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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Advent Part 1: The Paralysis of Shame
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Hey guys, my name's Jesse French. Welcome to the Restorative Man podcast by Restoration Project. I'm joined by my cohost who is Chris Bruno. Hey guys, welcome back. Good to be with you today, Chris. And today wanted to tee up our conversation with a connection to another resource at Restoration Project that we have created for the last couple of years, and that is a physical journal, like 70 to 80 page printed journal.
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called the small batch. And it's something that we made, I think in 2021 was the first year, and just was a desire to have a physical articulation of some of the stories that we as a ministry have been privileged to be able to witness of the ways that God has worked, of the ways that men have changed and stepped into some wonderful areas in their life. And so each kind of end of the year around November and December, we send that out to a handful of our wonderful community.
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And so it's a process I could talk about for a long, long time and bore people. But we've done it again this year and we thought, hey, what a cool thing to be able to actually share some of the the writings, share some of the creation that we've done as a staff specifically that you've done in this year's Small Batch Journal. And what better way to be able to share some of that as we start the season of Advent. And so.
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One of the things that you wrote for this year's Small Batch is some intentional writing around reflecting around scripture, specifically wondering around specific encounters that Jesus has with different people. And you just offered some wonderful curiosity in reframing around encountering Jesus in some new ways. And so we thought, Hey, on the Restorative Man podcast, as we are starting Advent, we'd love to have an Advent series where we share
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your reflections around that, your invitation to consider these stories in some new ways, to be open to Jesus's invitation in some new ways. And so we wanted to do that up to repurpose, hopefully in some great ways, the good work that you've done in the small batch and share that here on the podcast. Thank you. Well, yeah, and especially as we are launching into this Advent series, I just want to return to that Advent is designed to be an interruption.
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It is designed to be a disruption into the normal kind of life where the disruption of the arrival of Jesus when he came to earth in the incarnation was a disruption to the patterns of the world that had been established. And so, why would we ever begin to wonder about the way that he is disruptive in his life when we are looking at some of these passages in the scriptures then also? And I think one of the things that is really…
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curious to me, especially in the things, in the passages that we'll read, is that we land often in an assumption that there's only kind of one layer to the text. There's one layer to the experience. And I'm always asking the question, like, what else is there? What is the story behind the story? What is Jesus seeing beyond the obvious? And so, some of these reflections are a result of that. So, let me start.
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the first passage and we're gonna read the passages for you guys because you might be driving, you might be working out while you're listening to this and whatever and I wanted to read the passage so you know kind of where we are. So the first passage is from Luke chapter 5 verses 17 through 26. So I'm gonna read this, you can read it in whatever version you like, I'm just gonna take the ESV version here. So Luke 5:17. On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there.
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who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.
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He said, Man, your sins are forgiven you. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? When Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered them, Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you? Or to say, Rise and walk? But that you may know.
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that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been laying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen extraordinary things today.
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for that team up and would love to now be able to hear some of your reflections around that passage. Well, I'm, you guys, as I sit with this passage, I think there's the obvious reading of, right, he's paralyzed, he gets lowered down through the roof. His friends bring him here with this like hope and faith that his body is going to be healed. And I love long before there's even a conversation with the Pharisees and scribes who get all
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about what Jesus is saying is that the very first thing that Jesus does is he recognizes that there is a story behind the story, that there is something else going on for this man because the paralysis is evident but he has something else happening for him. He has something else happening. And I'm not gonna get all the way into some of the thoughts about this but you know,
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Back in ancient Near East, when they didn't have medicine and science and all that kind of stuff, they actually believed that much of the sicknesses, especially ones that developed after birth or whatever, that you were fine and then something happened, they believed that those kinds of sicknesses, like paralysis, was the result of sin and that you did something and that the
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your disease, your penance through your disease, that he was going to stricken you with some kind of disease or sickness, and that was your punishment for your sin. That was the wrath of God coming against you for your sin. And even, you know, even if it wasn't something that happened after birth, if it was at birth, if there was a child that was born with some kind of disability or something, the assumption was that it was the result of the sin of the parents or that something else had happened, that any of these infirmities were the result of some kind of sin.
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And so as Jesus is seeing this man lowered down before him, obviously, like he's paralyzed and all of that, Jesus sees the story behind the story. It's not about the paralysis, but it is the man's frozenness, his paralysis of heart, his paralysis of soul, his belief that there is something that he has done sinful that has caused God's wrath to visit him.
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in the midst of his paralysis. And so before he does something physically to heal this man, he does something spiritually to heal this man, that there is a generosity of Jesus that sees it is far more your belief that sin is what keeps you. And it's interesting, right, that Jesus says your sin has healed you, or you are forgiven of your sin, but he doesn't get healed of his paralysis yet. Yeah. That there is a two part process.
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that Jesus sees the man and he says, your sins are forgiven, and yet he's still laying there. And I think there's something that God really wanted him to understand, that it wasn't the wrath of God against your sin that put you on that bed, because your sins are forgiven and yet you're still there.
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and it was a two-part healing that he was inviting. Your sins are forgiven and get up and walk. And I love the generosity of Jesus here. I love how he is always looking for the story behind the story, because he was wondering like, what other paralysis does this man carry besides the physical paralysis? If, here's the thing, what would have happened if the focus of Jesus was only
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on the physical healing of this man. What would have happened in that man's relationship with God if it was only the physical healing? And there was no addressing of this deeper belief that his sin put him there and this wrathful God, that God was meeting out punishment, like, all that kind of stuff. What might have happened if that man walked out that door with his mat and still believed that God hated him?
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that there was no space for him. Like that is another kind of paralysis. Yeah. I can never sin again because I'm gonna end up on that mat. I can never have the goodness and compassion of God. I have to be afraid of every single moment and don't anybody else around me sin because it might affect me and I might end up paralyzed physically again. So Jesus actually had to address the first paralysis before the second so that he could actually be free to walk out the door and know that sins are forgiven.
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and that God is a merciful God. So I sit with that and I sit with that Jesus, right? Then it brings me, Jesse, to us. What paralysis do we have in our lives? What paralysis do we actually live with? What perspectives of a wrathful God do we have that lingers in our hearts, right? What shame lingers inside of us
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and paralyzes us in our walk on this earth, in this life. Do you have a paralysis in your heart? Maybe you have a paralysis somewhere in your body, some disease, how have you begun to associate that, potentially, with the paralysis of your heart? And actually, what is Jesus interested in far more than your healing physically? What is he interested in in healing you spiritually?
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and in the places of your shame. Why do you think, why did we choose to start here in Advent as we celebrate and anticipate the incarnation of God coming to be with his people? Yeah, why did we start here as we think about those pieces of paralysis, of shame, of healing? Yeah, if we remember back to the assumption
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of the disciples, of the kind of king that Jesus came to be. If we remember back to the kind of messianic understanding of what the kingdom establishment of who the Messiah with the Christ was going to be, there was an assumption that it was going to be political, that it was going to be some kind of like literally establishing a kingdom with a king on a throne, and we're going to create borders.
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and all is gonna be well, and the perpetrators are gonna be sent away or killed or whatever, and we are now going to be free, okay? We start here because the actual advent, the actual interruption, the disruption of what was occurring of the incarnation was not about the physical world. It was about the spiritual freedom that Jesus was coming for. It was not about
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the physical restoration of some country of Israel or people of Israel. It was about the freedom of both the Jew and the Gentile. And we start here in Advent with this kind of thought, because how often do we assume and how often are we praying not for our souls, but for our external world, for our children to obey us, for success in business?
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for some kind of new opportunity, for the healing of a body. And I'm not saying that those things are not to be prayed for. They 100% are to be prayed for and to be asked. But that's not where Jesus, that's not ultimately what he's about. He's not about the fixing of your body. He is about the restoration of your soul. And in this passage, this is so clear that when this
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obviously paralyzed man and his very desperate friends lowered him down in front of him. He goes first for the soul and second for the body. And I wonder how much of us in this Advent season have so much of the external world as our primary focus. And I think the invitation of Jesus is to shift into the restoration of your soul.
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Could there be a more busy and full and chaotic external month in the year? Probably not. Right. Like this is, this is the busiest time. And so from an external standpoint of gifts and Christmas work parties and like obligations and all of those things, right. It feels like a zoo. And so how needed, right. To start with place of, Hey, actually Jesus's invitation is to the internal piece of our soul, right. To give that attention.
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Yeah, yeah. And you know, the part I think in this passage, especially as I was saying that with the assumption of the ancient Near East, that these kinds of diseases are the result of some kind of waywardness or sin, like to be paralyzed means you're wearing your shame on the outside. Everyone can see your shame. And now we know that paralysis doesn't come from that. There's other factors that are at play in the paralysis and
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What if Jesus is not as concerned about your paralysis, but he's more concerned about your shame? He's more concerned about what is actually paralyzing your heart than is paralyzing your body. What if he's actually more concerned about what is keeping you back internally from being the man that you were made to be, the design of God, the original masterpiece of God that he made you to be? What if he's more concerned about that?
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than he is about answering your prayer for the next job or the next opportunity, or maybe you are praying for something for your body, but what if he's far more concerned about your shame than he is about the external situation of your life? Can we begin to move into an anticipation of the healing internally, with then the hope and the belief that as we do so, other things begin to happen? Our mats get picked up and we begin to walk.
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And here's the thing is not only walk outside of paralysis, but walk outside of shame. What would that look like for us now? Hmm. Yeah, it's yes. It's not just simply the resolve of the external. Cause we all know like shame follows whether we have a crappy job or our dream job. Right. Suddenly that the internal condition of shame, right. Does not shift based upon that scenario. Yeah.
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And I love that Jesus, even in this passage and so many others, that shame is not your defining trait. Shame is not who you are. And the willingness of Jesus to see the man behind the shame, to see the man behind the paralysis, right? That he was always willing to see his son more than he was concerned about his shame. And that I think is such a shift and so disruptive.
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And so I think, and talk about this a little bit in the small batch, but I would love to invite you as you're listening, like how might you be willing to lower your own paralytic self, right? Down into the presence of Jesus, both your literal physical ailments and issues and struggles and job loss or fear for your children, let all of that be lowered down in front of Jesus and.
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Are you willing for His disruptive love to actually not only address your mat, but address the shame that you bring with you as well? What would that look like for you? Will you let the disruptive interruption of Jesus meet you in the place there this hour?
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Chris, thank you. Thank you, Jesse.