God's map of the promised land includes six cities set apart for a striking purpose: refuge. Roads maintained, gates open, so that anyone who killed accidentally could run there and be safe from vengeance until fair trial.

Mercy, in Israel, had street addresses. Today you will watch the God who zones land for refuge touch a leper and forgive a paralytic. He has not changed His urban planning.

The cities of refuge preached in asphalt and gate-hinges: God builds mercy into infrastructure, keeps the roads to it repaired, and opens it to insider and foreigner alike. The paralytic's friends found the New Testament version, a roof-opening straight to Jesus, where forgiveness was handed out before anyone asked for it by name.

Psalm 65 says it plainly: when we were overwhelmed by sins, You forgave our transgressions. That is the standing arrangement. So run, do not stroll, to your Refuge with today's guilt, and then keep the roads maintained for others, your welcome, your table, your Levi-style banquet, so the overwhelmed can find their way in.