Lent 2 Reminiscere 2020
Matthew 15:21-28
March 8, 2020
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
In Genesis 32, the patriarch Jacob is about to meet his brother, Esau, who is coming toward him with 400 men. This was frightening to him given that he had stolen Esau’s birthright, but also now that a Man had wrestled with him all night until dawn. That Man was the Son of God. Jacob maintains that He will not let go of this Man until he is blessed by Him. After the Lord renames Jacob to Israel, meaning one who strives or wrestles with God, Jacob says of this Man, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered” (Gen 32:30).
In our Gospel reading we hear of this same struggle which “spiritual Israel” sometimes has to undergo with God and Christ by faith. Not only do we have to struggle against flesh and blood, against the evil world, and the devil, but often Christ hides His face from us, and presents Himself against us as a stranger with whom we have to wrestle. We have an example of this spiritual wrestling match with a Canaanite woman who wrestles with Christ the Lord until she finally obtains a blessing from Him.
There are several things that we can learn from her godly example. The first thing is that faith is often tempted through various trails and hardships. Here is a believing woman who comes to the Lord, complains about her need and by faith, asks for help. But she doesn’t receive it immediately.
Christ still deals with His own in the same way today. He tests and exercises faith, as St. Paul highlights in the Romans 5, “we know that suffering/tribulation produces endurance.” God sends hardships into our lives so that faith shines through endurance and patience. We should regard the crosses that we bear as we follow Jesus as a testing of our faith for the strengthening of our faith. These crosses ought to move us to pray, to call upon Christ for mercy and help the way that this Canaanite woman did. In her prayer, as simple as it is, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon” (Matt 15:22), she trusts in Jesus’ power and authority to heal and His promise, and appeals to His mercy. So we too, in our own prayers, ought to be grounded in the same.
The testing of her faith also comes with Jesus’ silence. For as Christ gives her no answer, so it still often happens that God does not help right away. We see this throughout Scripture with Job, David, Jeremiah, Paul, and even in our own lives. Yet, she does not give up, instead, she holds on with prayer. So we too shouldn’t regard God’s silence as refusal, but rather an exercise in faith. If the longing for God’s help and blessing is genuine, then it will not put out by such a thing.
And so Jesus’ encourages us to pray, “Ask, and it will be given, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened (Matt 7:7). Jesus is saying, if there is a need, pray. If you don’t immediately receive help, then hang on and seek. If it still doesn’t happen, then knock.
Another thing we can learn from this woman is the way she responds to Jesus when He finally does answer her. He certainly comes across as harsh saying that He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. But she doesn’t allow it to drive her away from Christ, instead she chases after Him all the more.
By ethnicity, this Canaanite woman is not a sheep of Israel. That would be presumptuous. She is not one of the children, but she does belong in the house. She doesn’t want to steal the bread out of the mouths of the children. She wants the master’s bread, and that belongs to His pets as well as to His children. She catches Christ by means of His own words. He compares her to a dog, which she admits and she asks no more than that He let her be like a dog. He was caught. No dog is denied the breadcrumbs under the table. She belongs in the house, not by presumption or privilege, but by grace. Therefore, He takes heed of her and submits to her will, so that she is no longer a dog but becomes a child of Israel. (Luther’s Sermon, 1525). And Jesus marvels and rewards her faith. Her daughter is healed. Let us marvel at her faith as well. And let us marvel even more that the Lord feeds sinners and welcomes them into His family.
Could we give a more profound lesson? God will test you. He will appear to be worse than indifferent to you, in fact, you will be sure He’s just ignoring you. It’s okay. Hold tight to His words and promises. The truth is always what His Words reveal. Hold them in your heart. Wrestle with Him and refuse to let Him go until He has answered, until He has fed you. And He gives you more than bread for children or scraps for pets. He gives you His risen body and blood in the Sacrament to cure and heal your soul, to send the demons away running, to strengthen and preserve your faith. Come, take and eat the crumbs from the Bread of Life, the drops of Divine Blood. Be it done for you as you desire.