St John 4:46-54/Genesis 1:1-2:3/Ephesians 6:10-17
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen,
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He speaks and it is so. Let there be light and there is light. Let there be this and there is this. Let there be that and there is that. His Word does what it says and says what it does. And the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, continue with the work of creation until all the universe is formed and shaped and filled and life abounds. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!
And as the crown and apex of His glorious creation – man; male and female – made in the image and likeness of the Lord God Himself. The Lord of life breathes life into His creation. The Father speaks the eternal Word, the Spirit expirates, He breathes, proceeds, from the Father and the Son. Our Triune God is the living God of life.
Now this is wonderful when you can SEE the immediate results of His speaking. “Be there light,” and there is light. “Lazarus, come out,” and he comes out, alive. “Young man, arise,” and the dead boy lives. But what about when you can’t see it? Does His Word still do what it says when you can’t see or measure or verify?
The nobleman in the Gospel came to Jesus because his son was ill; in fact dying. He had heard that Jesus had come and he went to Him. He asked two things of Jesus, to come with Him and to heal his son before death takes him. That was his prayer.
Now, this nobleman had faith; but it is weak. He had heard of Jesus and you know that faith cometh by hearing. Perhaps he heard of the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana. Though weak, this faith compels him to go to Jesus.
This is what faith does; it clings to Christ and drives you to Him. This father leaves the bedside of his dying son to go to the only Son of the Father who alone can help. But he seems to think that Jesus can heal his son only if He comes back with him to the child’s bedside; and only before the child dies.
Jesus rebukes not only the man, but the whole crowd. The you is plural. Unless y’all SEE signs and wonders y’all will not believe. The problem with such faith is that it doesn’t hang entirely on God speaking, on His Word and promises. Rather, it hangs on seeing. Recall how the letter to the Hebrews defines faith: the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (11:1).
But Jesus desires to impart to this man, and us, a faith that does not rely merely on seeing. And His rebuke is what Dr Luther called, tentatio, a testing, a trying, a hardening, as like metal. It is written, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3-7).
Did you hear that? It is because you are a son or daughter through faith in Christ that you are grieved by various trials, hardened as metal, refined as gold. Christ wrestles with this man much as He did with the Canaanite woman; or as He even as He did with Jacob. For nowhere is the metal of faith tested as much as when it is thrown hard into prayer by the very God who seems to be distant and unresponsive. This Dr Luther called oratio or prayer, a wrestling prayer that clings to the Word of Christ despite what the eye sees.
And so Jesus sends him home with a word of promise: Go, your son will live.
The man believed the Word of Jesus. In faith He clung to it. And so he leaves to return home; to go back the nine-mile trek.
But do you suppose it that simple? Do you imagine that he didn’t turn in perplexity a time or two or twenty and look back at Jesus in wonder, fear, and doubt? Don’t you? When you sit at the bedside (or chairside) of a sick and dying loved one, praying for healing. When you watch your children go down paths of destruction and cry out for the Lord’s help. Do you not doubt? Are you not given to despair? To fight and scrape and pray as this father did?
In the Epistle to the Ephesians St Paul describes our baptismal armor for spiritual warfare. Belts and breastplates, shoes and shields and helmets – lots of defensive weapons. But only one offensive weapon – the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. That is what is put into your hand to do battle against Satan.
Indeed it is a battle, not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil. And its when the Word of God seems not to be coming true for you, when you are sent away with miles to go and with only a promise to hold, that’s when Satan comes and whispers: “See, I told you He didn’t love you. I told you He didn’t care about the likes of you. He could have bothered Himself to come down with you, but no, He’s got better things to attend to – people more important than you. He could have come down and saved your son, but no, He sent you away with nothing.”
Beloved, these battles are not rarities in the Christian life. They comprise it. And they grow as you grow. Even into old age the flaming darts are hurled.
But what is behind them is our Lord preparing you for the last and final battle – death. For then, in those final moments, when everything is taken away from you, and all you have left is the Word of God that has gone through this final battle and come back for you, either you will cling to the Word and be victorious or Satan will succeed in wresting that sword from your hand, making you believe that the promises are worthless, that they are wishful thinking, that they have no power to deliver you from either your sins or your death. And oh will he remind you of your past sins and point out that death is at the door.
But to prepare you for victory in that battle, our Lord again and again takes away from you this or that. And then sends you out with just His Word, just a promise: Your sin is forgiven, your guilt atoned for, death is defeated. O death where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:55-57).
The Lutheran Confessions describe this battle when they define true worship as, “The exercise of faith wrestling with unbelief and despair over the promise of the Gospel.” That’s divine service – faith clinging to the promises of God in Christ Jesus against the despair that Satan, his minions, and your flesh would hurl at you!
So the nobleman in the Gospel battles back and forth as he traveled all those miles home. Against the fears and doubts that Satan planted in him, he would hurl the promise, “No! Jesus said my son shall live.” And so the battle raged within. At times the promise brought peace. At times Satan would steal it away and say, “Did He really say?” So again he’d take up the shield of faith, cling to the promise, that Word of Jesus, and be comforted.
So it went until he saw his servants. They met him with joy, saying, Your son lives. Did you catch that? The English doesn’t help us much here; the original Greek ties the knot – the servants spoke the very words to him that Jesus had spoken. The promise of God on their lips! And when the father learned that it was at the very hour Jesus said, Your son shall live, he proclaimed the Word of promise to his household and they believed him! Faith clings to the Word; the Word that was with God in the beginning, by whom and through whom all things were made, the very Word made Flesh; faith clings to Jesus!
St John says this is the second sign. The first being the water to wine. And it was done at the seventh hour – the very hour that Jesus, the only Son of the Father, hung upon the Cross, dying for the sins of the world! You see all the signs in John’s Gospel culminate in that last and greatest sign: the Crucifixion.
And there, of all times, focus not on what you see, but on what God promises. For what you see is a Man, trodden down under unjust government, murdered for convenience and because someone thought it to their advantage. Nothing new there. It’s been the same story across human history.
But receive the Word of God and in faith see the glorious vision open before your very eyes: The Lamb of God ascending the Cross in divine love to bear the sin of the world, to free you and all from sin, from death, from hell, from Satan. And this Son lives! Back from the dead, never to die again. Indeed the Lord our Lord is mindful of man and cares for him, crowning him with the glory and honor of the redemption paid in the blood of the Son of God.
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. His power is made perfect in weakness; His glory revealed in suffering. His Word does not fail. Even when you have nothing else to cling to – hold fast the Word and promise of our Lord.
And when Satan will not give you a moment’s peace in your last hour, reminding you of all your sin, turn your eyes and ears from his lies and deceit and look to Him who on the Cross answered for all your sin. His promise is true: He is the propitiation for your sins and for the sins of the world. You are forgiven.
When you lay dying and Satan would bring you despair over the grave that is fast closing over you, call the Servants of the Lord, who bring His Word to you on their lips, preaching, Jesus said, Because I live, you will live also.
And when you have to lay a loved one to eternal rest and you think your heart will break beyond repair, hear the promise, In My Father’s house are many rooms and I go to prepare a place for you all. Your heart will ease. For you have the heart of the Father. You have Jesus.
This is how you will take up the sword of the Spirit and do battle. Lean on the words and promises of God. And that which you cannot see now will be seen in the end; that which the nobleman saw – God is faithful; His Word does what it says, what He promises He brings to pass. And the Eucharist given today, the Body and Blood of the Lamb, hidden under the suffering of the Cross, is the promise that all of this is for you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen,
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He speaks and it is so. Let there be light and there is light. Let there be this and there is this. Let there be that and there is that. His Word does what it says and says what it does. And the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, continue with the work of creation until all the universe is formed and shaped and filled and life abounds. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!
And as the crown and apex of His glorious creation – man; male and female – made in the image and likeness of the Lord God Himself. The Lord of life breathes life into His creation. The Father speaks the eternal Word, the Spirit expirates, He breathes, proceeds, from the Father and the Son. Our Triune God is the living God of life.
Now this is wonderful when you can SEE the immediate results of His speaking. “Be there light,” and there is light. “Lazarus, come out,” and he comes out, alive. “Young man, arise,” and the dead boy lives. But what about when you can’t see it? Does His Word still do what it says when you can’t see or measure or verify?
The nobleman in the Gospel came to Jesus because his son was ill; in fact dying. He had heard that Jesus had come and he went to Him. He asked two things of Jesus, to come with Him and to heal his son before death takes him. That was his prayer.
Now, this nobleman had faith; but it is weak. He had heard of Jesus and you know that faith cometh by hearing. Perhaps he heard of the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana. Though weak, this faith compels him to go to Jesus.
This is what faith does; it clings to Christ and drives you to Him. This father leaves the bedside of his dying son to go to the only Son of the Father who alone can help. But he seems to think that Jesus can heal his son only if He comes back with him to the child’s bedside; and only before the child dies.
Jesus rebukes not only the man, but the whole crowd. The you is plural. Unless y’all SEE signs and wonders y’all will not believe. The problem with such faith is that it doesn’t hang entirely on God speaking, on His Word and promises. Rather, it hangs on seeing. Recall how the letter to the Hebrews defines faith: the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (11:1).
But Jesus desires to impart to this man, and us, a faith that does not rely merely on seeing. And His rebuke is what Dr Luther called, tentatio, a testing, a trying, a hardening, as like metal. It is written, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3-7).
Did you hear that? It is because you are a son or daughter through faith in Christ that you are grieved by various trials, hardened as metal, refined as gold. Christ wrestles with this man much as He did with the Canaanite woman; or as He even as He did with Jacob. For nowhere is the metal of faith tested as much as when it is thrown hard into prayer by the very God who seems to be distant and unresponsive. This Dr Luther called oratio or prayer, a wrestling prayer that clings to the Word of Christ despite what the eye sees.
And so Jesus sends him home with a word of promise: Go, your son will live.
The man believed the Word of Jesus. In faith He clung to it. And so he leaves to return home; to go back the nine-mile trek.
But do you suppose it that simple? Do you imagine that he didn’t turn in perplexity a time or two or twenty and look back at Jesus in wonder, fear, and doubt? Don’t you? When you sit at the bedside (or chairside) of a sick and dying loved one, praying for healing. When you watch your children go down paths of destruction and cry out for the Lord’s help. Do you not doubt? Are you not given to despair? To fight and scrape and pray as this father did?
In the Epistle to the Ephesians St Paul describes our baptismal armor for spiritual warfare. Belts and breastplates, shoes and shields and helmets – lots of defensive weapons. But only one offensive weapon – the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. That is what is put into your hand to do battle against Satan.
Indeed it is a battle, not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil. And its when the Word of God seems not to be coming true for you, when you are sent away with miles to go and with only a promise to hold, that’s when Satan comes and whispers: “See, I told you He didn’t love you. I told you He didn’t care about the likes of you. He could have bothered Himself to come down with you, but no, He’s got better things to attend to – people more important than you. He could have come down and saved your son, but no, He sent you away with nothing.”
Beloved, these battles are not rarities in the Christian life. They comprise it. And they grow as you grow. Even into old age the flaming darts are hurled.
But what is behind them is our Lord preparing you for the last and final battle – death. For then, in those final moments, when everything is taken away from you, and all you have left is the Word of God that has gone through this final battle and come back for you, either you will cling to the Word and be victorious or Satan will succeed in wresting that sword from your hand, making you believe that the promises are worthless, that they are wishful thinking, that they have no power to deliver you from either your sins or your death. And oh will he remind you of your past sins and point out that death is at the door.
But to prepare you for victory in that battle, our Lord again and again takes away from you this or that. And then sends you out with just His Word, just a promise: Your sin is forgiven, your guilt atoned for, death is defeated. O death where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:55-57).
The Lutheran Confessions describe this battle when they define true worship as, “The exercise of faith wrestling with unbelief and despair over the promise of the Gospel.” That’s divine service – faith clinging to the promises of God in Christ Jesus against the despair that Satan, his minions, and your flesh would hurl at you!
So the nobleman in the Gospel battles back and forth as he traveled all those miles home. Against the fears and doubts that Satan planted in him, he would hurl the promise, “No! Jesus said my son shall live.” And so the battle raged within. At times the promise brought peace. At times Satan would steal it away and say, “Did He really say?” So again he’d take up the shield of faith, cling to the promise, that Word of Jesus, and be comforted.
So it went until he saw his servants. They met him with joy, saying, Your son lives. Did you catch that? The English doesn’t help us much here; the original Greek ties the knot – the servants spoke the very words to him that Jesus had spoken. The promise of God on their lips! And when the father learned that it was at the very hour Jesus said, Your son shall live, he proclaimed the Word of promise to his household and they believed him! Faith clings to the Word; the Word that was with God in the beginning, by whom and through whom all things were made, the very Word made Flesh; faith clings to Jesus!
St John says this is the second sign. The first being the water to wine. And it was done at the seventh hour – the very hour that Jesus, the only Son of the Father, hung upon the Cross, dying for the sins of the world! You see all the signs in John’s Gospel culminate in that last and greatest sign: the Crucifixion.
And there, of all times, focus not on what you see, but on what God promises. For what you see is a Man, trodden down under unjust government, murdered for convenience and because someone thought it to their advantage. Nothing new there. It’s been the same story across human history.
But receive the Word of God and in faith see the glorious vision open before your very eyes: The Lamb of God ascending the Cross in divine love to bear the sin of the world, to free you and all from sin, from death, from hell, from Satan. And this Son lives! Back from the dead, never to die again. Indeed the Lord our Lord is mindful of man and cares for him, crowning him with the glory and honor of the redemption paid in the blood of the Son of God.
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. His power is made perfect in weakness; His glory revealed in suffering. His Word does not fail. Even when you have nothing else to cling to – hold fast the Word and promise of our Lord.
And when Satan will not give you a moment’s peace in your last hour, reminding you of all your sin, turn your eyes and ears from his lies and deceit and look to Him who on the Cross answered for all your sin. His promise is true: He is the propitiation for your sins and for the sins of the world. You are forgiven.
When you lay dying and Satan would bring you despair over the grave that is fast closing over you, call the Servants of the Lord, who bring His Word to you on their lips, preaching, Jesus said, Because I live, you will live also.
And when you have to lay a loved one to eternal rest and you think your heart will break beyond repair, hear the promise, In My Father’s house are many rooms and I go to prepare a place for you all. Your heart will ease. For you have the heart of the Father. You have Jesus.
This is how you will take up the sword of the Spirit and do battle. Lean on the words and promises of God. And that which you cannot see now will be seen in the end; that which the nobleman saw – God is faithful; His Word does what it says, what He promises He brings to pass. And the Eucharist given today, the Body and Blood of the Lamb, hidden under the suffering of the Cross, is the promise that all of this is for you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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