21st Sunday after Trinity + John 4:46-54 + October 21, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

Today’s appointed gospel lesson tells us how Jesus left Judea and traveled north into Galilee. He came into Cana of Galilee where He had turned water into wine. There He is met by a nobleman. This nobleman had heard about Jesus’ miracle at the wedding when He had turned one hundred and eighty gallons of water into wine. Knowing Jesus’ power, He goes out to meet Him. The nobleman has a son who sick to the point of death. Not content to remain at his dying son’s bedside, He hurries to intercept Jesus where he implores Him to come down and heal his son. The man comes to Christ in faith, but it is weak faith, for He imagines that Christ has to be present in his house, in his son’s room, at his son’s bedside in order to heal him. Jesus’ answer isn’t what the nobleman expects. “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will be no means believe.” It’s as if Christ were saying, “Everyone believes in me when I do a miracle, but no one believes me because of my teaching and doctrine.” Jesus doesn’t want faith to be based on signs and miracles because signs and miracles aren’t the object of faith. Christ’s word is the object of faith.

The nobleman does not relent. “Sir, come down before my child dies!” His faith is weak. This is evident in the way He prescribes the manner in which Jesus is to perform the miracle, the “how” of the miracle. “Come down to my home! This is how it needs to be done.” He also prescribes for Jesus the timetable for the miracle. It has to be done before his son dies. It has to happen right now. Yes, the nobleman has faith, but it is a bruised reed and a smoldering flax. This certainly is the faith of aged and experienced Abraham. When God tested Abraham by commanding him to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, Abraham did as God commanded. He did this even though Isaac was the child of promise through which God had promised to make him into a great nation and bless all nations of the earth. Abraham did so because by faith he believed that “God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense” (Hebrews 11:19). The details are different between Abraham and the nobleman, but the purpose is the same. God allows the nobleman’s son to fall ill, even to the point of death, to exercise and strengthen the nobleman’s faith, just as He did with Abraham in the offering of Isaac.

This is how God deals with all those who are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. He does not want them to remain idle. He exercises their faith to strengthen it. We are, more often than not, very much like the nobleman. We believe Christ is good and merciful and compassionate. But our faith is imperfect and at times very weak. Do you find yourself praying like the nobleman? “This is what I need, dear Lord Christ. And this is how I need you to give it to me. And this is when I need you to give it me.” In sickness and disease, in temptation and doubt, in distress and perplexity we don’t need a sign and wonder to strengthen our faith and fortify it. When faith is based on signs and wonders that faith atrophies in the absence of signs and miracles. A faith that prescribes to Jesus the “how” and the “when” of His answer is a faith that needs to be exercised, not with signs and miracles, but with the Word of Christ. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” says the Apostle (Romans 10:17). Christ is merciful, gracious, and compassionate to us. He has given us our faith, created it in us through the Word and Holy Baptism and we have His promise in Isaiah 42:3, “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.” He gives the nobleman a word and only a word. In this He teaches the nobleman, and us, that our faith is not to be based on miracles but solely on the word and promises of Christ.

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Go your way; your son lives.” Jesus won’t let Himself be bound to the “how” and the “when” the nobleman prescribes. He won’t come down to his house and heal him there. He will do it now by the power of the His Word. “So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went to his house.” The nobleman believes Christ’s Word. Christ has spoken. There is no need dispute with Him any further about the “how” and “when.” Those aren’t the nobleman’s concern. His only concern is the word Christ has spoken. Faith clings to Jesus’ word. The nobleman turns around, walks back home, his feet shod with the gospel of peace. His faith is a shield with which the nobleman quenches the fiery darts of the wicked one. The nobleman takes that word and holds onto it for dear life. He uses that Word to silence his fears that his son is dying. He uses that word to console himself in the face of doubts which tempt all who believe. By that word, God in human flesh standing before him, exercises his faith to strengthen it, so that does not need to see the miracle happen. He has the promise of Christ and the promise of Christ is more than enough.

On his way back home to Capernaum, the nobleman’s servants meet him. They tell him the good news, “Your son lives” just as Jesus said. He inquires of them as to when he got better. “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” He made his way back to Capernaum but must have stopped somewhere to stay overnight. He had been in a rush to bring Jesus back to his house. Now the rush is gone. His heart is stilled. He has the Word of Jesus. The seventh hour. That was the time of day the day before when Jesus has spoken to him. “Then he himself believed, and his whole household.” He doesn’t ask because he doubts. He asks so that might console himself all the more. Their answer strengthens his faith that it was in fact the Word of Christ, spoken to him, that had healed his boy. He had gone to find Jesus and bring back Christ Himself. It may have looked as if he returned home empty handed. But that wasn’t the case. He went home with all that He needed: the Word of Christ.

By healing the nobleman’s son Christ teaches us several things. First, the object in which our faith trusts is not to miracles and signs. Miracles and signs don’t sustain faith because they are fleeting and often don’t happen at all. The Christian’s faith is to be set on something secure and certain: the Word of God. To that end Christ gives you His Word on the pages of Holy Scripture. This is why you read and study the Scriptures. They testify of Christ, His power, His promises, His benefits and blessings. Faith has to know them in order to believe them. He gives you His Word in Holy Baptism which promise the remission of sins and your adoption as sons of God. He gives you His preached Word, the absolution, and the Lord’s Supper so that each can sustain your faith.

Then He exercises the faith He gives you to strengthen it. He exercises our faith through the trials, sufferings, and temptations we endure. In every trial we are to flee to Christ and the promise of the Gospel, presenting our petitions to God the Father, but we are not to worry about the “how” or the “when,” for He has promised to deliver us when it suits His will, which is always for our good. It is through these things that Christ strengthens you faith. It was St. Augustine who said that “Preaching molds you like the potter’s vase; the temptation hardens you.” In your distress, when you doubt, and in every suffering, flee to Christ, as the nobleman did, trusting that He will deliver you and give you every good thing in His way and in His time. He said to the nobleman, “Your Son lives.” But He says to you, “Be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you.” “Lo, I will never leave you nor forsake you, for I am with you to the end of the age.” Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.