Healing the Paralytic--A Dilemma Explored

February 13, 2011

Ann,

May I pick your brain on a dilemma that I have long wrestled with in the story of the healing of the paralytic?

Let F = forgiving and H = healing.
Let us assume that doing the easier cannot prove that I can do the harder, only the reverse: if I can do the harder, I can do the easier. Even children in the playground often try to outdo each other in feats and accept this assumption as self-evident.

When Jesus asks the Pharisees which is easier, F or H, we are not told what they answered. We are told only what Jesus says: but to prove to you that I can do F, I’ll do H. Sometimes I think the little word “but” holds the clue as to what the Pharisees said, but I can’t quite figure it out.

Here’s the dilemma (or mine, tiny poor Pharisee that I am):

If F is easier, doing H proves that I can do F, but now I am famous mainly for doing H, the harder, i.e., performing a physical miracle, a variety of the 2 miracles (turning a stone into bread and leaping unharmed from the parapet) I rejected in the desert when tempted by Satan. I have played to the crowd. Another way to put it is: if F is easier, what’s the point of proving F? We normally try only to prove things that are difficult, unless we want to say that F is still difficult but easier than H. If F and H are equally difficult, then Jesus is asking a question impossible to answer.