“JESUS THE WORD:
YOUR LIFE”
Saint John 4.
46-54
20th
Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 21
propers: Michaelmas skip)
13 October Anno
Domini 2013
Fr. J. Watson
SSP
In The + Name of
Jesus
The Good News? Jesus is always coming to Cana of Galilee.
The Lord always reaches out to the towns of the Gentiles, to places like Cana
and Shawnee of Kansas, to the “old Adam”
and struggling Christian. He comes to make water into wine! The Law of God kills but the Savior saves. He
washes with water and brings you into a family that is awash with the joy of
wine—not reds and whites but rest, family, and peace! “The whole world is in Thy power, O Lord,” and how does He use that
power? The Lord’s divinity is used by taking into It the humanity of a fallen race. The traveling Rabbi took flesh
and blood from a sinful mother, a nature of falleness identical to yours, and
purified it in His own Godhood by uniting it to the Son in the “personal union” of His incarnation. His
Messiahship is to seek and save, not to destroy and show awesome displays of
cosmic grandeur. Although to be sure, turning ritual washing water into fine
aged wine is pretty awesome.
Everywhere the Christ went there were sick
people; some had diseases of varying hideousness, some were even more
ill with unforgiven sin and weighty consciences. Some had loved ones
suffering in places and locations where Jesus wasn’t even standing…like
Capernaum.
The only thing worse than having a horrible
disease is being the parent of a child who is suffering, and dying—as in the
case of “a certain nobleman.” It is good that the Christ was no Marxist “leveler” or “death panel” p/c bureaucrat, but desired to help with this man of “means” and obvious wealth. For Christ
knows that money can’t buy happiness or health. Blessed are the Lazarus’ of the
world who know where their true treasure lies—in the Body and Blood of the
God/Man and His words of absolution!
The man wanted his dying son to be healed,
to be saved, and the means he sought was simply Jesus’ bodily presence! The
Lord’s seemingly impatient and caustic lament “…except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe” are not
directed so much at the grieving nobleman-father as at the scoffers and critics
surrounding the Lord’s larger entourage of Disciples and Galilean followers.
And the Lord’s modern day followers know that even with His mightiest signs and
wonders—the raising of Lazarus of Bethany from death itself, the hard-hearted
Sanhedrin and its false prophets still would not believe! The only sign said
the Lord would be the sign of Jonah—His very own precious blood and
sinless Body crucified, dead and buried…and on the third day resurrected! “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a
stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness.” [1 Cor. 1.23]
No, this nobleman wasn’t some modern day
smarmy self-centered “spiritually aware”
American pontificating how he can meet “God” in the cathedral of nature and
thus doesn’t need to get his lazy-ass and calcified dead heart to the gathering
of Saints on the Lord’s day; no—this Capernaumite wanted the Messiah to lay His
Hands of healing on his boy! Be where Jesus is. Either one believes and will
be, or one does not and will always be able to manufacture bogus and devilish
rationalizations. Kyrie Elieson.
The real miracle of Godly healing, which
only God can do, is not that the sick and dying boy recovers, but that the
Nobleman father was given the faith to believe in Christ’s Word alone (by Grace alone through Faith alone…in Jesus alone)!
Faith is not feeling inner warmth, having an
auditory sensation, or an emotional tingle of perceived supernatural origin.
Faith is trusting the Word of Christ—whether spoken from the lips of Jesus,
read from the Words of Jesus as recorded by Saint John Zebedee, or spoken
through the mouths of your pastors in Absolution, + Baptism, Verba, or homily.
Faith holds on tightly to the objective
reality of the Present Christ in His active and present Word. “Go thy way, thy son liveth.” “I wash you clean from all sin (I
baptize you) in the Name of the + Father
and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost.” “I forgive you all your sins…” and “take eat the Body of Christ for you!”
“And
the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.”
That, dear Saints, is the Grace and Peace of
the Crucified and Resurrected One! Without seeing a restored son, the nobleman
departs on his own walk in the valley of the shadow of death, life’s trials
under the cross, BELIEVING in Jesus Who is THE WAY, the Truth and the Life! “Now faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen.” [Heb. 1.1]
Yes, to be sure, the nobleman’s son was
healed at the very moment the God/Man’s Word said He was…and thus the nobleman
like Martha of Bethany not only confessed The Faith of Christ before “seeing” a
result, but also did in fact receive a temporal and physical gift of a restored
loved one; but so do you and all believers in He Who is Life-enfleshed. A
Christian knows that as great as physical health is that it is eternal life
with the Lord that is a “Peace that
passeth all understanding.” Your babes resurrected at the font have an
infinitely better gift than mere physical health or longevity—they have
eternity. Your reception of the Eucharist
is better than any successful medical technology or surgical innovation for in
The Lord’s Body and Blood you have true immortality of both body and soul. Your
Holy + Absolution of sins takes away real sorrow and real hurt that makes
tactile discomfort and mere bodily wasting, insignificant in the infinity of
Heavenly communion. And you know all this not by intellect or reason but by
faith, by the relationship Jesus has created in you by The Holy Ghost working
through the WORD.
You will lose your health. You will lose to
death’s temporary separation, loved ones: sons, daughter, mothers, fathers,
wives and husbands…but you will walk the path of Jesus’ Words—THE WORD—“Go thy way; thy son liveth” because
THE SON of God died for you and rose for you and lives for you—and in you! “And take they our life, goods, fame, child,
and wife, let these all be gone, they yet have nothing won; The Kingdom ours
remaineth” [TLH # 262.4]
Listen now, and hear, receive, hold on
tightly to Life—to Jesus Who is right here, present: “Thy son liveth,” you live; come forward and receive forgiveness
and peace; for today is another Miracle that Jesus does when He comes out of,
not Judea or Galilee, but out of His Word to you.
In The Name of
The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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