Sermon - Trinity XXI 2018 - John 4:46-54

“At Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.” Why does God permit such terrible things to happen? Why does He allow hurricanes to kill and injure so many and destroy so many people’s homes and jobs? Why does God let us suffer so greatly and watch our loved ones die? October is breast cancer awareness month and miscarriage and infant loss awareness month. Why does God allow such terrible tragedies to befall our mothers, daughters, fathers, and children? 

If God is so good and perfectly benevolent and loving, then why does He let evil happen? Does God care? Is God actually good? Does God even exist? How can He exist when there are such evil things that take place in this world? 

Those questions are commonly referred to as the problem of evil. To sum it up in one question: How can God who is perfectly good coexist in a world with pure evil? When the unbeliever asks the question he concludes that God therefore doesn’t exist. But when the Christian asks the question, he concludes that through the trials of our lives, God strengthens our faith to believe in Him, not by signs and wonders, but by the Word.

God didn’t create evil. He isn’t the author of wickedness and suffering and misery. God is the creator of all that is good. Let’s go back to creation in Genesis 1: “God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” On the final day of creation, after all had been made, including Adam and Eve, the pinnacle of God’s creation, God declared that everything was very good.

God did not create this world to be evil but very good! The world itself isn’t evil! So how then did evil get here? Well first off, evil isn’t really a thing in itself, evil is like darkness. Darkness isn’t anything, it’s simply the absence of light, as such evil is the absence of good. At creation, God loved His created and He desired that His created would love Him in return. 

But God didn’t force His creation to love Him, to do so would be to make creation mere robots or slaves, and that’s not really love if you’re forced to do it. God gave His creation the ability to choose to love or not to love Him. From this choice an angel by the name of Satan chose not to love God, and this fallen angel then tempted Adam and Eve to follow suit. From this sin, all the human race and all creation became infected with sin, became infected with the desire to not love God and to not do the good. From this sin, God cursed the devil, humans, and the earth. 

So God didn’t create evil, but why does He allow it to still happen now? God allows evil to happen so that faith would be increased. To quote Joseph, who at the end of Genesis forgives his brothers for all of the evil they did against him, he said “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” God allows evil to befall you to so that a greater thing would happen, so that your faith would increase. 

When this official came from Capernaum to Cana, walking about 16 miles one way, he obviously already had some faith in Jesus to heal his dying son. You don’t walk hours away from your son during his last hours if you don’t believe that Jesus can do something. But the man’s faith was only so strong.

The man, like the crowds who gathered around Jesus in Cana, only had faith in Jesus because of the wonders He had performed, like turning the water into wine at the wedding. So this official’s faith required Jesus to physically travel to Capernaum to see his son and heal him. “Sir, come down before my child dies.” The official believed that he needed a physical sign.

But Jesus didn’t give the man or the crowds the physical sign or wonder that they wanted, instead all that Jesus did was speak: “Go; your son will live.” From the hearing of this word, “the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.” Jesus strengthened this man’s faith, not with signs and wonders, but with His Word. 

Later on, when the man discovered that his son had been healed through Jesus’ words “your son will live,” the man “himself believed, and all his household.” The whole household had faith in Jesus, not because of a wonder that they saw with their eyes, but because of the Word Jesus had spoken. 

But, what does it mean that this man and his household “believed”? What does it mean when the Bible says that someone has faith? “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” For example, looking at Genesis 1, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” Faith both looks at the past and it believes, and this believing also looks ahead to the future of things hoped for.

The official and his family didn’t just believe in a past event, but they also believed that in a future event Jesus would still love and care for them. Their faith taught them that if Jesus would be so compassionate and loving to them in this tragedy, then He would most certainly be compassionate towards them in any future calamity. If the man’s son wouldn’t have become ill, the man wouldn’t have gone to Jesus, he wouldn’t have heard God’s Word, and the man’s faith wouldn’t have been strengthened, and the household may not have ever believed.

This is how God continues to use our tragedies and the flaming darts of the evil one to our benefit. “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Suffering produces hope, produces faith, because in our suffering we are turned more and more to the Words and promises of Jesus. 

But even if God means evil for your good, the devil still desires to use it to make you fall away. Remember this, it’s not the world trying to make you despair and fall away, it’s not our flesh and blood rulers who are utterly evil, it’s not our neighbors or family who are throwing the flaming darts at us, even if it feels like it at times. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” So don’t get distracted with just fighting against flesh and blood, because that’s one battle we Christians will never win.

Instead, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” Although the devil may throw evil and suffering at you all the day long, you can be well guarded to defend against the devil. God has already equipped you at baptism to go to war against the spiritual forces of evil.

He fastens on you the belt of truth of His Word which no lies of Satan can overcome. He puts on your the breastplate of Christ’s righteousness so that no flaming dart of sin can pierce to your heart. He slips on your feet the shoes of the Gospel of peace so that you may run the long race of this life with endurance. He gives you the helmet of salvation to protect your mind from evil. He places in your hand a sword sharper than any two-edged sword, the Word of God by which you are prepared to battle your demons. But most importantly, He gives you the shield of faith to stop all the flaming darts of the evil one.

This is a war that we are embarking upon and the whole armor of God is given to you dear Christian to protect you from the devil. But like any soldier, before you can be of any use in a battle, you need to exercise. So the Lord permits evils to befall you each and every day to exercise your faith. Every day there are new temptations that we face. Every day there are new pains and sufferings to endure. Every day Satan has many flaming darts aimed right at you, and you’ve been equipped with the shield of faith to defend against them all. So that at the end of the day you will emerge with a stronger faith and a stronger shield to protect against the next onslaught.

There are many ideas and books written about how to strengthen churches and increase membership and get the young people to come to church. But it’s really quite simple, it’s all right here in today’s readings: faith. The church grows because of faith, it’s no miracle the church grew by leaps and bounds when she was persecuted, because her faith was regularly being exercised and pulled back behind the Word of God. The only way for any church to grow, either spiritually or numerically, is by faith which is given in the Word of God.

My dear Christian friends, if you knew how many flaming darts of the evil one were aimed at you this very instant and indeed every moment of the day, you wouldn’t be running from church to the lunch buffet but to the sacrament every chance you got and you’d be begging God for it. You wouldn’t be complaining when church lasts over an hour, but you’d be complaining that you only get one hour a week. You wouldn’t be filling your lips with fluffy meaningless and sometimes grotesque music, but with the great comforting hymns of the faith. You wouldn’t ignore and make excuses to not pray and do devotions at home, you would be dropping everything so that you can take up the sword of the Spirit which is God’s Word. 

I know those are harsh words. They probably hurt you a little, I know they hurt me some. But it only hurts because it’s the devil producing unbelief in us, driving us away from faith and that which gives us faith. So let us repent and turn to Christ, let us be like the father who goes to Christ when we suffer the flaming darts of the devil. Because the greater our exercise of faith, the greater our hope that lives inside of us and will turn to Jesus in life’s last hour.