This is a very interesting and very subtle juxtaposition of two kinds of people who listen to Jesus’ teachings: those who listen to find fault with the gospel and those who press on through the crowd (and maybe even vandalize another man’s roof) just so they could get near Jesus.

The scribes and Pharisees were there. They got the front row seats of the thick throng of people who gathered to hear Jesus. They were so privileged but that didn’t mean anything to them. They didn’t come to listen and be changed by the message. They came to criticize and look for loopholes.

Outside, a paralytic was carried by his four friends. They, too, wanted to hear Jesus. But they were not influential enough to get front row seats, in fact, they could not even get in.

Before the day was over, this paralytic was the one who got the most out of the gathering. He met Jesus and he was forever changed. He got forgiven and he was miraculously healed. He walked home with restored health.

The scribes and Pharisees could criticize all they want. The crowd could marvel and walk away unmoved. But only those who take Jesus at His word will be changed and walk in the newness of life.

Luke 8:24-25
And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Psa. 77:16
The waters saw you, O God,
the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.

Psa. 104:7
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;

Psa. 93:4
Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
mightier than the breakers of the sea—
the LORD on high is mighty.

Psa. 65:7
who stilled the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
and the turmoil of the nations.

Isaiah 43:2-3
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…

It’s interesting that the first message Jesus ever preached during His earthly ministry was about repentance. It was a sharp message, not the kind of topic you would want to talk about if you want to win friends and build a winsome reputation.

If you really think about it, preaching repentance can be offensive. It is built around the assumption that the people you are talking to are sinful people. Nobody wants to be thought of as sinful. We humans love to give the impression that we are good, at least to a certain extent. And even if we know fully well that whatever good is in us cannot offset our internal corruption, we still hope that people would just overlook our faults and focus on our merits. When we meet someone who insinuates that we are bad, we avoid that person.

But there was something attractive about the way Jesus preached repentance. Throughout His earthly ministry that was recorded in the four gospels, we see people gravitating towards Him despite His blunt pronouncements of their need to repent.

What was it that drew people to Him?

My best guess is grace. I believe that while He told them point blank that they were sinners and that they needed to repent, there was something graceful about the way He said it, probably the tone of voice, the facial expression, the gentleness in His countenance.

John 1:14 gives us a clue: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

See that last part? He is full of grace and truth. Grace first, then truth. That’s the style of Jesus. He doesn’t whip us with sharp truths and leave us bleeding and dying. Like a physician, he applies grace to our wounds first before He gives us a dose of truth.

Grace softens the sharp edges of truth. Grace makes hard truth palatable. Grace is the balm that soothes the sting and the pain that the truth brings. It is the ointment that makes the wound feel good. You know it hurts but you also know it’s better that way and that healing is on the way.

Grace is the difference between Jesus’ preaching and our feeble attempts to evangelize. Sometimes, in our rush to get a person saved, we tell them blunt truths, truths without grace. Then we wonder why it backfires on us. Instead of them listening to the gospel, we end up antagonizing them. Our preaching becomes nagging.

We are forgetting that before we can have the right to preach, we must showcase the grace of Christ first in our lives.

From the time that the boy Jesus was found in the temple courts talking to the doctors of the Law up to the time when He started His public ministry, this is the only summary of His life. This is the period when He entered the awkward adolescent phase and moved towards adulthood.

I marvel.

Jesus’ adolescence is the purest that I’ve ever known; a far cry from the drinking binges and sowing of wild oats and irresponsible years we are all familiar with.

First remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters. And now, daughter of Eve, farewell–

There were surface reasons and deeper reasons why the church opposed an English Bible. The surface reasons were that the English language is rude and unworthy of the exalted language of God’s word; and when one translates, errors can creep in, so it is safer not to translate; moreover, if the Bible is in English, then each man will become his own interpreter, and many will go astray into heresy and be condemned; and it was church tradition that only priests are given the divine grace to understand the Scriptures; and what’s more, there is a special sacramental value to the Latin service in which people cannot understand, but grace is given. Such were the kinds of things being said on the surface.

But there were deeper reasons why the church opposed the English Bible: one doctrinal and one ecclesiastical. The church realized that they would not be able to sustain certain doctrines biblically because the people would see that they are not in the Bible. And the church realized that their power and control over the people, and even over the state, would be lost if certain doctrines were exposed as unbiblical—especially the priesthood and purgatory and penance.

Thomas More’s criticism of Tyndale boils down mainly to the way Tyndale translated five words. He translated “presbuteros” as “elder” instead of “priest.” He translated “ekklesia” as “congregation” instead of “church.” He translated “metanoeo” as “repent” instead of “do penance.” He translated “exomologeo” as “acknowledge” or “admit” instead of “confess.” And he translated “agape” as “love” rather than “charity.”

Daniell comments, “He cannot possibly have been unaware that those words in particular undercut the entire sacramental structure of the thousand year church throughout Europe, Asia and North Africa. It was the Greek New Testament that was doing the undercutting.” And with the doctrinal undermining of these ecclesiastical pillars of priesthood and penance and confession, the pervasive power and control of the church collapsed. England would not be a Catholic nation. The reformed faith would flourish there in due time.

John Piper, Always Singing One Note- A Vernacular Bible, Why William Tyndale Lived and Died.

Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as widely as possible. I would wish even all women to read the gospel and the epistles of St. Paul, and I wish that they were translated into all languages of all Christian people, that they might be read and known, not merely by the Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens. I wish that the husbandman may sing parts of them at his plow, that the weaver may warble them at his shuttle, that the traveler may with their narratives beguile the weariness of the way.

Erasmus, Preface to the Greek New Testament

FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.

SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened.

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

Two years ago at a major North American seminary, fifty students who were offering themselves for overseas ministry during the summer holidays were carefully interviewed so that their suitability could be assessed. Only three of these fifty- 6 percent!- could testify to regular quiet times, times of reading the Scriptures, of devoting themselves to prayer. It would be painful and embarrassing to uncover the prayer life of many thousands of evangelical pastors.

But we may probe more deeply. Where is our delight in praying? Where is our sense that we are meeting with the living God, that we are doing business with God, that we are interceding with genuine unction before the throne of grace? When was the last time we came away froma period on intercession feeling that, like Jacob or Moses, we had prevailed with God? How much of our praying is largely formulaic, liberally larded with cliches that remind us, uncomfortably, of the hypocrites Jesus excoriated?

I do not write these things to manipulate you or to be engendering guilty feelings. But what shall we do? Have not many of us tried at one point or another to improve our praying, and floundered so badly that we are more discouraged than we ever were? Do you not sense, with me, the severity of the problem? Granted that most of us know some individuals who are remarkable prayer warriors, is it not nevertheless true that by and large we are better at organizing than agonizing? Better at administering than interceding? Better at fellowship than fasting? Better at entertainment than worship? Better at theological articulation than spiritual adoration? Better—God help us!—at preaching than at praying?

We do not fast to get God to do things for us. He already did much on the cross. That iPhone or house or car are probably necessary. That relationship is probably as important. So is that promotion. But God is not an ATM terminal or our rich uncle who buys stuff for us.

We do not fast just for the breakthrough. He is not a God who accepts our requisition slips, signs them and lovingly sends us to encash our blessings. We do not fast so He will hear us. He knows what we need even before we pray. He can answer our prayers in June or October.

We do not fast so He will know what we want.

We fast so we will know WHAT HE WANTS, to know His will, to know His plan. We fast to get a feel of the heartbeat of God, to synchronize our heartbeat with His heartbeat. We fast so we will get a sense of what it is to desire the things God desires.

In other words, at the center of prayer and fasting is the person of Jesus. Anything less than Him is needless hungering. Fasting should lead us to the cross of Jesus, to repentance, to a greater appreciation of the grace and providence of God. Fasting should lead us to the presence of God, to the temple courts of heaven where we meet with Jesus.

When Moses fasted for forty days, his face literally shone with a physical reflection of the glory of God. He didn’t go up to the mountain of God to talk about his need of a bigger and shinier walking stick and promotion and bigger money to finance the wandering Israelites. He went up there to seek God because his leadership was being stretched. He went up there because he needed to receive word from God. He did receive what he needed: the Ten Commandments.

Paul Wilbur, one of the foremost Jewish worship leaders, had a song that so powerfully summarizes the heart of fasting:

We do not seek your hand, we only seek your face;
We want to know you;
We want to see you reveal your glory in this place.

Moses had the same prayer: “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). More than the blessings, we need to desire the presence of Christ in our lives.