Between Possible and Not
Story by Emma McCoy | 3 minute read
For the past two months, Spring Church has been exploring the big idea that Jesus’ love for unexpected people changes the way we love each other. The way Jesus loves has huge implications for our lives and the way we’re meant to love each other, and that can show up in very unexpected ways. We’ve studied the story of Simon and the Woman of the night, and now we’re turning our focus to Jesus’ healing of the paralytic man.
Physical disabilities create a gap between what someone wants to do and what someone can do.
A person on crutches has trouble on stairs, someone in a wheelchair can’t hike steep trails, and a blind person can’t drive. Illnesses like celiac disease, Hashimoto’s, arthritis, and diabetes can limit what someone’s ability. According to the CDC, 1 in 7 American adults live with a mobility disability, and 6 in 10 American adults have at least one chronic illness.
I don’t know anyone who lives entirely content in the limitations life has for them. Whether limited by time, money, ability, geography, or socioeconomic status, people can’t do everyone they want to do. It’s frustrating, difficult, and can cause all kinds of problems.
I am very bad at operating within my own physical limitations. In the Enneagram personality test, I’m what’s known as a 3, or the Achiever. I didn’t need a personality test to tell me that; I know I tend to overwork myself and place my worth in what value and achievements I can bring to the table. But the Enneagram helped me realize I have a pattern of pushing myself much too hard even when my body is begging me to stop. During my college years, I battled COVID (twice), cysts, three emergency room visits, dental surgery, a kidney infection, and food poisoning, and every time my body was limited, I did a pretty poor job of listening to it and getting the rest I needed. There were days where I tried to tutor laying down on the library couch, or attended class from Zoom even with a high fever. I’ve nearly fainted walking to class, and had to lean on my friends, classmates, and teachers time and time again.
Working too far past limitations isn’t something to applaud.
My body was trying to tell me something, and I was ignoring it and trying to keep going on my own strength alone. I don’t like being physically limited. And as I sort through my own diagnoses and chronic illness, I know I’m still more able than many of friends living with disabilities. People I know with autoimmune conditions, limb difference, or paralysis have a wide gap between what they want to do and what they’re able to do. There’s a line there, and it might never be crossed.
In a similar way, there is a gap between how we can love others and how Jesus loves others.
We can’t possibly cross that gap alone. And here lies the key difference between physical disability and our human ability to love: we can’t cross the gap of physical disability (most of the time) but the gap between Jesus’ love and our love? We can cross it, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus heals the paralytic man in Luke 5:17-26, he’s doing a lot of things at the same time. He’s refuting the stigma that a disabled person had in that society. He’s forgiving the man’s sins. He’s displaying uncommon friendship. He’s showing the crowd a miracle and showing that he’s the Son of God.
What I gather most from the story is the closing of two gaps: the gap between what the man wanted to do (walk) and what he couldn’t do (walk), and the gap between what a person’s love could do (his friends, taking him to Jesus) and what Jesus’ love could do (forgive him).
Everyone wants to be forgiven and loved. But as humans, there are places we cannot go on our own. It just isn’t possible. There are sins too big for us to forgive, and wrongs that we cannot make right. We will always fail in our attempts to love other people radically no matter how we try.
And yet there is hope.
As we try and participate in what Jesus is already doing, we find that we can love other people beyond our capacity and ability. The things that simply aren’t possible on our own can become possible, that gap bridged by Jesus’ transformational love.
So while physical limitations might not be surpassable this side of heaven, our spiritual ones are. The Holy Spirit bridges the gap between us and God, and we find that we can love in a transformational way that isn’t possible without God.
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