Reminiscere
February 24, 2013
Some things you never forget. I will never forget one of my seminary
profs saying that there is nothing more misunderstood than faith. Based on the disciples’
reaction to this Canaanite woman in the Gospel reading, I would say that he’s
right on. This woman, as Jesus said, had great faith. The disciples, they
thought she was an irritant. They thought Jesus should have nothing to do with
her. He showed how He had everything to do with her. This is the heart of
faith. Jesus doesn’t so much teach what faith is as He gives it.
He gives it by being the object of it. He is the object of faith by
accomplishing what is necessary for salvation. When you look to the one thing
in which there is certainty for the salvation you need, you have faith. When
you look within yourself, or rely on your faith, or find that Jesus’ apparent
help for you is lacking, you lack true faith.
So let’s get to the heart of faith. Getting to the heart of faith is
wrestling with God. If you are concerned if you have faith, or if your faith
isn’t strong enough, you are getting to the heart of faith. Because faith is
centered in Christ. Faith is not faith if you are content. Jacob wrestled with
God. The woman in the Gospel reading wrestled with Jesus. Both had strong faith
because both set their focus on Christ. The life of faith is the life of
struggling with God. If faith is not centered in Jesus it is not great faith
and it is not true faith. If you are not struggling with God then you are going
to become content. If you are content, you will not see your need for mercy and
your humble state before Christ.
Getting to the heart of faith is getting to the heart of life in
Christ, or you could say, the life of faith. How would you summarize this
description of the Christian life in the Epistle? This is what is referred to
as sanctification, or holiness. This is a description of the life of faith. The
life of faith is life in Christ. Faith receives. Whether it’s forgiveness and
salvation, or whether it’s sanctification and holiness and a life of good
works.
When people come to a passage like we have in the Gospel reading, they
often try to get to the heart of it. What is the upshot of it? Many would
approach it this way: What did the woman do? She had great faith, and therefore
her request was granted. Therefore, go and do likewise. You have great faith
too, and Jesus will grant your requests. If you don’t have great faith, then
don’t expect great things from God.
The problem with this is that it looks at the woman and forgets about
what the woman was actually doing. What she was actually doing was nothing.
We’d like to think that she was some stalwart, when in fact she was at the end
of the line. She had nowhere else to go. Nowhere to turn. No hope. She had hit
rock bottom. This is what we need to learn from her. Not what she did, not how
great of faith she had. We need to see in her how great a need she had; how
hopeless her situation was.
While we like to learn from the passage that we ought to have great
faith like the woman did, what is truly being taught here is that we are doing
the exact opposite of what she did. While we spend our time looking to the
woman, she spent her time looking to Jesus. She was under the realization that
she had nowhere to go but to Christ alone. He must do it all. He must grant the
mercy. He must provide the hope. He must be the only one who can help me,
because my efforts, my hopes, my wishes, my faith, are all nothing. Jesus is
everything, and that’s why I appeal to Him. There is nothing I can do to bring
about the answer to my prayer.
And yet, Jesus says something stunning. “Great is your faith.” Did she
have greater faith than others? Do some of us have greater faith, while others
have less faith? It’s very tempting to say that she had greater faith than the
disciples did. She was a Gentile, they were good Jews. Surely they had greater
faith than she. But Jesus said she was the one who had great faith. We can
safely say that the disciples had faith in Jesus. But we can also safely say
that, as with all of us, they were utterly uncomprehending when it comes to
faith, and what it is, and why it’s at the heart of the Christian life. As my
prof said, there’s nothing more misunderstood.
What was it, then, that Jesus meant by saying that the woman had great
faith? He was referring to the intensity of it. It was firm faith. The greater
the need, the greater the faith. The greater the need, the greater the Savior.
The greater the Savior, the greater the faith. Faith is not so much an intellectual
assessment of your situation as it is a complete understanding that you’ve come
to the end of the line. You have nowhere else to go. You have no more hope when
it comes to everything you have tried or what you hope might be out there.
Therefore, the trust. The utter humility that you are at the mercy of the Lord
you appeal to.
Faith is only as good as the object to which it looks. If you have
faith in a grain of sand, good luck. You may have the greatest faith of all.
You may trust in that grain of sand with all your heart, your soul, your
strength, and your mind. But your faith will be in vain. It will not be truly
great faith because it will not be truly faith.
What Jesus is talking about is not having more faith. Or having greater
faith. What Jesus is simply talking about is true faith. It is faith in Him.
That’s nothing else than to say that what Jesus is talking about is not her,
but Him. He is talking about Himself. He is pointing her to Himself because her
faith is in vain apart from it being in Him.
What he is doing is showing her that her faith is great because her
need is great. She was weak, therefore she was strong. She had been brought
low, therefore she was lifted up. She was in need, therefore she was filled.
The cry of faith is the cry of mercy. Faith that is considered great
faith is vain faith. It is not true faith because it is faith apart from the
only object in which there is true hope. Namely, Jesus Christ. Faith apart from
Christ is great, but only in our own eyes. Was the woman looking to herself?
No, she was looking to Christ. Was she seeking help by something she could do?
No, but what Jesus could do. Was she making determinations about how she could muster
more faith? No, she was appealing to Christ alone for her help.
Your sin is great. It is beyond what you can handle. It is so great
that you are crushed under its burden and you have no hope. You can almost hear
Jesus saying to you, “Your sin is great.” But hear this, your Savior is greater
still. When you are weak, you are strong.
The way we approach passages like this in the Bible shows that we don’t
understand faith. That we want to make faith about us. That we don’t have true
faith on our own because we look to ourselves and our faith rather than looking
to Jesus. True faith sees Jesus and appeals to Him for mercy. Faith is not
going back to yourself when it appears that there is even no hope in Jesus.
What, exactly, was Jesus doing when He didn’t answer the woman? What, exactly,
was His point when He said that He wasn’t sent to people like her, Gentiles,
but rather people like His disciples, Jews? What was He trying to tell her in
comparing her to a dog?
Jesus, it must always be remembered, does what is best for you. What
you don’t see is what He sees. What you don’t know is what He knows. What you
count on is simply His word. What you count on is Him. Even if it appears He is
silent. Even if it appears that He is dismissing you. Even if it appears that
your faith is in vain. If it is centered in Christ, then your faith is true
faith and great faith. It is true and great because the object it grasps is
true and great. That object is the Person of Jesus. Faith clings to Jesus.
Faith is not faith if it is trusting in itself. If you put your trust
in the fact that you have faith, your faith is in vain. If you look to what you
need to do or how you need to be or what you have accomplished or even how you
are humble and are putting yourself in the background, you are looking to the
wrong thing. Your faith is in yourself. And so Jesus taught this woman that no
matter the appearance of Him not helping her, her only hope was in fact in Him.
The heart of faith is Christ. The heart of Christ is you. The amazing
thing about Jesus is that while He teaches you to not look to yourself but to Him,
He, on the other hand, does not look to Himself. He looks to His Heavenly
Father, and therefore to you. He doesn’t put His faith in you, He simply loves
you with perfect love. Giving you what is truly best for you. Giving you what
you truly and desperately need.
That’s why He put His faith in His Heavenly Father. It was His Father’s
will to crush Him. To place upon Him all of your sin and guilt and punishment.
Jesus did not waver. He did not veer from this. But He was weak. He was burdened
with the load of the sin of the world. This was not some cosmic injustice on
the part of God. It wasn’t some twisted child abuse on the part of God the
Father toward God the Son. This was the eternal Father giving His only-begotten
Son for the sin of the world. This was love in the flesh, God becoming man and
suffering on behalf of man. Make no mistake, this was Jesus fully and joyfully
choosing this in submitting to the will of His Heavenly Father.
This is the heart of faith. It is Christ. It is the cross. It is
salvation—paid for, accomplished, secured—in Jesus’ suffering and death on the
cross. Faith apart from this is no faith at all. Faith not centered in Christ,
in His suffering, death, and resurrection, is a pipe dream. It may make us feel
good that we have such great faith, but it doesn’t save. Faith in Jesus Christ,
in who He is and what He has accomplished, saves.
It is so much easier to learn a lesson from that woman—stir up your
heart, muster up greater faith! Rather, learn from Christ. Receive what He
gives. That, dear Friends, is Himself. He gives Himself, and faith clings to
that. It simply receives. It simply rejoices. Go your way, He gives you
everything you need, you can rest assured in that. Look no further than the
cross to see. Amen.
SDG
No comments:
Post a Comment