Trinity 21 – October 20th,
2013 – John 4:46-54
In the Name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost +
We don’t get the fullness of who Christ is and what He
does. Our old sinful flesh just has a
hard time comprehending this. But
thankfully our lack doesn’t undercut Jesus.
This is what we see in our text today.
“So [Jesus] came again to Cana in Galilee,
where He had made the water wine. And at
Capernaum there
was an official whose son was ill. When
this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went down to Him
and asked Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.” Jesus had been wandering around, He’s been in
Jerusalem, He’d been in Samaria,
and now, He’s back in Galilee. And this official from Capernaum, where Jesus spent a lot of time,
hears that Jesus is back around, and he goes to Jesus and begs Him to come to
his house and heal his son. Seems pretty
good so far, doesn’t it? Except Jesus’
reply is sort of curt to this man. So
Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” Well, why would Jesus say that to this
fellow? He obviously believes. . . I
mean, he came to Jesus to ask for healing, he wants Jesus to come. Why would Jesus say that unless there are
signs there won’t be belief?
Here is why. This
fellow understands that Jesus is holy, that He has power – but he doesn’t get
it fully. What does this official ask
Jesus? Come, come and heal my son. I want to see you lay hands on him, I want to
hear your cry out with a loud voice, I want You to heal him thusly. He’s still thinking of Jesus in terms of
merely some sort of mere wonder
worker. The thing is… does Jesus need to
walk up to this boy to heal him? Does
Jesus need to walk up to this son to heal him? But the
man is insistent – “The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my child dies.’” We are wasting time with talking Jesus, when
we should be walking. Let’s get a move
on it, before my kid dies. What this
fellow completely overlooks is that Jesus doesn’t need to go with him to heal
the kid, Jesus can heal him right there.
The guy doesn’t fully understand just how powerful Christ is, and so he
tries to boss Jesus around. I hate to
sound so critical of this guy, but while there is good, while it’s good that he
knows to go to Jesus – he’s trying to micromanage Jesus, he’s selling Jesus
short, and we need to be critical of things like this, we need to be wary of
this sort of attitude, especially in ourselves.
One of the dangers around us here in the bible belt is a
tendency to almost quietly sell Jesus short, to undercut His power, and
substitute our own. To think that He
can’t do things that He says He does.
The obvious one for me is talking to people about Baptism or the Lord’s
Supper. Jesus refers to baptism as being
born again – the scriptures call it a gift that unites you to Christ, Peter
says in his epistle, “Baptism now saves you.”
And yet, what do we hear about it?
Oh, it’s just symbolic. Oh,
baptizing infants doesn’t do any good unless they decide to do it themselves,
because what’s important is that you are giving yourself to God. Do you see how this sells short Christ Jesus? This whole power and wonder of God working
through Water and His Word gets undercut… it’s as though people assume that
Jesus couldn’t really mean all this stuff He says in His Word about what He
gives us in Baptism, so we make Baptism about what we show and give to Jesus. Or the Lord’s Supper – this drives me
nuts. Jesus says, “This is My Body” –
and then people will say it isn’t. Oh,
it’s just symbolic. How can this be
Jesus’ Body, He’s stuck up in heaven? I just
don’t understand how this could be Jesus’ Body, how can it be His Body. Well, maybe because He’s God and He said,
“This Is My Body” and what He says goes.
You see, this is the danger – that we will slowly doubt, undercut, deny
what Jesus Himself says because… it is mysterious and wondrous to us and we
can’t comprehend it, because it’s about Him being more powerful than us and in
control, and we like to be the ones in charge.
Think about what we hear about prayer.
Oh, if you just say this prayer the right way God’s gonna give you
blessings. Am I in charge of God? Do I get to say, “You must bless me and in
this way”? And this is where the man in
our lesson errs. Please heal my son –
great. You need to come down and heal
him in this way – not so great.
“Jesus said to him, ‘Go, your son will
live.’ The man believed the word that
Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.” Now, I will praise this man. Jesus doesn’t give the man precisely what he
asked, what he demanded. Jesus doesn’t
go to Capernaum. He does something better. Jesus speaks a word of life. Go, your son will live. And hearing, the man believes – the man
learns and gets it. If Jesus says
something, it’s going to be, it will be true.
And so in faith, he heads home.
His plans of dragging Jesus along with him are dashed – but as he walks
home, he goes trusting in Christ Jesus and His Word. And that trust proves true – the servants
come running to meet him – Your son lives.
And what do you know – the son is healed at the very hour when Jesus
said, “Go, your son will live.” “This
was now the second sign that Jesus did when He had come from Judea to Galilee.”
The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Who is this Jesus – well, let’s see, He
speaks, and then there is life. Hmm, can
we think of Someone who speaks, and then there is life, say life springing up
from the ground? This is a God thing
that Jesus does – this shows that He is God, that He is the Word of God by Whom
all things were made. This is what Jesus
does – He restores life. If you want to
know who God is, He is the One who gives life, and He gives it by the power of
His Word. What Jesus says, is. And this truth, this wonder is revealed, is
shown to us by this miracle – it is the proof of who Jesus is, it is His
credentials. This Man Jesus is God come
down to save us.
Now, what do we learn and take from this? Consider your own life, what you see. How many of you see your bodies not working
like they used to? How many of you see
signs of age and wear when you look in the mirror? Oh, as a society we try to hide that today,
don’t we? But it’s there. Or how many of you, when you look at your
lives see things broken – broken friendships, broken families, broken people,
even yourself broken – just all those things that wear you down. Some of these tails of woe I know, some I
don’t. You know some of mine, some you
don’t. We all have them. We are sinful people living in a sinful world
– nasty horrible stuff happens and we all get older and things start wearing
down and dreams and plans don’t work out right.
This is reality. How do we
respond?
The world gives us a few answers. One answer the world gives is to simply
ignore these problems, pretend they don’t exist. Oh, you could just go get blottoed or high,
stoned off your rocker, that way you don’t have to face reality. Or, you could do what is more common – live
for stuff, whatever is the latest and greatest thingamabobber they offer at the
store. The world offers many ways for us
to pretend that the difficulties of life aren’t there – dab a little make-up on
and you’re just as young as you used to be, get the spiffy car and you’ll feel
footloose and fancy free, or just drink till you forget. And of course, these are all lies – none of
it is real, none of it fixes the problem – but it seems appealing. It gives us something we think we can do,
something we think we can control – when in reality these problems are beyond
us. Another answer the world gives is
the simple dour answer. What you see is
what you get. Everything is basically just cold math and random chance and
that’s all there is, so smoke ‘em while you got ‘em. Scrap, fight, claw for whatever brief
pleasure you can get, because that’s the best it is.
But you know reality.
You know what is going on.
Sinners in a sinful world. It’s
all death. Change and decay in all around I see. Our bodies, they break and die. Our friendships, they can break and die. Hopes – they can break and die. And this isn’t just the way it is, this isn’t
just nature, the random chance of the universe.
We are fallen, we have sinned, and the life that we should have had is
tainted and fallen and broken, and we of ourselves can’t make it right. We are less than we were created to be,
that’s the reality of life in a fallen world, and if left to our own devices,
all the toys, all the money, all the drugs, all the ambition and power won’t
change that fact.
And even as you see this, know this, Jesus says, “Go, you
will live.” This is Christ’s message to
you, “Go with confidence and peace, face down anything you see in this life,
for you will live.” When Christ Jesus
goes to the Cross, He is facing down all this junk and trash we see in life,
the stuff we don’t talk about, He goes to the Cross to fix the fall – and Jesus
stares it down, takes it upon Himself, let’s the world do it’s worst to Him,
let’s the world kill Him most cruelly – takes the wages of our sin upon
Himself. And on the third day – He
rises. He rises victoriously over sin,
death, the world – all this junk tried to destroy Him and He just strides on
out of the tomb. He is the God of Life,
the God who creates with a Word, the God who forgives with a Word, the God who
gives new life in Himself with a Word.
And Jesus says to you in His Word, when you are feeling the weight of
this world upon you – Go, You will live.
Do you feel your own body turning against you? Go, you will live. You will live eternally, and even if you die
here, you will live again, because Christ’s Word of life will not be
broken. You are going to live better in
the resurrection than you do now. Do you
look around and see friendships broken, relationships destroyed? Go, you will live. You have been Baptized into Christ Jesus,
made part of the Communion of Saints, brought into a family that after the
resurrection of the dead on the last day will have no more problems, will not
break, but will be united with Christ forever. Do you see things wrong in this world? Go, you will live. You will live eternally in the new heavens
and the new earth where moth and rust do not destroy, where there is
peace. Do you see sin in your own flesh,
wearing you down? Go, you will
live. Christ Jesus has forgiven you, and
your sin is done away with, destroyed, and in the life of the world to come it
will not be remembered any more. And
this is not random, this is not mere chance.
God has called you, planned for your salvation even before the Creation.
This is more than we expected, this is more than what our
normal prayers ask for. God does more
for us than we anticipate, but this is His great love for you. Be confident in Him. Go, you will live. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost +
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