In the Name of the Father and of the Son X and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

After he sent his family on ahead across the river, Jacob wrestled with God.  They wrestled until the breaking of the day and God could still not defeat Jacob.  Finally, the Lord touched his opponent’s hip socket and Jacob’s hip was out of joint, but the Old Testament patriarch would not let go.  He would not let go of the Lord until he received His blessing.  That blessing he did receive and so was called Israel, because he had striven with God and man and had prevailed.  Jacob, now called Israel, did not decrease his grip on the Lord.  Jacob did not let go when he wrestled God. 

Often times, your best friend Christ hides His blessed and kind face from you.  He presents Himself as a stranger whom you have to engage in a wrestling match.  God hides behind a mask of seeming indifference.  The Almighty is disguised as one ready to fight.     

The Lord contends with you, His dear Christian.  He may treat you as if you were someone about whom He does not care.  At times, it may appear that He is your enemy and not your friend.  The Lord may send you affliction by means of sickness, death of loved ones, loss of job, poverty, loss of good name, falsehood of trusted friends, or many other sorrows.

Some of these misfortunes assail your life.  Have you ever found yourself questioning the Lord’s love for you? Do you inquire into the Lord’s reasons, saying, “What have I done to deserve this? Why must it go so badly for me while others, who are worse than I, sit in happiness?”

Change your mind.  Do not focus your sin; instead, set your sights on the Savior.  Do not dwell with injustice, but live in the Lord’s mercy.  Ask the right questions.  How may I bear my cross with patience? Do I not also, a man of sin, deserve God’s complete rejection of me? Know that you have a Redeemer who has mercy on you in spite of the fact that you deserve hell for your sin.  Pray incessantly. 

However, above all, take protective refuge in God’s Word, the Word of truth which gives comfort to your sorrowing soul: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.” (John 6:37) “’As I live,’ declares the Lord God, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’”(Ezek. 33:11) “… Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through the one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.  Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness of one leads to justification and righteousness and life for all men.  For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.  Now the Law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 5:17-21)  Keep yourself in His Church.  In here is comfort from all crosses.   

In today’s Gospel, our Savior gives harsh responses to the Canaanite woman.  First, He ignores her.  He was silent at her cries.  Next, He gives two responses which seem to imply that He was making a distinction between Jews and non-Jews unto salvation by saying He was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel and their bread was not to go to Canaanite dogs. 

How does this woman receive this news? How does she react to the Lord’s harsh words? Does she take great offense and say, “How dare you call me a little dog!”?

No, in fact she says just the opposite: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” In so doing she said, “You’re right, Lord! I am a Canaanite dog.  I am a sinner.  I am not entitled to God’s help.  But You have come into the world to set sinners free from Satan’s tyranny.  You, Lord, deliver from sin, death, and the power of the devil.  Without you, there is no hope, no life, and no salvation. 

How do you respond to the God’s law given to you? Do you let it slide right off your back? Do you resent the law’s accusations of your sin? Hear the law and trust the Lord.  Be like the Canaanite woman- acknowledge your sin and acknowledge your Savior- for He has mercy and takes away all your sin.  When God’s Word of law is spoken to you, hear it and accept it, but do not let go of Jesus.  Your Savior is your hope, your life, and your salvation.

“O woman, great is your faith!”  Yet, greater still is the object of that faith—Christ.  If this woman would have believed in the experiences of her life, then she would have despaired and considered the Lord to hate her and wish her condemnation.  This was not true! Faith believes in the Word of the Gospel, contrary to the experience of your life.  Faith believes in the Gospel, and cries out to God for help, against all experiences in your life which speak against the promise that He is merciful to you for Christ’s sake.

You often experience the hidden God in inward temptations and outward crosses.  Perhaps God has taken all the comforts and good feelings out of your heart.  Perhaps your heart condemns you as a sinner whom God has rejected.  Maybe you feel like a little dog instead of a child of the Kingdom of God.  In being a little dog as the Canaanite woman said, you are saying “I am a sinner, yet a sinner nonetheless who holds fast to God’s Word against the feelings and experiences of the heart.”

In the midst of fury that the devil, the world, and your sinful nature has placed upon you, acknowledge yourself to be a little dog—acknowledge yourself to be a sinner.  In so doing, you are trusting not in yourself, but in your merciful Lord, and so you are worthy to receive the crumbs from the Master’s Table.  That person is truly worthy and well-prepared who has faith in these Words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” 

Dogs eat the crumbs and great is the faith of the Canaanite woman.  She gladly accepted the crumbs from the Master’s Table.  She needed nothing more.  And so you need nothing more than the holy crumbs that fall from the Table of the Magnificent Feast of Heaven.  To be welcomed to the Feast of this Table, be it as a dog, is to be most blessed forever.  Amen.

The Peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

XBJFX