✠ Psalmody: Psalm 25:6, 2b, 22; 1–2a; Psalm 25:17–18; Matthew 15:26–28a; Psalm 119:47–48a; Psalm 5:1b–2
✠ Lection: Genesis 32:22–30; 1 Thessalonians 4:1–7; Matthew 15:21–28
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Lord remembers in that He never forgets the way that we do; forgetting to turn the stove off, forgetting to stop by the store on the way home, forgetting to wash the forehead after getting home from Ash Wednesday evening service. He isn’t susceptible to forgetfulness as we are, meaning that in His omniscience He knows everything that has happened, is happening, including our secret thoughts as we sit here, and He knows all that will happen. His are time and eternity. He does not lack the ability to remember details of the past like us. There is absolutely nothing about us that is not laid bare before the Lord, which is an amazing, joyful fact in that He knows the secrets of all the hearts here today, yet here we are; blessed, breathing, living, obviously only because He has allowed it to be so. He knows all the horrible things that go through our minds, every thought from all the years littered with what is contrary to the godliness to which we’re called; all the horrible ways we have thought about one another; and all the horrible word that have come from our mouths. To pray then that God become forgetful for our sake, for Him to Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions, is to pray big. Only He could answer such a prayer, to take action, to do something as monumental as to reconcile us to Himself, which is how the Scriptures speak of how we are to ask Him to remember. To remember is not simply to check to see if the mind can recollect facts, details, or a particular memory; it is to recall such things with an intent to put those recalled facts and details to some use in the present. This is why we pray that He remembers not our sins; that He doesn’t recall them to mind for the sake of giving to us their due reward. Instead, we pray Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; For they have been ever of old. Remember me not by my doing, but by Yours! Remember, O LORD, your salvation and deal with me according to your mercy and not my sin! Indeed, our only hope is that He doesn’t recall our filth, for His justice would be in swift demand.
But, it must be that He desires to remember His tender mercies and lovingkindnesses, for here we are this morning receiving actions based on that remembrance; hearing His Word as we blink, breathe, sing, stand, sit, eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus, and live. God remembering His tender mercies is a creative and efficacious act that causes us to live. We haven’t been cast into the outer darkness. We haven’t been cast out of the country. We haven’t been cast out onto the street. We have a safe, regular, warm (or cool), glorious place to gather in God’s Name as He remembers and blesses us in the midst of lives of much struggle. We struggle against the world, our flesh, and the devil. And we also struggle with God. The prior evil three seek to overcome us and to destroy us, that is why the struggle with them is always painful, burdensome, and belittling. They have no mercy. They don’t ever say, “well, he/she has had enough for today. Let’s give ‘em a little breather.” The flesh, world, and Satan’s testing of us in struggle is only designed for our downfall and our demise, just like how the devil’s testing of Jesus last week was only designed for our Lord’s ill-being and none at all of His well-being. The Devil wasn’t concerned that Jesus was hungry. Only defying God mattered in His attempt to get Jesus some bread. In contrast, when we struggle with the Lord, when we try to learn to follow everywhere He leads, even through struggle, we must trust that He never seeks to destroy us by it, but only to drown the Old Adam. The Lord could’ve easily overpowered Jacob, yet He pushed the man to fight for what he needed and desired: a blessing from the Lord.
This Sunday in the Church Year has the overall sense of great struggle going back and forth from multiple sources in the Scriptures. There’s a wrestling match and a verbal sparring between a Gentile woman and Jesus and His disciples. All of the contention is not without purpose. God presses hard so that we press hard in return and grow by it in the direction of His divine resistance. Being the capable sinners that we are, we constantly need to remember truth, all of it; not to remember it differently than God, so that we may use it against ourselves or come to negate His mercy, but to remember the life in which we exist with God as Father Who blesses; and often blesses by chastising us. True, loving fathers chastise, they discipline their children for the children’s building up. We must remember that we aren’t God, that He alone is, and that He alone loves perfectly. We must remember that we are in no way capable of being in the presence of a holy God without some type of intervention. We must remember that there isn’t a single breath or heartbeat that goes by during which we aren’t entirely reliant upon the Lord to give us the very next one. It’s very humbling when we come to realize not only our second-by-second dependence upon God, but also the fact that we stand before Him as offenders who rarely give Him thanks; that we remember all-to-well how to act as enemies, as children of wrath. We are good to remember this truth often in order that our entire condition and situation stay in focus, and we repent in trust. Only in the environment of repentance can faith strive and grow. Complacency and spiritual laziness aren’t harmless traits. We must keep in mind the truth about life and death and live out our days within that reality, ready to struggle with God at His testing shove.
We must contend with God and seek to learn why He contends with us. He doesn’t have us contend and struggle with Him so that we can overcome Him, but so we can overcome ourselves and the old Adam that must daily die. We are our own stumbling blocks and the Lord seeks to help us, much to our chagrin and discomfort in the process, because growing in faith isn’t easy. Just as the body sweats and aches in physical training, so too our faith must be pushed and tried so that it can cling to the Lord, His ways, and His truth with more strength, perseverance, and trust.
The Canaanite woman had faith in the ways of the Lord and counted upon Jesus to remember His tender mercy on her and her daughter’s behalf. She knew upon Whom she could call in the time of need. Her faith was strong, seen in her confession of Jesus as Lord and as the Son of David. King David was God’s anointed one, a messiah as the title translates; an anointed one through whom The King of Kings and The Messiah would come to rule us all. David’s reign was temporary in a fallen world but the one of the Messiah would last forever in the new heavens and new earth. King David blessed God’s chosen people and supplied many of their needs. The Christ would be One to come to do even more: sight to the blind, freedom to the captives, life to the dead, hope to the hopeless, and the Canaanite knew that mercy would come from Jesus the Lord, her Lord, as He remembered her, however He chose to deliver it, be it gentle touch or challenging word. Whether it was for her growth or for the disciples’, Jesus stretched her faith, He contended with it, acknowledged that it was aimed at the right Target. That dog of a sinner was barking up the right tree, the tree of the Holy Master Who had come to deliver His people from the devil, his demons, and death itself.
In faith, she prayed the Lord to remember His own grace and mercy, not as if He had forgotten it, but that He would recall and act upon what was surely there for her and her daughter’s sake. She was in faith latching on what she knew to be true, onto Whom she knew to be the Truth, and allowed that to be her repeated plea. If we call upon the Lord and don’t receive an answer, it isn’t as though He doesn’t care or has forgotten. If we call upon Him and He gives us an answer that is far from what we think we need, it isn’t as though He is seeking to destroy us or allow us to perish. We are to walk by faith and not by sight, sound, feelings, or circumstances, because God’s love for us supersedes all that, and it may take much struggle for us to come to believe it. We lowly dogs know that a simple morsel of bread from the Lord’s Table is a mighty feast that feeds us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. When we call upon Him, let us do so boldly because we know Who He is even when circumstance tries to have us remember lies. We know He is a God Who remembers, but for His children, He remembers them as He does His beloved Son. He remembers not our sins or transgressions. He remembers His tender mercies and lovingkindnesses. These, may we always ask Him to remember.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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