Trinity 21

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Gen 1:1—2:3; Eph 6:10–17; Jn 4:46–54; Ps 8; antiphon: v. 9   –     11/09/25

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Luther notes that this is the second sign Jesus performed when He came to Galilee. The first was at Cana after His baptism. The first is changing water to wine, the second healing the ruler’s son, which takes place upon Christ’s return from Samaria where He spoke to the woman at the well. “The Evangelist has recorded these marvelous works to show what kind of person this preacher really was, and to indicate also how he was to be heard, namely with the confidence that everything he taught was ‘Yea’ and ‘Amen!’ We do not really know whether this royal official was a Jew or Gentile, nor does that matter. He was some sort of provincial ruler or magistrate serving King Herod. It’s more important that we discover the reason why the Evangelist has reported this miraculous healing, so that we may all realize how important it is for us to respond to God’s Word with the proper sort of faith.” (7.117–118)

St. Augustine instructs you to mark “what our Lord says; Then said Jesus to him, Except you see signs and wonders, you will Not believe. This is to charge the man either with Luke warmness, or coldness of faith, or with want of faith altogether: as if his only object was to put Christ’s power to the test, and see who and what kind of person Christ was, and what He could do” (Catena). Augustine has noted this well for us, because so often in the Gospels the men in authority did not speak to Jesus from need or curiosity, but to entrap Him that they might accuse Christ of violating God’s Law. The disciples with Jesus would surely have begun to notice this pattern among the Pharisees and lawyers, such as those who were questioning Him at the feast in St. Matthew’s house in Capernaum. The disciples would likely have looked on this nobleman with suspicion.

But what of Jesus Himself? Does He suspect this man of ill intent? No, not at all, for, as numerous passages in the Scripture tell us, Jesus knew what was in the heart of men (Jn 2:25). For instance, Proverbs 21:2: Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. Or Luke 5:22 after forgiving the paralytic, When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts?” Jesus knew what the ruler was thinking and that he had come for the sake of his son. The last time Jesus had been in Cana He had blessed the wedding of a man and a woman that day by changing the water into wine miraculously. This noble heard of that miracle, perhaps had been there and like everyone else not realized what had happened until the servants spoke of it later, and thought to himself that if there was any hope for his son’s recovery from the fever it was in that Man. So, the question remains, why did Jesus say, Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe?

I would contend Jesus says this for the sake of the prejudice of the disciples, if Augustine is right; but also for the sake of the incomplete and weak faith of the man, if Luther is right; and also for you, that your faith may be strengthened through the example of this worried father’s faith. Jesus does not need to hear the man’s response because Jesus who loves him already knows the state of his faith; but the man did and we do. In the same way God did not need to see Abraham take his son Isaac up to the mountain and offer him in sacrifice for God already had the measure of Abraham’s heart; but Abraham did, Isaac did, and we do, for God set Abraham that task that He might exercise Abraham’s faith. Hebrews 11 tells us, By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. It was this belief that God would raise Isaac from the dead again which led to what God records in Genesis 15:6: And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness, which also Psalm 106: 31, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23 quote.

Likewise God meant that event to strengthen Isaac when Isaac trusted in the words of his father. Then it was to teach us to believe also in God by their example, that God will do what He promised for those whom He loves and that it is not on our shoulders to complete. Thus Paul says in Romans 4:4–5: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So also in this Gospel passage Jesus says to all present, unless you all see signs and wonders you all will not believe. So tested the man again responds, Sir, come down before my child dies. He is not deterred but now more certain that only in this Man is there hope for his son’s life. However, he still does not fully understand. He still sees Jesus as nothing more than a man to whom God has given authority to perform signs, thus the ruler thinks Jesus, as a mere man, must be present to heal his son.

Cyril of Alexandria explains the man thus, “Feeble indeed unto understanding is the nobleman, for he is a child in his petition for grace, and almost dotes without perceiving it. For by believing that Christ had power not only when present, but that He would surely avail even absent, he would have had a most worthy conception of Him. But now both thinking and acting most foolishly, he asks power befitting God, and does not think He accomplishes all things as God, nor yet that He will be superior to death, although beseeching Him to gain the advantage over him that had [been] all but overcome; for the child was at the point of death.” (Catena) The man has not learned the lesson of Abraham and Isaac fully, so Jesus in love pushes the man’s faith to grow just a little more. Jesus said to him, “Go; your son lives.”

By saying that and, for all intents and purposes, refusing to go with him, Jesus demands the man drop his misconception that Jesus is also merely a man, albeit a man of great authority. Jesus demands this man take up the whole armor of God to defend against the lies of the devil which would say Jesus is merely a man and no more, but rather that the man heft the shield of faith and acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that is, that Jesus is God in man made manifest, as Peter and all the apostles will one day confess. This is a step much further than this man thought he could go. Yet, The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. What must then be true of this man? He has acted like Abraham and Isaac, he has acted in faith toward Christ Who loves him. God has placed upon his head the helmet of salvation, and bound his breast with righteousness.

As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The very next day—the worried father had no choice, it appears, but to lodge in Cana for the night before heading home—he comes upon his servants who then tell him the good news. But this man is different than he had been just 24 hours ago. His faith has grown, he wants all the more to believe that the trust he placed in Jesus’s word was well founded and cannot be called a fluke. Thus he asks for the exact time. The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son lives.” Proof then beyond doubt that Jesus is not a mere man, as this father had previously thought, but that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah and God who loved this earthly father and son.

What happened next? St. John leaves most of it to the imagination and merely states, And he himself believed, and all his household. But from that we can see the rest of the armor of faith in action upon this father. It is clear he tells the truth of the whole story to his servants, and then to his family. He brings the very gospel of peace to them on his journey from seeking the Christ’s aid, and he employs the word of God about all that Christ had done out of love with the result that faith in Christ is not his alone but now also his whole household’s, from his elderly parents who likely dwelt with him, to his son set free from the fever of death, down even to any little baby just born. He has gone from a man who had a little hope in a story he had heard about a great man, to a child of God by faith in Christ who has led also his whole family into the City of God. Just like the Samaritan village believed in Christ through the word of the woman at the well, so this father’s family hear the word of God with joy and believe in Christ without sight.

What then does this story mean for you? God will also test your faith like He did this father’s, not because He doubts you, but rather because He loves you so that you may be exercised in that faith, so that you may put the whole armor of God into use and practice the wielding of the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Now, by that I mean you will be asked to confess your faith before others in sorrow, in pain, or under question; you will be asked for the reason for the hope that is within you (1 Pt 3:15); you will be asked why you are a Christian, why you bear the title Lutheran, what does Lutheran and Christian mean. But are you ready for such a test?

Examine your heart and your mind. Take for example the Old Testament reading about the creation of the world. Do you believe that what Moses wrote is what happened? Jesus did, for He is the One who both created the heavens and the earth in six days and instructed Moses to record it just as it happened. Do you have faith that what God has said is true or do you doubt? If you doubt, please speak with me because God has given me to you to help you pick up that shield of faith so that with it you can extinguish the flaming darts of the devil which would destroy your faith by putting doubt into your mind about the Word of Christ.

What of you knowledge of God’s Word? Or what you as a Lutheran supposedly believe? Have you neglected reading the Bible or forgotten what the Small Catechism says? If so, then your sword is dulled and rusty, and you have forgotten to put on the belt of truth. Such sin you must confess so that you may be absolved. But do not think that you are then done, for you must sharpen the sword through study of the Scriptures and our Confessions, you must tighten the belt of truth about you and so resist the lies of the world. I could say much more…

…but in short, if God is testing you then that means you both need to grow and that Christ has equipped you to grow in just this way. Consider what St. Paul says, our Lord Jesus Christ … will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor 1:7–9). And, Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry (10:11–14).

And the book of Hebrews states, Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.…Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end (3:6, 12–14). And St. Peter says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed (1.4:12–13).

Jesus loves you. He loves you so much that He died in your place on the cross to pay for the debt of your sins. God has made you His own child in baptism, He has made you a part of the City of God which is the Church that here you might hear the Word taught and so be equipped by it. He will not abandon you in the day of trial unless you yourself choose to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. But if you have, then repent at once, and pray as David did and another worried father once did, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! (Psalm 51:1–2) help my unbelief! (Mk 9:24) God is faithful and just (1 Jn 1:9), He has forgiven you in Christ and will both restore you and strengthen you for the day of battle.

A friend of mine said, “If my faith were formed purely through reason or experience, again I would have no true faith. But it’s because of who God is, how he acts towards me, how I see him act in His son that faith is formed in a particular way. For example: when I suffer, I don’t conclude God hates me. Rather I know Him through love and despite what I see (death) I am drawn closer to God through this suffering to life.” That is what happened to this earthly father, he suffered for his son, but in that suffering he trusted that what Christ said was true before he saw his son restored, and he did see that; the love of God manifested for him in Christ ultimately restoring his son from the point of death. Christ’s love for us restores us from the death in our sins to true eternal life. When you hear the word of the Lord believe that God is faithful as He has been to so many and will sustain you to the end of whatever may happen. Amen.