Jesus and the Paralytic
Reflections of a Caregiver
It’s been only a few months since Tina’s mom (Nola) passed away due to complications from a fall exacerbated by Lewy Body Dementia. In one sense, it was the end of a long journey. For Nola, her battle with the cognitive and physiological decline associated with one of the most volatile and difficult forms of dementia is now over. As a Christ-follower, she is now whole, and perfectly at rest. For myself and Tina, the long, difficult, and often emotionally tortuous path of eldercare for a close relative with dementia is also over. However, the sense of relief we would have expected to feel, and are so often asked about, doesn’t materialize as you would expect. There is a kind of sorrowful and exhausted ache that lingers instead. An emotional and spiritual residue, if you will, that I liken to the classic Stretch Armstrong toy. The limbs are pulled as far as the stretchy appendages can go, the belly has a firm thumb imprint where it was mercilessly gouged by a sadistic child, and the rubbery material that constitutes this strange toy ever so slowly stretches and molds back into place. But it’s anything but quick.
That being said, each day there is still a new sense of promise and hope as we reflect on the journey, God’s faithfulness through every dark and desperate turn, and the growing compassion we feel for those called to a similar path. As our pastor was preaching on Luke 5:17-26 recently, I began to read the story of Jesus’ healing of the paralytic through a different set of experiential lenses. It became clear to me how powerfully this story speaks to those of us who have walked, or are walking, the caregiver journey.
Cast of Characters
As in all of the accounts of Jesus’ miracles, there are key characters playing different roles. And in God’s masterful design, these roles are timeless and connect with us in deeply relevant ways no matter what era or cultural setting we find ourselves. There is, of course, Jesus - central to the story and around whom everything revolves. There is the relatively faceless throng, crowding into the home where Jesus was teaching and obstructing the efforts of the paralytic’s friends to bring him to Jesus for healing. And there’s those determined, undeterred buddies of the paralytic who simply couldn’t take “Room’s full” for an answer. There is of course the paralytic - a man who remains unnamed, whose “sins” everyone for millennia have now contemplated, and who thanks to the unwavering efforts of his “squad”, lies captive at Jesus’ feet. As in nearly every account of Jesus’ miracles, there’s the Pharisees and teachers of the Law who are both perplexed and incensed by the counter-cultural things Jesus is saying and doing. Ever a suspicious eye, doubtful heart, and angry countenance, they well represent the religious curmudgeon in almost all of us - a cautionary tale of what it means to completely miss the point, and in so doing miss Jesus and His promises altogether.
As I reflect on this cast of characters surrounding Jesus through the caregiving lens, I find myself associating with all of them in one way or another. Let me explain…
Hungry Seekers of Jesus
If not hungry for Jesus’ teaching and mysteriously powerful presence, they are at least mesmerized by his actions and words. Or, at least intensely curious about all the buzz. But if I put myself in their place, crowded into a room where most likely the religiously refined have taken preferential seating and everyone else is clamoring for a view of the Rabbi from Nazareth, I find myself both stunned and annoyed by the audacious actions of the paralytic’s friends. I mean, I got here early! I sat in line, I made the sacrifice, what makes them think they’re so special they can bump everyone else, as if they have the lightning lane at Disney?! Not to mention destruction of property! I’m not even a Pharisee in this situation and I’m getting upset. How quick and easy it is to turn from friendly Jesus-seeker to jeering mob member. I realize I’m taking liberty here and making assumptions about the text. But it’s not a far stretch, as we do see the crowds make these sudden about-faces many times in Jesus’ ministry. It’s so easy to imagine, I think, because I’ve found myself there many times in my own spiritual journey.
But how does this relate to the caregiving journey? As a caregiver, you likely never feel you find yourself in the room with Jesus. You, and the loved one for whom you care, mostly feel stuck in the queue, waiting to get in to find a place where you can feel spiritually challenged and refreshed. Oftentimes, you never do. You may likely feel more like part of the overflow crowd stuck in the courtyard or spilling into the street. It feels like you are far from experiencing Jesus, let alone being seen by him. I believe that’s the main thing caregivers feel during their caregiver calling - unseen. And nothing fuels the frustration, disappointment, and even anger more than watching at a distance as others experience all kinds of “seen-ness” in their lives. You feel very disconnected.
If you’re a caregiver right now, I’m sure you can agree. My encouragement to you is that you… are… seen. There are many more stories of how Jesus takes notice of the unnoticeables. However, my challenge that goes with that is… stay hungry. If there’s one thing this account teaches us (and that Pastor Jacob reminded us), God rewards the desperately persistent. Proverbs 13:12 tells us that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life”. When in caregiving mode, you probably feel the “hope deferred” end of that equation a lot more than the “tree of life”. It’s OK. If you feel heart sick, it means you haven’t given up. Jesus can use that. One thing I did learn to do better during the most heart-sick moments of this journey was to go for a walk, and cry out to Jesus. It was never eloquent, and probably theologically cringe-worthy. But I think the most desperate and God-reaching cries usually are. I rarely experienced a miracle, but looking back I can see the hand of God and the unmistakable imprint of Jesus’ presence in those dark moments.
The Paralytic’s Squad
In my best moments in life, both in caregiving and in the normal day-to-day, I’d like to think I’ve been one of those loyal, determined, unrelenting friends. However, if I’m truthful, those crazy audacious acts of love and loyalty feel few and far between. But what I want more than anything is to look back on the caregiving journey (or any future one that lays ahead) and say I’ve been that crazy devoted friend or partner at all the right times.
One thing I am thankful about is the times I can point to in the past where I knew we were taking on a burden, or following the less-traveled caregiver path, with selfless determination and with Jesus in focus. Indeed, those moments only happened when Jesus, himself, was in charge. Caring for another in this way is a daily dying to yourself. And it’s only realized when we are daily dying to ourselves in Jesus first. There have been many mornings where about all I could get out in prayer was John the Baptist’s words, “Jesus, I must become less, and you must become greater”.
Caregiving is a deeply spiritual discipline. Of course it is carried out in entirely physical and material ways. But, if at any point we fail to see the person for whom we are caring as a spiritual person first, with whom Jesus is madly in love, we run the risk of all of our physical, medical, psychological caregiving becoming a very detached and obligatory routine. And that leads to burnout, which leads to all kinds of terrible things including health failures or even worse, caregiver abuse.
The paralytic’s friends may not have had a complete understanding of who Jesus is, but they were utterly convinced he was able to fix their friend’s broken body. And that determination led to a hole in a roof, a befuddled crowd of guests, and Jesus’ unexpected words: “Man, your sins are forgiven you”. This was likely a shock to the friends as well who were primarily concerned with their friend’s physical health. But Jesus, as he always does, peered to the heart of the man and saw his deepest and greatest need, and spoke to that first. The healing was icing on the cake, and naturally a tremendous sign of Jesus’ authority to forgive sins as the Son of God.
In caregiving, it’s easy to get distracted from that truth. Sure, we realize every day how much our loved one needs Jesus. If their behavior is bad or ungrateful, maybe we often utter that truth with irony under our breath. But to daily walk in the realization that Jesus is head over heels in love with them means we can see the situation more from a spiritual perspective and understand that Christ is present and working in ways we simply don’t see or wouldn’t expect.
For myself and Tina, some of those unexpected movements of Jesus were seen in stories shared by memorycare workers who Nola had touched with her love for Jesus and her infectious spirit, despite what would often be long periods of lament, angry outbursts, and sometimes outright belligerence. The wonderful people of the Nazarene church in Lebanon, where we were blessed to take Nola on a regular basis over the last year, constantly commented on her glowing smile, her fiery red hair, and her incredible ability to still sing all the words and harmonies of those old gospel hymns she knew so well. It was encouragement to us to know that those efforts we had made to continually help with the nurture of her spirit, in bringing her to the feet of Jesus in ways that were meaningful to her, had made an impact. It truly wasn’t apparent to us in the moment that these were affecting her and others the way they had.
The Pharisees
As much as I’d like to say it wasn’t the case, I have worn those figurative Pharisee shoes far too often. For those of us who have grown up heavily entrenched in a faith tradition, the sin of prideful hypocrisy is far too easy. If you add on ethnic or nationalistic entitlement, you have a potent mixture that is sure to find itself at odds with Jesus’ mission.
While it would be easy to jump on a soapbox right now, I want to keep the focus on how this sin reveals itself in the caregiving context. The first way it’s easy to fall into this sin is the presumption of personal wellness. When we, as the caregivers, fail to see the depth of our own need for Jesus, it becomes easy to look down upon those for whom we are caring, and to even extend that prejudice towards everybody else who doesn’t seem to have it as bad as we do. Entitlement is a sinister serpent that sneaks its way into our thinking and reveals itself through comments like “I don’t have time for this”, “if you only knew what I was going through”, or “I don’t deserve this”. They all may be accurate statements, but they ultimately come from a heart of pride.
When you are in this mindset, you can even become angry or annoyed at the expressions of desperation or longing of other people in similar situations. This is bad. And as shameful as I feel in saying it, I’ve been there. There is only one antidote to prideful hypocrisy in my experience, no matter the context: brokenness and humility. When you start feeling the self-pity and loathing of others creep up, it’s time to get on your knees and do some serious repenting. “Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit in me”. God loves you, but he does hate hypocrisy, and it will keep you separated from his peace and blessing as long as you nurture its insolence in your life.
Ok, on to the most important characters in this story…
The Paralytic
We really know very little about this man, not even his name. But he plays an unforgettable role in the story of Jesus' life and ministry. Perhaps the writers of the gospels did this on purpose so that we could all associate with this man to some degree. Every one of us is a paralytic in our own right. There is some mess or some brokenness in our life that we simply can’t fix or get ourselves out of, and we require dependency upon others far more than we want to admit. And no matter what our outward circumstances convey, there is an internal chaos or angst paralyzing us that only God can see and heal.
Despite the universality of the paralytic role, in our caregiving context, it is fairly obvious that the paralytic role is ultimately played by the person for whom we are caregiving. They are physically, psychologically, or cognitively broken, beyond what is normative, require assistance from those around them, and struggle with their own feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. Misery and hardship are constant bedfellows, they fear being a burden to others, and painfully yearn for independence and wellness.
Oh how Jesus loves the paralytic. Yes, he loves us all but he has a special compassion for those who are helpless. Particularly the literally helpless. What I find really interesting in this story, however, is the almost symbiotic relationship of the caregiver and the cared-for. There is a giving and receiving that goes both ways. When the friends lower the paralytic on his mat through the hole in the ceiling, we are told that Jesus marvels at their faith! Jesus specifically acknowledges the faith of the paralytic’s friends. And not to say that the paralytic has no faith, but he is very much dependent on the expression of his caregiving circle’s faith.
And then Jesus goes on to say in this instance not “son, your faith has healed you”, but instead, “man, your sins are forgiven”. I’m sure the man had some measure of faith, but it’s almost as if Jesus also wanted to recognize the cooperative nature of the relationship of the caregivers and the cared-for. And then, again, to reinforce his authority on earth to heal as God-in-flesh, Jesus also heals the paralytic.
What I’ve learned to appreciate about the caregiver-carereceiver dynamic is the communal, almost sacramental nature of the relationship. There is grace for all parties involved, and a kind of mutuality in our experience of Christ and his blessing.
Jesus
Central to this story is Jesus. Of course, without him this story simply doesn’t happen. There is no crowded home, no hungry and desperate seekers clamoring for a supernatural encounter, no suspicious religious types being challenged at their theological moorings, and the paralytic man stays on his mat, confined to a life of hopeless dependency.
Sadly, that is the reality for most. However, it doesn’t need to be so. I confess I’ve never heard of an account of God healing someone with dementia. It doesn’t mean He can’t, or wouldn’t. I certainly prayed for Him to do so many times. In our experience, it was as if Jesus was calling us to a deeper experience instead, the kind that is only forged in prolonged suffering and self denial. In 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 Paul writes,
“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.” (NLT)
There is a kind of miracle we have access to now that the crowd in Jesus’ day did not. We have the precious miracle of the Holy Spirit resident in our lives, strengthening, building up, encouraging, refining us like jewels compressed in great earthen pressure. The Holy Spirit is not a force, or an impersonal world soul. The Holy Spirit is the personal spirit of Jesus himself, unleashed into the hearts of all those who follow him, made possible only because of his death and resurrection.
In caregiving (and care-receiving), the Spirit of Jesus helps us in our weakness, inhabits our groaning prayers, anoints our inner person with his spiritual salve, and even causes a curious glow to warm others in our proximity, most of the time without even our awareness. This is all made possible simply by our humble dependency upon Jesus. Make no mistake, this is a miracle that is only possible by his presence. And as caregivers and care-receivers it is a daily miracle he is delighted to perform again, and again, and again.
Caregiving and Community
You can’t read this account of Jesus and the paralytic and not see the impact of faith community. For the paralyzed man, it was primarily his circle of devoted friends. For you and I it may be close friends or neighbors ( we’ve been blessed with both ), a
brother or sister-in-law, a sunday school group or small group that goes out of their way to check on you, pray for you, bless you with unsolicited meals, or eldersitting services to give you a night off. The point is, God doesn’t intend us to walk it alone. He never did. If you have that circle of faith community that lifts you up, be grateful - very, very grateful. If you do not, earnestly pray and seek the Lord asking him to bring that into your life. I believe that he wants to and he will provide you with manageable first steps towards finding it, if your eyes and ears are open to it. Sometimes we allow the caregiving burden to close us off and are too self-reliant to expose ourselves to the help of others.
In a few weeks, our church is opening up a support group for caregivers. I am so thankful for the community care orientation of the leadership of this church and the prioritization they put around lifting up those who cannot lift themselves. I fervently believe that this is a foundational element of the great commission. It is after all the kind of stuff that Jesus would do on a daily basis.
If you are not walking through the kind of caregiving journey I have described, I would encourage you to look around at those in your circle who may be experiencing this kind of a burden. A simple word of encouragement, a text that says ‘praying for you today’, an unsolicited meal delivery gift card - any of these things can lift a person’s heavy load. Loneliness is one of the biggest problems caregivers face and these small steps of thoughtfulness can go a long way to ameliorate a sense of isolation.
One of the most thoughtful things someone did for us during our journey was when our good friend and neighbor, Alicia, volunteered out of the blue to come over and have a girls’ night watching lifetime movies with Nola, allowing us a night out, something we hadn’t had the opportunity to do in well over a year.
Acts of compassion like this have certainly challenged my own selfish tendencies, and have reminded me in tangible ways of the great kindness of Jesus. We all will likely walk through some aspect of caregiving in our lifetime. We need one another. Jesus’ love is and has always been most fully realized in community.
As Rosalyn Carter has reminded us, “There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers. Those who are currently caregivers. Those who will be caregivers, and those who will need a caregiver.”
May we all fully lean into the arms of Jesus, our great Caregiver.
