answer me, I'm just a wretch undone

answer me, Son of the livin' God

A sermon on Jesus healing the royal official's son:

Like A Tale of Two Cities, today’s Scripture tells two analogous tales. One of the triumphant climb to faith. And the other of life falling to pieces.

These two stories could not be more at odds. But, of course, like A Tale of Two Cities, they go hand in hand. They are the same story. The story of faith. The story royal official in today’s passage. 

There’s some debate as to the man’s identity. Was he a royal? Or was he merely in the employ of a royal? Either way, though, it’s just a matter of how much status this man had. Because even if he was only working for the royals, it still meant he had a significant station in life. 

As the old saying goes, though, it all means nothing without health. And when this man’s boy falls mortally ill, so do all the consolations of his prosperity. With nowhere to turn, the man runs to Jesus, whom he has heard is nearby.

Now we tend to think faith is something we gin up. But here, we see it’s something we’re pushed into. There’s no question this man didn’t want to be in such dire straights. It was that painful experience, though, that drove him to Jesus. We don’t muster up faith, we hit it at rock bottom!

Jesus, though, for his part, seems none too taken by the man’s plight. “Unless you see signs and wonders,” sighs Jesus, “you will not believe.” Hearing that, the man realizes his long shot has grown even longer. So in desperation, he pleads with Jesus to just come along with him. Otherwise, his little boy will die. 

And the diminutive "little boy,” the man uses to speak of his child, reveals his earnestness. He isn’t interested in any theological speculations. He’s just at the end of his rope. However, the end of his rope proved to be the beginning of faith!

At that point in the incident, there’s little reason to think the man had anything resembling faith. He just saw Jesus as a potential answer to his predicament. Not entirely unlike a magical elixir. Insufficient, though, such faith may be, it was still enough for Jesus to work with! He told the man to go home. His boy was alive.

Now it’s easy for us to think this is where the story turns a corner. And it does. But for the man in today’s Gospel, it was a blind corner! At that moment, he couldn’t see that when he started on his way back home with nothing more than Jesus’ word, he already had the resolution he was so frantic to obtain!

At the moment, faith never looks like faith. It looks like desperation! It seems like the end of your rope. But when you run out of options and all you can do is take Jesus at his word, you have every last assurance faith has to offer! Although it never feels like it at the moment… 

As it should happen, it’s not until the man’s servants meet him on his long walk home that the man learns Jesus’ word was good all along! So good, in fact, that it was at the very hour Jesus said his boy was alive that the child’s health returned! 

This reveals a hard truth, that faith is hindsight. It wasn’t until the man looked back on the episode that he could see that the blind alley he turned down was really the onramp to faith! As St. Paul says, for now we see through a mirror, dimly. Faith doesn’t reveal the future. No, God has chosen to keep that obscured from us. 

What faith does do, though, is dare to look back. Look back on those tough times. Look back on those tough times and find, almost always surprisingly, the hand of God at work in unseen and unexpected ways!

Like A Tale of Two Cities, today’s Scripture tells two stories. One of faith blossoming. And another of everything else wilting. And these two tales aren’t coincidental. They’re corresponding!

No one slides into faith on a rainbow! You don’t achieve your way to faith. You fail into it! You fall into it! You find it at the last place you expected, rock bottom. 

None of us ever choose to go where faith is dragged out of us. We’re always pushed there. And always against our will, too. But when we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place, looking back, we always find that rock was actually Christ, the solid rock on which you even now stand! 

If we’re honest, though, we must admit that hindsight of faith oftentimes doesn’t come until much later—as in the afterglow of enteral life. Yes, for now, we see through a mirror, dimly. And it's only occasionally that we see the twists and turns for what they are, the Holy Spirit shaping our lives into the shape of the life-giving cross!

For now, we walk by faith and not by sight. But when the Last Day comes, which the Germans call the “youngest day,” we will see everything as it’s been all along. You will see the tale of the two cities in your life. The story of the city of God encroaching and cropping up in the margins of this failing, old city of man.

When that day comes, you will no longer run from those places where faith is found! No, instead, you will throw yourself upon that sure foundation of faith and kiss it with happy lips and joyous tears! 

You will see, for yourself, that all along, God has been about the business of resurrection! Of wrenching life out of the cold, dead hands of Sin and Death! And you will see that this miracle happened in your very life just as surely it did in Jesus’ empty tomb!

For now, though, we tell those tales again and again. The ones where we have caught glimpses of God’s work. We come here, to the house of God, after trudging through the valley of the shadow death, to hear once more the word of Christ! That sweet Word that sends us, like the man in today’s Scripture, back home. 

Back home with merely an assurance, yes. But an assurance that will one day, no doubt, prove definitively true! And on that day, you will look back. You will see all those blind alleys of life bathed in the soft light of the resurrection they were covered with all along! You will behold a vision that, like the man in today’s Scripture, will leave you with no choice but to come to faith! And when that happens, all this present pain and grief will be little more than a bad dream you awaken from and soon forget. 

And that’s not all, either! Like Sydney Carton, the barrister in A Tale of Two Cities who lays down his life for Charles Darnay, this vision will impel you to do “a far, far greater thing!” To lay down for your life. To give yourself to the kingdom of God. To peer beyond this thin veil. To see the city of God close at hand! To live as if it’s not so far and far more certain!

And so, let us step into that city! Let us speak its language! The vernacular of praise! Let us sing! Sing as we all will, when, at last, we step into the city of God, the new Jerusalem, our happy home!