Genesis 1:1-2:3/Ephesians 6:10-17/St John 4:46-53
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The faith of the official, perhaps better rendered, nobleman, was weak. It was burdened with want and infirmity. With doubt. This is not to say that saving faith was completely absent in him. For doubt is not the absence of faith anymore than fear is the absence of courage. In a way the one confirms the presence of the other. The nobleman believed. This much is evidenced by his marathon journey to where Christ is present. This is what faith does. It goes to where Jesus is.
But his faith was weak. He did not simply want to comply with the Word of Christ. He wanted to experience Christ’s help; to have something visible for his faith. Had the faith of the nobleman been firm he would have confessed with the centurion, Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only say the Word and my servant will be healed (Mt 8:8). Instead, in his weakness, he insists that Jesus come down and heal the boy.
Such wants and desires are found among many Christians still today. As the nobleman desired Jesus to come into his house, so many Christians believe that God is gracious to them only if He immediately answers their prayers. If He blesses them with good health, earthly happiness, a successful career, and the like. If His work is visible and evident to them. Or more to the point, if it is according to their desires.
But if God deals differently with them, if He hides Himself and appears to fight against them, if many of their prayers seem to go unanswered, if He presses the cross down all the more, then they do not stand firm. Some even, in the face of such cross and trial, give up the faith altogether, and given in to their desires.
All of this stems from the mistaken notion that everything we desire from God or about God is natural and good. Well, it is natural. But not everything natural is good. For we are by nature sinful and unclean. Our thoughts and desires are soiled with sin. Since the Fall there is a serious problem with the things that proceed from our hearts. Even those things we desire about God and how we treat His good creation.
“The heart is an idol factory,” said Luther. “Constantly churning out false gods made in our own image.” And there is nothing so close to our image than our own children. We make idols of them. Live vicariously through them. The nobleman approaches Jesus with the presumption that his child is the most important thing in his life. More important, even, than the Word of God, than doctrine. For he doesn’t trust the Word alone, but wants signs and wonders. He wanted the Word and seeing Jesus do something. He wants Jesus’ priorities and desires to be the same as his own.
And in our flesh we are no different. We want what we want and we want God to want us to have it too. We want to indulge our sin and have Jesus wink at it. We desire fortune and fame and say that if we get them we’ll give God the glory. Or maybe our desires are more simple: to just have a good feeling in our hearts that God is pleased with me. Ultimately we desire for God to prove Himself to us and just let us be who we are.
But prayer doesn’t bend God to our whims and Jesus doesn’t indulge our disordered desires. Jesus did not condone the infirmities and weakness of the nobleman’s faith; rather He chastised them. Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe. True faith petitions God based upon His promises, not on the desires of our sinful hearts. The Lord never promised to heal every infirmity. He never promised a better life, an easier life. He never promised things would be easy and everything will be okay. In fact, He routinely said nearly the opposite: I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves (Mt 10:16); Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Mt 10:34); It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline (Heb 12:7)? In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33).
With this chastening in mind, notice beloved, what our Lord Christ also does. He does not reject the nobleman’s weak and imperfect faith, but seeks to purify and strengthen it. The prophet Isaiah gives this comfort: A bruised reed the Lord’s Servant will not break, and a faintly burning wick He will not quench (Is 42:3). For as soon as the man had fallen into great fear at the Lord’s delay, and entreats Him again, Lord, come down before my child dies, and Christ told him, Go, your son lives.
And like the Word of the Lord that pierced the darkness in the beginning and there was light, so this word of promise from the Word Incarnate penetrates the nobleman’s heart and it proves, by the Word alone, its glorious and divine power. For hardly had Jesus spoken these words when the text says, The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. All of his doubts disappeared. He trusted the Word alone.
As firm as his faith now was, it awaited an even greater strengthening. For at the seventh hour, that is, 1p, Jesus told the man his son lives. Then, having journeyed all night the nearly twenty miles home, his servant met him with the joyous news: Your son lives! After inquiring about the hour he learns it is at the same hour Christ Jesus spoke His Word. And our text says, he himself believed and all his household.
So the bruised reed of the nobleman’s faith is not broken, but strengthened and comforted, so that he is able to comfort his household, his wife and other children, his servants and their families, with this glorious and efficacious Word of Christ by which his son and they all live!
And this is the Word by which you live! The Word by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation, came down, was Incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made Man. Jesus the Word seemed weak and ineffectual. The Word had His strength beaten out of Him. The Word stood silent and helpless before His accusers. The Word was too weak to carry His own Cross to Golgotha. The Word let go of life long before the criminals on either side of Him. The Word is folly and weakness, ineffectual and worthless to the world. But do not be ashamed, for the Word is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. For in Him the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
And faith cometh by hearing. And hearing by the Word of Christ. This is the first and most important thing for a Christian: to hear and consider God’s Word, especially the Gospel with its glorious promises of forgiveness, life, salvation, grace, peace, mercy, love, and joy. Let it penetrate your ears and heart. Make diligent use of it. Holy God to His promises, not the desires of your flesh. Crucify the passions and desires of your sinful heart and be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Satan has a strong ally in our flesh, in the thoughts and desires of our sinful hearts. Here we wrestle and work and fight and pray. So that the Christian does not indulge his disordered desires, but confesses them and receives forgiveness by God’s Word. You return daily to your baptism where you drown the Old Adam with all his desires and you arise to live before God in righteousness and purity. You come here in weakness and perhaps doubt, and our Lord gives you His Word which forgives all your sins, covers all your shame, strengthens your weak faith, encourages and enlivens you with His Spirit, and sends you away with that Word firmly placed into your ears and hearts.
Sometimes our Lord doesn’t remove the Cross He has laid upon you, but presses it down all the harder. He forges and forms you, dear ones, under His Cross and in the midst of temptation. Luther says this is how theologians are made. It is true. This is how faithful Christians are formed, too; steadfast and courageous, able to sand in the evil day.
Come forward, then, in faith and receive His pledge and token, His sign and seal of your salvation: His Word joined to Bread and Wine, His Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith. You are not worthy that He should come under the roof of your mouth, but He speaks His Word, which is sufficient and does what it says, and you are declared righteous and clean.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
The faith of the official, perhaps better rendered, nobleman, was weak. It was burdened with want and infirmity. With doubt. This is not to say that saving faith was completely absent in him. For doubt is not the absence of faith anymore than fear is the absence of courage. In a way the one confirms the presence of the other. The nobleman believed. This much is evidenced by his marathon journey to where Christ is present. This is what faith does. It goes to where Jesus is.
But his faith was weak. He did not simply want to comply with the Word of Christ. He wanted to experience Christ’s help; to have something visible for his faith. Had the faith of the nobleman been firm he would have confessed with the centurion, Lord, I am not worthy to have You come under my roof, but only say the Word and my servant will be healed (Mt 8:8). Instead, in his weakness, he insists that Jesus come down and heal the boy.
Such wants and desires are found among many Christians still today. As the nobleman desired Jesus to come into his house, so many Christians believe that God is gracious to them only if He immediately answers their prayers. If He blesses them with good health, earthly happiness, a successful career, and the like. If His work is visible and evident to them. Or more to the point, if it is according to their desires.
But if God deals differently with them, if He hides Himself and appears to fight against them, if many of their prayers seem to go unanswered, if He presses the cross down all the more, then they do not stand firm. Some even, in the face of such cross and trial, give up the faith altogether, and given in to their desires.
All of this stems from the mistaken notion that everything we desire from God or about God is natural and good. Well, it is natural. But not everything natural is good. For we are by nature sinful and unclean. Our thoughts and desires are soiled with sin. Since the Fall there is a serious problem with the things that proceed from our hearts. Even those things we desire about God and how we treat His good creation.
“The heart is an idol factory,” said Luther. “Constantly churning out false gods made in our own image.” And there is nothing so close to our image than our own children. We make idols of them. Live vicariously through them. The nobleman approaches Jesus with the presumption that his child is the most important thing in his life. More important, even, than the Word of God, than doctrine. For he doesn’t trust the Word alone, but wants signs and wonders. He wanted the Word and seeing Jesus do something. He wants Jesus’ priorities and desires to be the same as his own.
And in our flesh we are no different. We want what we want and we want God to want us to have it too. We want to indulge our sin and have Jesus wink at it. We desire fortune and fame and say that if we get them we’ll give God the glory. Or maybe our desires are more simple: to just have a good feeling in our hearts that God is pleased with me. Ultimately we desire for God to prove Himself to us and just let us be who we are.
But prayer doesn’t bend God to our whims and Jesus doesn’t indulge our disordered desires. Jesus did not condone the infirmities and weakness of the nobleman’s faith; rather He chastised them. Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe. True faith petitions God based upon His promises, not on the desires of our sinful hearts. The Lord never promised to heal every infirmity. He never promised a better life, an easier life. He never promised things would be easy and everything will be okay. In fact, He routinely said nearly the opposite: I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves (Mt 10:16); Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Mt 10:34); It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline (Heb 12:7)? In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33).
With this chastening in mind, notice beloved, what our Lord Christ also does. He does not reject the nobleman’s weak and imperfect faith, but seeks to purify and strengthen it. The prophet Isaiah gives this comfort: A bruised reed the Lord’s Servant will not break, and a faintly burning wick He will not quench (Is 42:3). For as soon as the man had fallen into great fear at the Lord’s delay, and entreats Him again, Lord, come down before my child dies, and Christ told him, Go, your son lives.
And like the Word of the Lord that pierced the darkness in the beginning and there was light, so this word of promise from the Word Incarnate penetrates the nobleman’s heart and it proves, by the Word alone, its glorious and divine power. For hardly had Jesus spoken these words when the text says, The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. All of his doubts disappeared. He trusted the Word alone.
As firm as his faith now was, it awaited an even greater strengthening. For at the seventh hour, that is, 1p, Jesus told the man his son lives. Then, having journeyed all night the nearly twenty miles home, his servant met him with the joyous news: Your son lives! After inquiring about the hour he learns it is at the same hour Christ Jesus spoke His Word. And our text says, he himself believed and all his household.
So the bruised reed of the nobleman’s faith is not broken, but strengthened and comforted, so that he is able to comfort his household, his wife and other children, his servants and their families, with this glorious and efficacious Word of Christ by which his son and they all live!
And this is the Word by which you live! The Word by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation, came down, was Incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made Man. Jesus the Word seemed weak and ineffectual. The Word had His strength beaten out of Him. The Word stood silent and helpless before His accusers. The Word was too weak to carry His own Cross to Golgotha. The Word let go of life long before the criminals on either side of Him. The Word is folly and weakness, ineffectual and worthless to the world. But do not be ashamed, for the Word is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. For in Him the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
And faith cometh by hearing. And hearing by the Word of Christ. This is the first and most important thing for a Christian: to hear and consider God’s Word, especially the Gospel with its glorious promises of forgiveness, life, salvation, grace, peace, mercy, love, and joy. Let it penetrate your ears and heart. Make diligent use of it. Holy God to His promises, not the desires of your flesh. Crucify the passions and desires of your sinful heart and be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Satan has a strong ally in our flesh, in the thoughts and desires of our sinful hearts. Here we wrestle and work and fight and pray. So that the Christian does not indulge his disordered desires, but confesses them and receives forgiveness by God’s Word. You return daily to your baptism where you drown the Old Adam with all his desires and you arise to live before God in righteousness and purity. You come here in weakness and perhaps doubt, and our Lord gives you His Word which forgives all your sins, covers all your shame, strengthens your weak faith, encourages and enlivens you with His Spirit, and sends you away with that Word firmly placed into your ears and hearts.
Sometimes our Lord doesn’t remove the Cross He has laid upon you, but presses it down all the harder. He forges and forms you, dear ones, under His Cross and in the midst of temptation. Luther says this is how theologians are made. It is true. This is how faithful Christians are formed, too; steadfast and courageous, able to sand in the evil day.
Come forward, then, in faith and receive His pledge and token, His sign and seal of your salvation: His Word joined to Bread and Wine, His Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith. You are not worthy that He should come under the roof of your mouth, but He speaks His Word, which is sufficient and does what it says, and you are declared righteous and clean.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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