8/10/08 - Pentecost 13 - Matthew 15:21-28

THE LORD GOES OUT OF HIS WAY
- To find you
- To test you

Jesus spent a lot of time near the Sea of Galilee throughout his life. He preached to the crowds there, he healed the sick there, and he often taught his disciples there. In Matthew 14 and the first half of chapter 15 he miraculously fed the five thousand by that lake, he walked on its waters, and he explained what “clean” and “unclean” really meant to the Pharisees in that same northern part of Israel. But as our Scripture lesson begins today in the middle of Matthew 15, Jesus takes a little detour from Galilee and goes to a place he had never been to before and never would again. The gospel writer Matthew tells us, “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.” It seems like a normal explanatory phrase, but it’s interesting that it says Jesus “withdrew” to Tyre and Sidon, because those cities weren’t all that close to Galilee at all. The city of Tyre was a coastal town on the Mediterranean Sea 40 miles away from where Jesus was at the time! And Jesus didn’t have a camel or a horse or a donkey on which to ride - he walked there. And it wasn’t the most level of country either - it was a hilly and mountainous region. And so in order to “withdraw” to the area of Tyre and Sidon, Jesus had to start from a place that was at sea level, go up over 1200 feet in elevation over rocky terrain, and then come all the way back down again during this 40 mile trip. Think of walking from here to Ouray on foot, no rest areas, no paved roads, no comfortable walking shoes, not even any reliable government protection for travelers… And so although Scripture says that Jesus “withdrew” to the region of Tyre and Sidon from the Sea of Galilee, it took a lot of time and effort for Christ to make that journey.
And so why did he do it? Why did Jesus leave the area with which he was so familiar and where crowds of people had gathered to hear the Word of God, and go up to a place that contained very few Israelites and that he would never visit again? The Bible seems to indicate that there was only one reason why he made that long trip: to find one specific woman. I say that because this woman was the first and only person Jesus met there. When Jesus arrived in that part of the land, “A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession!’” Jesus traveled all that way just to find this woman. Now Scripture says that this woman came to him, and so it seems on the surface that she found Jesus when he arrived, not the other way around. But Jesus, of course, knew where she was, what she needed, and when - and because of that he went to the land of Tyre and Sidon to make sure that she had a chance to see him. It wasn’t a coincidence that he happened to be there at the exact time she needed him. It wasn’t an accident that she saw her Lord and Savior. Jesus really found her. Jesus wanted to see her. Jesus longed to help her by healing her little daughter. And he did. He healed the girl at her request. And he went well out of his way to do it.
But then he went back to Galilee! After Jesus healed her daughter, the Bible doesn’t record anything else he did in that area. And the gospel writer Mark even tells us that Jesus traveled up through the city of Sidon before he went back down to Galilee - a town 20 miles farther north of Tyre! That makes Jesus’ round trip well over 100 miles in all - just to find this one woman and heal her daughter. And let us not forget: this woman was a Canaanite. She was not even a Jew, she was from a nation that led the Israelites astray in the Old Testament and was hostile to them during Jesus’ day. But the Lord went over 100 miles out of his way just to see this Canaanite woman anyway. He made an extraordinary effort to find her anyway. He loved her anyway.
And it is no less amazing that the Lord has gone out of his way to find each one of us. And it wasn’t just a 100 mile round trip through the land of Israel that Jesus underwent to find us. It was a journey from heaven to earth down to hell and back. This trip meant that the Creator had to take the form of a creature. This trip meant that the Immortal God had to become a mortal man. This trip meant that the holy Lord had to go out of his way just to accommodate condemned sinners. The Lord went out of his way for us when he gave up his royal throne of heaven to be born in a Middle Eastern barn. The Lord went out of his way for us when he went into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights only to be tempted by the devil. The Lord went out of his way for us by stepping into the Jordan River to be baptized, by getting up early in the morning and staying up late at night just to pray for us, and by going out to the Garden of Gethsemane even though he knew he would be betrayed there. Our Lord went out of his way for us by standing trial, by bending his back to a brutal scourging, and by stumbling up a hill called Calvary with his own cross upon his sinless shoulders. The Lord went out of his way for us in more ways than we know. And the Lord went farther out of his way for us than we would for anyone we know on this earth. Because the King of Heaven went to hell. The Lord of Life died. And for three days God was a corpse.
But the Lord had to go through all of that in order to find us. Because we were that far away from him. We were that lost. We were that hopeless. We were sinners in need of a Savior. And he was it. We certainly couldn’t go to him. We couldn’t climb or claw or pray or earn our way up to heaven. We were going in the opposite direction. Every sin we committed took us farther and farther away. And so he had to come down to us. He had to spend the time and effort and go through the pain and the death just to get to us. And he did. He came to us, he became one of us, he died as one of us, and then he rose as the one we could never be. The Lord went well out of his way to save people like us. He pulled us from the muddy ditch of despair and placed us on the road of eternal peace and happiness. But not only that, he then went well out of his way to work faith in our hearts so that we would believe that he did it for us. He gave us his written Word. He gave us his promises. He gave us his Holy Spirit. And through those things he gave us the gift of faith. And because he spent so much time and effort to save us in our pitiful condition and convince our hearts to believe it is true, you can be sure that he will go out of his way to test our faith in him, as well. Just as he did with the Canaanite woman.
If you remember, Jesus did not grant her request right away. Even though he went well out of his way to find her, even though he took a 100+ mile detour just to help her, he didn’t help her immediately. In fact, when she pleaded for her daughter’s life at first, “Jesus did not answer a word.” It seems a little strange and even a little cruel on the Lord’s part to simply ignore an earnest prayer from one of his children, doesn’t it? But Jesus, of course, knew what he was doing. And so when she begged of him again, “Lord, help me,” Jesus still didn’t give her the answer that we would expect him to give: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” he told her. And we think to ourselves: What kind of answer is that? What was Jesus doing! Why was he being so seemingly cold and so unwilling to help this woman he had come so far to see… He was doing this because he loved her. He was doing this to test her faith and thereby strengthen her faith. And when the Canaanite woman expressed that faith in the Lord’s promises with her beautiful confession, Jesus finally and lovingly said, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” Jesus loved this woman enough to go out of his way to test her faith. He could have given her what she asked for right away. In fact, he could have healed her daughter when he was in Galilee and avoided that long trip altogether. But he didn’t want to. He loved her too much. He wanted to spend the time to test her faith and to strengthen it by doing so. And that’s the same kind of love he shows to you.
The Lord loves you so much that he will go out of his way to test your faith. He will take the time and the effort to make sure that the faith he worked so hard to give you remains strong. So that means he will not always grant your requests - even if they are noble and God-pleasing. That means he will put you into situations that you are not comfortable in. That means he will allow you to get sick, to suffer, to fail, to lose. That even means he will sometimes permit you to struggle with your own faith, to question your faith, and to even fight with your faith. And he will do that because he loves you. Because he loves you! He knows that when he tests your faith, your faith will be stronger than it was before. You will trust in him more. You will lean on him harder. And you will cling to him more firmly. That’s what happens when the Lord tests you. That’s what happens when the Lord loves you so much. Not that we appreciate his love.
We do not like times of testing, do we? We complain about the trials he sends, we worry about the outcomes, we even hate the struggles he forces us to endure. What an ignorant attitude, isn’t it? The Lord is going out of his way just to test our faith. He is taking the time and the effort to make sure our faith grows stronger. He is showing his love for us by giving us his full attention - and we hate it! We grumble to the Lord about what we have to suffer. We object to the way he handles things. We despair, we kick, we scream, and we’re angry when things do not go smoothly. All the while: it is for the good of our faith! This is the Lord loving us! This is the Lord treating us just like he treated the Canaanite woman!
It’s a good thing when he tests you. Because what if he did not? What if the Lord never went out of his way to test you? Never bothered to strengthen your faith? Never took the time or the effort to build up your faith in him? If he never did that, your faith would fail. If God never tested you, your faith would eventually fade away. Because without problems in your life, when would you ever be forced to pray to the Lord? Without difficulties in your life, when would you ever be forced to search his Word? Without failures and losses in this life, when would you ever be forced to rely on and trust in and completely believe in the Lord as your Savior and Comforter and Help? You would find no reason to do so. Without times of testing your faith would not be needed. Your faith would atrophy.
If a person is on bed rest for a lengthy period of time, their muscles will atrophy. They will start to waste away if they are not being used. Your faith is a spiritual muscle given to you by the Lord himself. And so he will make sure it is exercised! He doesn’t want to see it waste away. He wants to see your faith grow stronger and stronger as the years go by and so he is going to go out of his way to test it. It’s for your own good. It’s because he loves you. It’s really because he died for you. He goes out of his way to test you because he went out of his way to die for you. He went all the way to death for your forgiveness and so he does not want to see his death died in vain.
He certainly did not die in vain for the Canaanite woman. He found her, he tested her, he helped her, he loved her… and she believed. And the Lord will always give you his undivided attention as well. He will continue to spend the time to make sure you remain his child. And he will constantly force you to his Word to find his promises once again. What a great God we have! A God who found us when we were lost. A God who tests us when we are weak. A caring God. A compassionate God. A God who goes out of his way just for us.
Amen.

“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen!” - Rev. 7:12