Sometimes, no matter what you say, people get it wrong.

All Jesus was trying to do was help. All he was doing was trying to be accurate. All he was trying to do was explain why he had, when a man was brought for healing, forgiven the man’s sins.

The teachers of the law, when they heard him forgive the man’s sins, thought “this man is blaspheming.”

They thought it. Didn’t say it, thought it.

And Jesus turned and talked to them. Asked them why they “entertained evil thoughts in their hearts.”

(That is a lesson itself, by the way. They must have had the thought, invited it in, given it a seat, served it coffee, let it stay for awhile. I understand the process quite well.)

And then, Jesus says

Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…. [Matthew 9:5-6]

And then he turns and tells the man to get up and go home.

It is a marvelous way to prove your authority. To say you are forgiven and then to say get up and walk. If you can do the latter, you likely can do the former.

But what did the people think? They were impressed that God had “given such authority to men.”

What?

The people had heard Jesus talk about the Son of Man having authority. They watched Jesus heal. They figured that God was now giving humans the authority to heal.

It feels wrong. We think that they must be diminishing Jesus, looking at him as only a man. And that part is wrong, of course, but they were actually right.

Because through Jesus, we have the authority.