Sermon: Jesus, My Brother was Murdered.
Text: John 4:46-54
Occasion: Trinity XXI
Who: Mark Woolsey
When: Sunday, Oct 28, 2007
Where: Providence Reformed Episcopal Church
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I. Intro
My first response when I learned of the passage I am to preach on this morning was a mild, "What will I say?" Jesus healed a boy, but so what? What possible use could this be to my life? I mean, let’s be honest. When I’ve had sick kids and I prayed for their recovery, the result seemed to be little different than if I had not prayed. If they have a cold and I pray for healing, they’re healed – in a few days. I also know parents who don’t pray for their sick children, and they were healed too – in a couple of days. I’m not necessarily asking for the children of unbelievers to die, but couldn’t God make it at least a little harder for them? Otherwise, what difference does faith make? What incentive is there to become a Christian? I think if I were organizing a meaningful religion I would put in the contract a guarantee that, on the average, children of the faithful would be healed at least one full day ahead of all others. Doesn’t God at least love His own?
On the other hand, there was a time in the recent past that will forever live in my memory. I had been working late when I received a phone call and was told to come to the hospital. Someone I loved, my brother, had been in a car accident. When I got there nobody on staff had heard of him. His name was not in the records. When I finally did manage to locate him, I learned that they knew him not as Ken, but as "Theta". This did not bode well. Every time I tried to enter his room several very long-faced people blocked my way. Was I praying for him? You bet I was, and fervently. When I was finally admitted into his room he was alive, but unconscious. My brother, who had been full of life, full of hope, fun to be with, was lying there, unable even to breathe on his own. It was not an accident that had put him here, but the bullet of a senseless person who apparently didn’t like the way his car was being driven. I prayed like the father in our Gospel story today, yet what was the result? My brother is gone, murdered. Couldn’t Jesus have saved him? Then why didn’t He? He healed the nobleman’s son at a distance. Has Christ lost His compassion, misplacing it among the many duties He has keeping this world spinning? Is His arm short and His power limited? Is His compassion jaded? Or are these verses simply a sweet story made up by a kind, but misguided religious zealot? Does today’s passage have any relevance to our lives in the "internet century"? Let us take a closer look to determine if there are answers to questions such as these.
II. Boring Jesus?
As we study this passage I’m struck by the talent that preachers, including –perhaps especially – myself, have to make Christ uninteresting. Many of us come to church on Sunday because we have to, but during the week, if we have two activities going on, say an optional church meeting or a party, which will we choose? How do you spell boring? C-h-u-r-c-h. Isn’t everyone glad that you only have to attend once or at most twice a week? Here we have this complex, fascinating figure and we’ve managed to tame Him to the point that He is almost invisible. It takes a great amount of learning and effort to accomplish this! How is Jesus interesting? One small example: If Jesus is God, then surely He knew of the child’s distress even before the father came to Him. If so, why didn’t He heal him then? Why does He wait until the father comes? But at least He does finally heal the boy; what about all the other boys from that time to this that are allowed to grow sick and die? Why did Christ choose to heal a few such people and not others? Or consider this: There are two other similar passages where Jesus is implored to heal a loved one some distance away from him. In one He immediately decides to come to him. Why does He comply so quickly in the latter request, but in our passage today He seems rather grouchy: "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will be no means believe."? And speaking of signs and wonders, why did John quote Jesus with that last quote, seeming to “diss” signs and wonders, yet at the end of the same book naming signs and wonders quite positively? Jesus defies explanation and yet His works demand it.
I believe that when we die and wake up in the next world, heaven, should we make it, will be more than simply "not hell". In addition to beauty, peace, joy, etc, it will be an eternity of growing in the knowledge of Christ Himself. We will never be able to exhaust our growth in knowledge of Him. This is what C.S. Lewis means, I think, when he describes this place as always leading us "higher up" and "farther in" at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia. If Jesus is not boring, then what is He?
III. Grumpy Jesus?
Well, He certainly seems rather grumpy in His first response. Consider, for a moment, that you have a sick child and are desperate to find someone who can help. Doctor after doctor has been consulted, but your child worsens. Finally, in your extreme duress you come to me and ask me to pray. What would you think if my response to you were, "Unless you see a miracle, you simply won’t believe", or maybe, "Whoa, you simply don’t have enough faith"? That, to me, at BEST is characterized as insensitive. I doubt very seriously this passage is consulted during Pastoral Counseling class in seminary. And yet we read this and just pass over it without really thinking twice about it. I think we really let Jesus off the hook too easily. I once read that in science some of the most astounding discoveries start out with "that’s odd". Instead of trying to “protect” Jesus’ reputation by passing over this bit of rudeness, let’s see if we can incorporate it in our understanding of this passage. Before I explain it’s meaning, however, I would like to draw your attention to the nobleman’s response to Jesus’ statement. After this “put down”, what did the father do? He simply repeated his request. This is very similar to the Syro-phoenician mother’s response to a similar incident. Just like out father today, the mother had a daughter that was in serious distress, in this case demon-possession. The mother and daughter were Gentiles. To her request for help Jesus replied in Mark 7:27:
Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.
Can’t we all identify today with this mother and father and their prayer to Jesus for their children? Haven’t we prayed in earnest for something very dear to our hearts only to find Jesus seemingly to “blow us off”, or that our circumstances got even worse? That we were rebuked? I think we have all experienced Christ’s apparent rudeness and insensitivity. What was the response of both the mother and the father? They kept on asking; they refused to take offense. The mother from the Gospel of Mark replied:
Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.
and the father in John’s Gospel said:
Sir, come down before my child dies!
Neither one gave up and stormed off. Sometimes, for whatever reason, Jesus withholds His grace from us, the grace we think we need. Worse, He does something seemingly cruel. And yet, this is never the end of the story. As Matthew Henry says, “Those whom Christ intends to honor with his favors he first humbles with his frowns.” Persevere in your prayers and know that
All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Ro 8:28).
As one commentator said, “The nobleman would have Christ come down and heal his son; Christ would heal his son and not come down.”
Jesus, in spite what may seem to be the case, is never “grumpy”.
IV. Capricious Jesus?
Another negative characteristic Jesus seems to exhibit is that of being capricious, that is, flighty, or acting on a whim, undependable. We’ve already compared John’s story of the nobleman with Mark’s story of the Syro-phoenician’s daughter. There’s another story that’s also very similar to this one; it’s the one about the Centurion’s servant in Matt 8:5-13. It, too, concerns an older man who comes to Jesus asking for the healing of a younger man back home whom he dearly loves. In response to the Centurion Jesus drops everything and immediately starts off to see his young charge, while all the nobleman today gets is a send off with only a word of promise. When my brother was dying did I simply call my sister-in-law at the hospital and give her some words of comfort? No, I rushed there to both see my brother and to be of what comfort I could to his wife. Sometimes words are simply not enough. Why would Jesus start off with one, yet simply speak to the other? And haven’t we seen this, too, from our Lord? When we need His felt presence the most sometimes all we have is His bare word. No feeling of closeness, no wrapping of the arms around our shoulders. And yet, His word is powerful, accomplishing all it sets out to do:
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall proper in the thing for which I sent it.
This passage is Is 55:11 which is in the midst of the powerful, evangelical chapters at the end of that book. In fact, look what Jesus’ word accomplishes in John’s story. When Jesus said,
your son lives (v50)
He’s not simply relating that while the father was gone Jesus got a cell-phone call from the mother telling him that the nobleman’s son has recovered. No, Jesus’ word accomplished what it stated. We speak of things already come to pass; Jesus speaks to bring things to pass. Our words describe; Jesus’ words form. We verbalize and pictures appear in our hearer’s mind; God verbalizes and the universe appears out of nothing. As the author of Hebrews puts it:
For the Word of God is living and powerful (4:12)
Yet in spite of all of this my brother died. There was no word that restored him to health; no word that brought him back to life. Where was God in the midst of this tragedy, and how does our passage today relate?
V. Believe the Word.
Well, after Jesus speaks the words,
your son lives
what is the very next thing that the passage says happened? If you say that the son was healed, then you are wrong. That’s not the next sentence. That does happen, but that’s not what is mentioned immediately after Jesus’ words. What happened next leads us closer to the reason that John wrote this Gospel. Does Jesus always promise to heal our loved ones when they fall sick? Is His promise that He will always restore in this life what the devil has stolen? Is this what John wants us to learn from this story? No. His purpose is much bigger than that. Is this story a manual for how to pray to Jesus for a sick child? No. Then what is John’s purpose for writing this story? It’s a purpose that’s bigger than healing a child, even a child close to death. It’s bigger even than restoring the life of an innocent man who was cut down in his prime. The next sentence after Jesus promises the father the life of his son is:
So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him (v50)
Aha! So that’s the purpose of this passage, that the nobleman would believe Jesus’ word! To put it succinctly, no, that’s not the purpose. It’s close, but that’s not it.
I suppose that right about now some of you are ready to take a word from the title of my last sermon, say it very forcefully, and add, “Come to your point!”
VI. Believe Jesus
Let’s read the last few verses of the passage again. The father:
went his way. And as he was going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!” Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” (vv50-53)
And here is the purpose:
And he himself believed (v53)
As Matthew Henry says: “He had before believed the word of Christ; but now he believed in Christ.” In other words he initially believed that Christ would heal his son, and He did. After more reflection on what that must mean about Christ Himself, he realized that Jesus was more than just a man, and more than just an itinerant healer. Jesus didn’t heal his son by praying to the Father; He commanded and it was done. There’s only One Person who could do that. But it doesn’t even stop with the father. John says the nobleman believed:
and his whole household. (v53)
This is the purpose of this story. And this is the purpose of the whole of the Gospel of John. Listen to St John towards the end of the book:
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
More important than even life on earth, John wrote this book so that we and our whole household may believe on Jesus and have eternal life. When he spoke to that father saying that he would not believe unless he saw signs and wonders, that was a hard saying for a man in distress. But yet, he got, because of Christ’s hard word, eternal life. And we do, too. Christ’s hard words and seeming aloofness are designed to give us life. He came to earth not primarily to heal people, but to die. His death became our life.
One more thing. When He died, we see that he brought those outside the covenant inside, such as the woman at well. In John 4, before the story of the nobleman, we read about the woman at the well. Even without a healing miracle, she believed in Christ Himself. But the story of the nobleman, a Jew, tells us that Christ died for believers, too. Christ’s death was sufficient even for Christian’s sins. You see, for some of us, we can believe the Christ died for pagans, to bring them in the fold, but we have a hard time believing that His death will cover our sins after we believe. But it does. Christ died for Christians, too. Now THAT’s something to shout about.
VII. My Brother
Although my brother did not recover, I was greatly comforted that God gave me the time to pray something like this over him as he lay dying. It’s from the Book of Common Prayer that was procured for me by a kind soul:
O almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons; We humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands, as into the hand of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; beseeching thee, that it may be precious in thy sight. Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world; that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before thee; through the merits of Jesus Christ thine only Son our Lord. Amen.
May the blood of the Lamb wash away all our sins and present us spotless before the throne. And not only in death, but in life right now. In a few minutes we will be called to “Lift up your hearts” in the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, the Lord’s Supper. May we be lifted up by faith into heaven with all the angels and archangels, and there partake of the heavenly feast. As we eat the bread and wine here at the earthly table, may we eat the body and blood at the heavenly!
This is the word of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Soli Deo Gloria!
