Faith Beyond Sight
Grace to you and
peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Seeing is believing,” or so the old saying
goes. But on this side of heaven, your eyes, ears, and all your senses will let
you down. They are tainted with sin; they can’t be trusted. Take the Canaanite
woman, for example. She will not be turned aside by Jesus despite His seeming
cruelty toward her. If she believes only what her senses tell her, she would go
home, her need unfilled. But this woman is the example of faithful prayer
because she will not give up. She knows who Jesus is and what He has come to
do, so she approaches Him and wrestles with Him—verbally, anyway—until He
blesses her by granting her request.
Her daughter is severely demon-possessed.
And yet it looks, sounds, and feels like Jesus is the one playing the devil.
Three times He insults her. First He ignores her prayer and great confession.
Then, in her hearing, He tells the disciples she is not worth His time. And
finally He calls her a little, yapping dog.
Despite all appearances, she persists in her
prayer. She does not give up. She won’t let Him go—not just because she’s
desperate, but because she insists that only Jesus can help her. She trusts
that, no matter what Jesus says, no matter what He throws at her, He will
ultimately help her. In fact, she believes that even His insults, even His
torments, are somehow, in some mysterious way, part of the Lord’s help that she
so desperately desires. She overlooks what she sees, hears, and feels, and forces
Him to be the loving Lord she knows Him to be. She knows He’s the Messiah, God
in the flesh, David’s son and David’s Lord. She believes He was sent to the
lost sheep of Israel,
and she knows that, somehow, He can bring her into that fold.
The Canaanite woman is also fully aware of
who she is: that every answer, every seeming insult, every apparently
hurtful word that Jesus says is true and deserved. “Yes, Lord,” she says. “I
deserve to be ignored by you. Yes, Lord, I am not worthy of Your time because
of my many sins. Yet even the little dogs
eat the crumbs which fall from their master’s table. So I believe that,
even though everything You say is true, even though I deserve much worse than
Your scolding and insults—nevertheless, in the end, You will not turn Your
mercy from me.” And in a way known only by faith, the woman knew that He would
not just treat her like a dog, but like a member of the family, sitting at the
table with all the others.
Sometimes, when
you are in a hard part of your life, bombarded by temptations, suffering under
your sins and the sins of people around you, it is difficult to tell the
difference between God and the devil. But never does our Lord turn you away;
never will He give up on you. He pushes you to the point where no one can help
you but Him. He gives you painful crosses, but only so that you have eyes for
His cross alone. He is the Messiah, come to take your place so you can have
His. And because He has gone the way of His cross and death, He always leads
you through your cross and suffering, until finally He leads you to His glory.
He raises you up to new life in His own resurrection by the washing of Holy
Baptism. He raises you up by faithful preaching and His Word of forgiveness. He
raises you up by feeding you to bursting on the crumbs of His body and blood. Jesus
loves you; He wants the best for you. Come as little dogs, begging for a scrap
from your Lord’s Table. He will give His mercy and forgiveness in greater
measure than you either prayed for or expected. In the name of the Father and
of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God
which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus
always. Amen.
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