When your child is sick, you feel powerless. You want to heal your child, but the most you can do is to help the body heal itself. You don’t have true power to heal. Even antibiotics and medicines do not work without the body doing its part. True healing happens without the body’s help. And this is something none of us can do. Perhaps, that’s why we feel so powerless when our child is sick.
And if the sickness is serious, we may even feel more helpless. It’s not only that we can’t heal our child; we are even helpless to understand why God, our merciful Father, would allow such a sickness to take place. What reason is there?
So, what does that say about the God who allows such sickness to happen? Does He want to give us pain? Does He not know how we feel? Doesn’t He care? When life tastes bitter, and God doesn’t stop the bitter bile from afflicting you, how can you not wonder about such a God?
That’s the hidden god. He hides Himself and doesn’t explain everything we want to know. He sends us pain without a word telling us why. If a disaster happens, we deal with it because we have no choice. If a child dies, we cry and bear it because we have no choice.
What do we learn from these bitter dregs of life? I suppose we could say we learn patience. But let’s face it: people can become just as bitter as they can become patient. I’ve seen people become angry with God and walk away from Him because they felt someone died before his time. Although it should, suffering the loss of someone you love may or may not teach you anything at all.
Loss may even cause you to give up on God. That may happen unless you hear God talk, unless you hear His Word of promise, unless you meet Jesus.
The official in today’s Gospel reading met Jesus. After Jesus had changed water into wine, people began to spread the news all over the country. That’s how the official had heard of Jesus. This Jesus had power that belonged only to God. The word had spread that Jesus could do the signs that identified Him as God in the Flesh. So, to meet Jesus was to meet God. And that’s what the official did.
But the God who hides His face from us, who takes away what we love, is the same God who also reveals His love to us in Jesus. He’s the same God. The God who hides Himself and the God who reveals Himself is the same. But when we suffer, and we don’t have any Word from God, we feel that He has abandoned us and can no longer be found.
That’s how the official felt–until he met Jesus. He begged Jesus to come to where his son was and to heal him. Yet, Jesus responded to the man’s pleas in a way that may make you think that Jesus is one, hard-hearted man. Jesus said, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
Jesus was driving the man to trust in the Word that He would speak, not in signs of power. The man thought he knew how Jesus would answer his prayer. Jesus would provide a dramatic display of power. He would go to the man’s home and provide a sign that others expected from Him. But Jesus deliberately chose not to go to the man’s home, or even to approach it. Instead, Jesus simply spoke. He said, “Go; your son will live.”
Jesus spoke, and the words He spoke healed a boy who was miles away. Jesus spoke, and through that speaking, He brought life to a dying boy. Jesus spoke, and through that speaking, He brought His gracious presence to a home filled with anxiety and worry. Through His Word, He brought that official to faith. Even more, Jesus brought the official’s entire family to faith: infants, children, father, and mother.
St. Matthew tells us the official believed Jesus’ Word when He spoke it. Matthew also tells us the man believed Jesus’ Word when he saw that Jesus had saved his son’s life. It’s the same faith. That’s because Jesus’ Word–not only brings us to faith–but also keeps us in the faith. Without His Word–and the Holy Spirit working through it–our faith, not only wouldn’t exist, but it wouldn’t even survive the first temptation. For without Christ’s Word, our faith would have nothing to keep it alive.
Faith lives on the Word of Christ. Even more, Jesus won’t deal with us in any other way than through His Word. That’s why Jesus chose to heal the man’s son as He did. He wanted to teach that He is present with us through His Word. In this way, Jesus teaches us not to seek him anywhere else but where He comes to us in His Word.
Most people–even many within the Church–are confused about what faith is. They think that faith is a decision that someone makes. They think that faith is doing something. That’s not true. Oh, faith moves us to live a certain way. But faith itself is the opposite of doing. Faith is to believe; it’s to trust, not to do. Faith is to hear what God says and then relies on the truth of what He says. “Your son lives.” So says Jesus. Faith doesn’t do, but trusts what Jesus says. It’s that simple.
But now I ask you this. Was it Jesus who healed the boy or was it His Word? I suppose that’s a stupid question. Jesus healed the boy by saying the Word. Isn’t that so? Faith trusts in the Word, and so it trusts in Jesus. You can’t trust in Jesus without trusting in His Word. So, when you trust in His Word, you are trusting in Him. And when you trust in Him, you are trusting in God.
The only way to know the Father is through the Son, Jesus. The only way to know Jesus is in the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit speaks to us only through the Word Jesus gave Him to speak. That’s the Word revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. That’s the Word, when it’s faithfully preached, from the pulpit of Christ’s Church. That’s the Word joined to the water of holy Baptism. That’s the Word joined to bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, so they become the body and the blood of Jesus. That’s the Word spoken in the absolution, so Jesus Himself gives you the same forgiveness He earned for you on the cross.
So today, two paths lie before you. One path seeks the hidden God. But that path causes you to hate Him, for you are always left guessing and unsure. The other path listens to the Word of God as Jesus gives it. That path causes you to love Him.
Of course, you can use your own experience to gauge God’s love. But if you do that, you will think that God loves you one day, only to hate you the next. No one ever has learned to fear, love, and trust in the hidden God who takes away your children, parents, husbands, wives, property, and jobs. We can’t love this God because He won’t even talk to us. He gives, only to take away; and then it’s gone.
But the God who sent His Son into this world continues to talk to us through this same Son. It’s as the book of Hebrews describes it. “In many portions and many ways, God spoke to His people of old through the prophets. But now in these last days, He has spoken to us through His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2a). St. John’s Gospel calls Jesus, not only the Word who was with God, but even calls Him the Word who is God! This Word became flesh. He lived among us as a man. But He chose to show us that He wants to deal with us through His Word.
The hidden God tells us nothing, so we don’t know what He’s doing or why. The revealed God speaks to us through Jesus. Is that enough? Or do you want more? Must you have God do a miracle of your liking before you really trust Him? Do you resent that God doesn’t shape His gifts to your wishes but, instead, insists that you shape your wishes to His gifts?
Know this: If you won’t listen to God, you can’t know Him. If your faith isn’t born from God’s Word, it isn’t even true faith. In truth, it’s but a delusion. For Jesus has plainly told us that He wants us to listen to His Word. That’s where He wants us to seek His gracious presence–in His Word, not apart from it!
Jesus, speaking to the Jews of His day, said they would receive the sign of Jonah. As Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale, so Jesus would be crucified, buried, and on the third day rise from the dead. That’s where we should look to find Jesus.
As Romans chapter 6 says, the water and Word of baptism joined you to that holy event of Christ’s death and resurrection. In the Supper, Jesus gives you the same body and blood to eat and drink, the same body and blood that earned your salvation on the cross. And from Jesus’ own words, He tells you that it’s His body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.
Do you believe Jesus? When Jesus says what He says, do you think it is so? Or do you think His Word sometimes doesn’t take? Do you think you can come to church and hear the Gospel and yet it’s not real because you don’t “feel it.” Would you rather have God give you some extra assurance? Maybe, if Jesus would quit being so God-like, He would start listening to our ideas. For what He’s doing right now doesn’t seem that impressive to me!
Well, thank God He doesn’t obey our foolishness and sinful yearnings! Instead, Jesus tells us to stop flapping our jaws, pay attention, and listen to Him. When we suffer, we don’t know how to find the God who is hidden from us. But God knows how to find and to help us!
Jesus speaks His Word. And when He says it, that makes it so! Whether it’s the baby being baptized, the grieving sinner being absolved, or the bread and wine being His body and blood, God’s Word always makes it so.
The young man’s fever left him the hour Jesus said, “Your son will live.” Here in this place, now in this hour, God forgives you of your many sins. And so you, too, will live–eternally! For on the cross, God placed all of your sins on His beloved Son. And there, Jesus took in your sins–lock, stock, and barrel. That’s why, right now, Jesus gives you His Word that your sins are forgiven. You are free from them. God said it. That settles it. Believe Him. For it’s already true. Amen.
