weight. Perhaps this is where many of us live, beloved. Not on a mat, but inside the quiet fear that we are a burden to everyone who loves us.

And imagine the four. The text does not tell us what they said at that closed door. We can picture the easy words: We tried. The crowd is too big. Let us come back tomorrow. They do not say them. They climb. They uncover the roof, and when they have broken through, they let him down, right in front of Jesus.

Notice what is not recorded. The paralytic speaks no word. The four speak no word. We do not even have their names. Their whole prayer is a rope and a roof.

One Father, Saint Theophylact, saw in that opened roof a picture of the mind, the highest part of us. Beloved, how many of us keep that roof sealed, sure that the highest part of us must stay in charge? Perhaps the first thing Christ asks is that we let it be opened, and lower at His feet what we cannot carry.

And then Saint Mark gives us the most beautiful phrase in the passage: “When Jesus saw their faith” (Mark 2:5). Faith can be seen. Not in a creed they recite, but in dust on their hands and a hole in a ceiling.

And notice what it cost them. The text does not tell us, but we can imagine. A morning given up. Perhaps work left undone, and a family waiting at home. Perhaps a roof that was not theirs, and a crowd below staring up, some of them wondering what kind of people tear open a house. Love like this is never convenient, and it is rarely admired while it is happening.

So let us examine our love, beloved. We say we love God, and we say we love our neighbor. But what has our love cost us this month? A little time? A little comfort? A little of our reputation? Love that costs us nothing may be only a feeling. The four carried the weight of a man, and in doing it they became like the One who would carry the weight of the world.

And hear this: Saint Mark says their faith. A man carried by the faith of others is not a failure. He is the whole reason the Church exists. And the Christ who saw what their love cost them is the One who paid the full price first.

2. The First Word Is “Son”

Every eye is waiting for legs to move. And Christ says something no one expected: “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2:5).

Before any command, a name. Perhaps no one had called him that in a long time. We cannot know. But we know what that word does. Saint Ambrose heard in it a sonship restored, the Father running down the road to the prodigal. Christ is not condemning him, beloved. He is claiming him.

Think of the four. They came for legs. We can imagine them wondering, for a moment, why He was speaking of sins. The text does not say. But they had dug through a roof for a man to walk, and Christ was giving their friend his whole life back.

And here is something I want the parents among us to hear, and the servants who worry over the children of Sunday School, and every husband and wife praying for the other, and every priest who carries people he cannot fix.

The four could carry the mat, but they could not heal the man. The text does not tell us they knew how Christ would answer. Their part was to bring him as far as they could, and place him before Jesus. And it cost them. Love always does. Our Lord never hid this from us. He said that whoever wants to come after Him must take up his cross and follow Him. A relationship with Christ is not a comfortable seat. It is a road, and on that road we find ourselves carrying others, with tired arms and sometimes with no one thanking us.

So sometimes the humility God asks of us is this: you are not called to save the person you love. Carry them as far as you can. Open the roof if you must. Lower them before Christ. Then let Jesus be Jesus. This is not permission to stop loving, or to ignore danger; where someone is unsafe, getting them to a doctor or counselor is part of the carrying. But the saving belongs to Him. And remember who went first. Before we ever lifted a cross, He carried ours.

And notice that Christ goes first to the deepest need. Not because the man’s body does not matter; He will heal it in a moment. But the Lord will not let a man leave His presence with only the lesser gift. We came for the legs, and Christ gives us Himself.

Then the scribes begin to reason in their hearts: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). And they are right. Only God can. They have the premise perfect, and they are standing in the room with God. How tender, and how sad, to guard the honor of God against God.

So Christ asks which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say rise and walk. Then, so that they may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, He turns to the man. “Arise, take up your bed” (Mark 2:11). On earth. The One who alone can forgive has come down to a house, to a mat, to one man who could not climb to Him.

Saint Athanasius says it again and again: we could not ascend to God, so the Word came down to us, took our body, and renewed us from within. The tower could never do it. The roof did not do it either; the roof only opened a way. It was Christ who came down.

3. Take Up Your Bed

Now the man stands. Saint Mark says that immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all. And they were all amazed and glorified God. The bed had carried him; now he carries the bed.

And the crowd. The same people who had packed the door now watch a man walk out through them. Saint Mark says they were all amazed and said, “We never saw anything like this!” (Mark 2:12). Nor had they. This is the greater miracle: not that a man walked, but that a man was forgiven.

This is what grace does. It does not only forgive; it sends. The place of his weakness becomes the thing he lifts in front of everyone, a testimony of mercy. Whatever has carried you in your lowest season, Christ can make it the witness of your healing.

If you are weary, grieving, anxious, or weighed down in ways you cannot explain, it does not mean your faith has failed. Sometimes faith is letting yourself be carried: to a friend, to your priest, to a doctor or a counselor. Christ has worked through all of these.

So may I ask you, gently, as a father who needs the same questions? Whom have you been carrying, and are you tired? Who carried you once, and have you ever thanked them? And what are you most afraid of being seen as, and would you let Christ say “Son” over that very place?

And if you have family at home, ask yourself gently: who in my house is hurting quietly? A word, a listening ear, or a prayer for them is how a home stands on the Rock. That is how our hands serve in the harvest.

Conclusion

Beloved, look at what happened in that house. A man who could not climb, in a place no one could enter, and Heaven opened over him. The way up was down. The Lord who came down to see a tower at Babel came down to a mat, and He came down further, to the manger, to the Cross, to the tomb, so that nothing in us would be beyond His reach.

And this morning He comes down once more. In the Liturgy we ask that the Holy Spirit come down upon these gifts. We do not approach this altar by our own towers. We come as the paralytic came: carried by the prayers of the Church, with empty hands. And the same Christ who looked at that man says the same word over us. Son. Daughter. Your sins are forgiven.

The God we could never climb to has come down, and He is feeding His people.

The way up is down.

Let us go down together to meet Him.

O Lord Jesus Christ, You who came down to see our towers, and came down further to lift us from our mats: forgive us our pride and our fear. Give us the faith of friends who carry, and the humility of the one who is carried. Receive us at Your altar with empty hands, and send us back as those who walk. Amen.

May the Lord bless us and transform us — that our homes may stand on the Rock, our hands may serve in the harvest, and our hearts may long for Heaven. Through the intercession of our Lady, the Theotokos Saint Mary, and the prayers of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew. Glory be to God forever. Amen.

Prepared and presented by Hegumen Fr. Andrew Awad, D.Min.