Faith Grasps God's Word
Trinity 21
John 4:46-54
November 10, 2019
Howard Jones sang, “No one is to blame,” but the Eighties were a long time ago. In 2019, someone must be blamed. Political anger has replaced religion as the culture’s driving animus. Someone is to blame, and the mob won’t stop until the scapegoat is called out and cancelled.
Today’s Epistle shows us that people are not our problem. I don’t agree with Marianne Williamson on much, but she’s right about one thing: We have spiritual forces of evil arrayed against us. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Against this enemy, no earthly defenses will avail. The Satan has this aim: to turn you away from the God who loves you; to drive a wedge between creature and Creator.
The hour of trial is meant to drive this wedge between you and your God. It may come, as it did for the nobleman in the gospel, with the impending death of a son. For you it may come with a crumbling marriage, an unbearable loneliness, an overwhelming addiction, or a dark depression. The strong Christian will face the great trial: the accusation of the conscience regarding your sin, your deep-set rebellion against God. Today’s gospel shows us how one man faced his trial. He took up, as Paul says, the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and so withstood the assaults of the devil.
How does he begin? He begins by running to the Lord in the midst of his tragedy. He had to run a long way. The man lives in Capernaum, but Jesus is in Cana. It’s an eighteen to twenty-five mile trek – an entire day’s journey on the dusty Galilean roads. To make this trip meant the man already had a measure of faith – otherwise how could he leave his dying son for two days?
How does our faith compare to his? What are we willing to give up, how far are we willing to go, to receive the gifts of God where He has promised to be? Luther says in the Large Catechism regarding private confession, “If you are a Christian … you will compel yourself and beg [the pastor] for the privilege of sharing in it.… If you are a Christian, you should be glad to run more than hundred miles for confession, not under compulsion but rather coming and compelling [the pastor] to offer it” [Tappert ed., “Exhortation to Confession”]. Is that the kind of faith that we have?
Now faith is not an emotional experience; faith grasps God’s Word even, especially, when emotions are driving us to despair. Faith is also not like a light switch, either on or off. Jesus often rebukes the disciples for being weak in faith; our own faith must often wrestle against doubts, like the man who said, “Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief!”
One of the Fathers of the Church, the Venerable Bede, once said, “There are stages in faith … a beginning, an increase, and perfection.” The longer I am a Christian, the more I feel I am only at the beginning, and that only by the grace of God. Trials come to drive us outside our own resources, making us dependent completely on the object of faith. That is, trials drive us to Jesus.
The communion liturgy teaches us this by saying, “Lift up your hearts!” The reply directs your heart: “We lift them up unto the Lord.” Which means, “My hope is not set in this world, but all my troubles point me to the God outside myself. St. Augustine said, “The whole life of a true Christian is a lifting up of the heart.… What does ‘Lift up your hearts’ mean? To hope in God; not in yourself.”
That’s what we see in the nobleman in today’s Gospel. Jesus is harsh with him. “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” The rebuke of Jesus deepens the trial. How would you respond? I think I’d be angry, turn on my heels and leave.
But this man’s story is recorded for us. What does the nobleman do? He won’t let Jesus go. He casts himself utterly on the Lord’s mercy: “Sir, come down before my child dies!” No eloquent words, no argument, no bargaining. Just laying his request before God and leaving everything in His hands. Trials and difficulties come in order to purify our faith, exercise our faith, strengthen our faith, making us reliant on God alone. It is written, “Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” [Heb. 12.6].
And then we learn why Jesus really was so stern with this man, refusing to come to his house. For faith to be genuine, it must trust what it hears, not what it sees. We would love to see a miracle with our own eyes, but Jesus instead gives a miracle through the ears. If God can create the world out of nothing, by the sheer power of His Word, then God can also heal this man’s son by His Word alone: “Go your way; your son lives.”
The next chapter in John’s Gospel tells us what we are really to look for, what should be the ultimate aim of all our lives and prayers, and what the power of God’s Word really accomplishes:
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My Word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. [Jn. 5.24f]
Like the nobleman, we are sent on our way, the long and difficult journey home, having the word of promise but not actually seeing its fulfillment yet. We are journeying to our true home. It is an arduous journey, filled at places with anxiety and disappointment. There is much death along the way – the deaths of those we love, and finally our own. And in the completing of this journey, we have nothing more to which we may cling than the nobleman did on his journey home – the Word and promise of Christ. But that Word and those promises are sure and certain, and will not fail you.
So lay down your complaining and your frustrations, leave behind your obsessions and addictions, and present your simple requests here at the altar, saying an earnest if whispered, “Lord, have mercy!” And then receive the body and blood of your Substitute, the Lord who endured your death, who knows all your trials, who sympathizes with your weaknesses. Then go in peace, clinging only to His Word – the Word that always accomplishes what it says.