“YOUR SON LIVES AND SO DO YOU”
Saint John 4. 46-54
Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity: 28 October Anno Domini 2007
Fr Watson
So the Lord came to Eden where He had made the waters of the great rivers.
All was perfect for the Lord is perfect. Adam, and you, did not put God first. Eve, and you, did not put your neighbor, first. Your parents, and you, wanted it your way. You still do. This is why there is no much strife in the world, your families, and the church.
Adam came to the Lord and said my son is sick. Cain was sick with sin, it was "crouching at his door" Moses writes in Genesis. The effect of sin is to further break things down. The result of sinning is to cause more grief. The works righteous child murdered the shepherd child. And so it always is. The blood of Abel pointed to the blood of the Christ. The voice of Adam crying "my son is dead" pointed to the plaintive cry of the nobleman from Capernaum: "my son is sick…at the point of death."
No pain hurts a father more, hurts a parent more, than to lose a son, to lose a child. The wages of sin is death. The wages of life in a sinful world is the fact that many parents bury their beloved little ones. Job lost his children. Job cried to the Lord my sons are sick, my sons are dead. King David also buried his sons. David buried his little baby boy, the son of his affair with Bathsheba. He also wept over the death of Absalom.
All of you know of friends and fellow Christians who have had to stand at the gravesides of their children. All of you have had sick sons and daughters, sometimes close to death itself. You have experienced the sense of helplessness and impotency.
Sickness and loss of loved ones is Law of God written in the flesh of your sons and daughters, and in your own mortal frames. But it is not the end of the Shepherd's flock. The death of one of the Lord's Saints is not meant to cast you into unbelief and despair.
The woman of Zarapheth, the Shunanmite, Jairus and his wife, the Widow of Nain, and Martha and Mary of Bethany all had a glimpse of what you will also later see at the resurrection of the dead. The oh-so temporary earthly demise of your sons and daughters, of your own dusty "tents" is not the final end of anything. Jesus is the end. He is the "Alpha" the beginning; your beginning (in Holy Baptism), and He is the Omega, the end; your end of worrying about satisfying the demands of the Law; of lamenting your inability to pay for all that you've "broken." As the end of the Law, Jesus is the New Life for all of you who are "in Him."
The answer to all the tears cried by Job, King David, and Mary & Martha, are the holy tears of God shed for Jerusalem, shed while being betrayed and tortured, and shed while being butchered as the Lamb on the High Altar of Holy Calvary. The answer to all the sorrow and emptiness felt by you, and fellow believers just like you, at the gravesides in all of our cemeteries, is the Empty Tomb of that Garden crypt in the cool of that sunrise Sunday. The answer to the rich man from Capernaum (Jesus' own adopted home town) is the answer from a greater rich man, God the Father. The solution for the sickness of the young man is that Jesus the immaculate, pure, holy, and perfectly-healthy One would become sick in his place. Jesus would drink down to the bitter dregs the cup of God's wrath against your sins. Jesus would suck up all the foulness and putrid deposits of your daily trespasses. Jesus would become sick, not only to the point of death, but to death itself.
The Lord could say the best good news that Nobleman ever heard: "Go your way; your son lives" because Jesus knew that He would soon die.
Martha faithfully believed that Jesus was the Christ of God. She had confidence that she would see her dead brother in the Resurrection of the Dead at the end of time; and she will; and so will all of you. But as the Lord focused her on the even more glorious Gospel; the immediate, "effective right now" good news: "I Am the Resurrection and the Life; anyone who believes in me will never die."
When faith is given by the Holy Ghost, Jesus is given. When one is converted and "made" a believer on receives Jesus; not just thoughts, opinions, views, memories, and memorized verses "about" Jesus; one is given Jesus. The "I AM" becomes the "for you." His resurrection, the Resurrection becomes your resurrection. His life is now your life. His eternity is your eternity.
As the Reformer so succinctly puts it: "where there is the Forgiveness of Sins, there is also life and salvation."
The Son died-you are forgiven all your sins.
The Son died-you will be in heaven with a glorified body of flesh and blood at the Resurrection of the dead.
The Son died-you have life forever, BUT YOU HAVE IT RIGHT NOW!
Your son lives, your daughter lives, your mother and father live, you live-
In the Name + of Jesus