Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Looking up at the Lord’s Table

You have heard Jesus often say the phrase, “O ye of little faith,” in the Gospel records. Seldom does He speak of someone having great faith, but that’s exactly what he does when He finally answers this Canaanite woman, a Gentile who clearly belongs outside of God’s holy nation of Israel. Or does she?

This conversation that the woman has with Jesus is an excellent description of prayer as our Lord Himself has directed for us to pray. We approach our Lord on our knees as it were, begging for His undeserved mercy. We sinners can claim no right to the full portions of His love, however even the table scraps from His holy Table are more than enough to feed us for eternal life. When all our life and our experience seems to be telling us that Jesus is avoiding us or even punishing us by turning His face away, we can still confidently lay claim to His definite promises in His Word, and we can know for certain that He will always hear our prayer and answer as He wills for our own good. Martin Luther wrote in the Catechism, “We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace.” (Lord’s Prayer, Fifth Petition) That’s what this foreign woman did, and Jesus responded, “O woman! Great is your faith! Be it done as you desire,” and the demon left her daughter at that very hour.

How come she can have it so easy, though? Doesn’t God know that my prayers don’t get answered like that in real life? Is this Bible story meant to tell me that I don’t have great enough faith, because I still have these unresolved problems? You may have friends like Job had, that is, those who surround you, sometimes comforting you, sometimes lending you a listening ear, but at other times they’re trying to diagnose your ordeals as something that’s wrong with you; something you need to do better in your life so that God can bring you the peace that you desire. Then this story of the Canaanite woman is thrown in—see, you need to keep asking God in prayer and never give up. You need to commit your life to Him more earnestly as a disciple, and not just a casual believer. Your faith needs to be great. You need to believe in the power of prayer from the bottom of your heart. You need to be like Peter and get out of that boat walking on the water! But such encouragement, however well-meaning it might be, often has the opposite effect, and you could feel driven away from God, despairing of His answer, or any answer at all. You even sing the words, “We should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer,” but all you see in your mind is that disapproving little finger wagging, no, no; you’re not trusting in Him.

At those moments, you certainly are feeling the full effect of God’s condemning law. You can tell quite clearly that you haven’t measured up to His commandments, that you haven’t fulfilled your daily calling in life, family and society the way He wants you to. Your prayers may have dried up. We may feel anger inside that the Lord has taken His sweet time in getting back to us, but even deeper down we can find a possible reason why we shouldn’t expect anything but trouble, hardship and punishment for our sin. It is that impossible perfect standard of righteousness that puts out the forbidding hand, and calls us what we really are, a miserable dog. Nothing more to do than to get shoved out of God’s presence, head down, tail in between your legs. How spiritually uplifting is that? Who would ever wish for that kind of Christian life?

But it is precisely in those kinds of depths, when you’ve totally given up on anything you’ve got with you, when you’re so tapped out spiritually that you’re too ashamed to talk to any other Christian about it. That’s when the Lord is near, when He’s ready and eager to hear your prayer, ready to bestow great faith in your heart. For that’s when you acknowledge that of yourself you are weak, and in that very weakness, Christ shows you He is strong. This is the proper lesson to learn from the Canaanite widow who dared to approach Jesus. Her persistence with the disciples, and later with Jesus Himself, bore witness not to any self-confidence that she had inside. Rather, her motivation came both from a loved one’s need, namely that of her daughter, and the Word of God that she had heard concerning Christ the Lord, the Son of David. By God-given faith worked within her by the Holy Spirit, she trusted that Word, even more than when she experienced that initial rejection from the Savior’s own mouth.

Jesus immediately recognized His own handiwork when He commented on the Canaanite woman’s great faith. He noted the power of His own death and resurrection that energizes all Christian faith and prayer. In a strange twist that only God can do, it was Jesus within that woman praying unceasingly to Jesus to have mercy on herself and requested healing for her daughter. You can see why Jesus responded with such amazement, because in the midst of her weakness, this woman wielded the very power that He already gave to her!

You should take note of this, too, that is, your confidence in the Lord comes not within yourself, it comes from Christ, who is pleased to dwell within you and pray with you, even when you don’t feel the strength to pray yourself. When you pray, remember it’s Jesus doing the praying, which is obvious when you think about the Lord’s Prayer: it’s not your prayer to keep to yourself, it’s His prayer for you to pray with Him and with one another, and even at those times when you’re praying alone. That’s the way you acquire great faith and live a vibrant life of prayer. If you keep trusting in yourself, and insist it’s your own positive-thinking that will get you through your struggles, then you’ll remain disappointed, because you will still struggle against your sinful flesh with its impure desires. But Christ and His prayer are perfect; it uses God’s own powerful Word, so it accomplishes whatever He says.

When you offer your requests both for yourself and for others, recall Jesus and all His prayer as He made His way closer to the cross. In your weakness and suffering, remember He has gone through it too, and He is with you to bear your burden for you on His shoulders. Admit your sins, confessing them to the Lord, and they’re gone. Be comforted that as a baptized child of God, you have bathed in the cleansing Blood of Christ, and you appear in God’s sight as clean and clothed in white as snow. Whenever you think of Jesus on the Cross, His bitter death and His glorious resurrection, be reminded that all of this and more is your heavenly Father’s gift to you without any condition, except He has commanded you in faith to ask for it, and ask in abundance!

And though your chastened heart, who along with the Canaanite woman sees yourself as no higher in the Lord’s house than a dog, and after considering your own sin, you would be content with only table scraps, you have been promised much more. Yours is instead a lavish feast of God’s forgiveness. You were once an outcast, even worse than a Canaanite, but by Christ’s sacrificial blood you have been brought near to His holy presence as His blessed child and heir of His guaranteed promises. May His unfathomable grace give you great faith, so that you ask for yourself and for your loved ones not the temporary things that your sinful nature wants, but the Holy Spirit and His gifts, which your Father in Heaven knows you need.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit