He has been doing all through the ages, which He is doing to-day,
which He is ready to do for you and me if we will let Him, towers
high above the mere miracle, which is honoured by being the signal
attestation of that work.

Therefore I would turn to this story now, not for the sake of
dealing with the mere miraculous event, but in order to draw the
important lessons from it which lie upon its very surface.

I. The first thought that is suggested here is that our deepest need
is forgiveness.

How strangely irrelevant and beside the mark, at first sight, seems
the answer which Christ gives to the eager zeal and earnestness of
the man and his bearers. Christ's word is 'Son,' or as the original
might more literally and even more tenderly be rendered, 'Child--be
of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.' That seemed far away from
their want. It _was_ far from their wish, but yet it was the
shortest road to its accomplishment. Christ here goes straight to
the heart of the necessity, when, passing by the disease for the
moment, He speaks the great word of pardon. The palsy was probably
the result of the sufferer's vice, and probably, too, he felt,
whatever may have been his friends' wishes for him, that he needed
forgiveness most. Such a conclusion as to his state of mind seems a
fair inference from our Lord's words to him, for Christ would never
have offered forgiveness to an impenitent or indifferent heart.

So we may learn that our chief and prime need is forgiveness. Amid
all our clamours and hungry needs, that is our deepest. Is not a
man's chief relation in this world his relation to God? Is not that