Sermon Audio: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ministrybymail

“So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. ⁴⁹ The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. ⁵⁰ Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. ⁵¹ And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. ⁵² Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. ⁵³ So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. ⁵⁴ This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee.”

Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our meditation is based on the healing of the nobleman’s son. You will see that life in this fallen creation often leaves you stuck in the middle, but Jesus came between you and the end our sins deserve. You can therefore turn to Him in every need. To that end, I offer as our sermon text, the Apostle’s counsel to Timothy:

“For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.undefined

Lord Jesus, bless Thy Word that we may trust in Thee. Amen.

When I worked in the business world, the most frustrating position I found myself in was middle management. In middle management, you make few decisions on your own. Everything important is determined above your pay grade, in fancy offices far away—Dallas or Atlanta—and the decisions made there often reflect their distance from the actual work you carry out day to day, with little thought for practical follow-through.

Yet it was on you to make it happen among the employees in your charge. You had to motivate workers, most of whom rarely lasted more than three months, to believe that the newest business model or campaign was the best thing ever, better than the one corporate debuted just weeks prior—knowing full well another was just around the corner. Stuck in the middle, then, between those above you with ever-changing demands and those below you with little sense of ownership or initiative, you were left with the task of bridging the gap.

In our Gospel lesson today, we find a man stuck in a similar middle-management dilemma. In Greek, the nobleman’s title means “little king.” A nobleman held a mid-level position of authority beneath the actual king or tetrarch of Galilee, Herod. In this case, that meant no real king at all.

Herod was no “sit down and chat” kind of boss. His decisions were notoriously rash and impulsive, with no thought for practical follow-through. He was a figurehead ruler from a family whose favorite executive power was execution. He had no problem slaughtering toddlers or beheading prophets. His subjects were expendable. With no confidence in leadership and little sense of ownership, how could Herod’s royal employees expect to last even a month?

Yet, every day, it was the nobleman’s job to bridge the gap between a capricious king and unmotivated subjects. His work involved promoting whatever whim Herod wanted done that day as the best thing ever—even better than yesterday’s whim.

This middle-management malaise is not limited to corporate business or the dysfunctional dynamics of ancient Palestine. Such positions exist in every line of work. You face regulations and stipulations that make no practical sense for how your job actually functions, yet you must follow them. Then you must motivate others, who some days show little investment or self-drive—if you can find anyone willing to work at all in today’s labor force.

You even find it at home, intervening between children’s competing demands. Or you may find yourself trying to motivate your household to follow a plan that seems important only to you, or consistently mediating between a spouse and a child who can’t seem to communicate with one another.

In all areas of life, it often seems that, on your left, you have a neighbor full of big ideas, and on your right, a neighbor lacking any follow-through. You are left to bridge the gap—usually by doing it yourself.

No wonder, in life’s darker moments, the soul reaches the breaking point and questions whether all these frustrations don’t come from a source even higher up than we first blame. Is it our God and His top-down decisions, which are capricious? Are the plans sent your way one day to the next determined on a whim? This would explain the hopelessness that accompanies feeling stuck in the middle—because there is no escaping Him.

So, we return to the spiritual trial of the nobleman. We come back to a God who had chosen to make him deal with the imminent death of his son. All Herod could offer, at best, was bereavement leave: “Go home while he still lives, and watch him die.” And what compassion could the nobleman’s servants muster, knowing their own job security was uncertain?

This is why the nobleman, having reached his breaking point, with a problem no mere man could solve, reached out to Jesus for help. Jesus’ initial response sounds as aloof as the nobleman’s boss: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” Jesus’ next response- “Go your way; your son lives.” also initially sounded like Herod’s “Go home and watch him die”, except it proved true. Jesus really meant it. This the nobleman discovered on his journey home, when his servants ran to meet him and eagerly reported that his son indeed lived. And the nobleman “himself believed, and his whole household” that our Creator is not so out of touch after all but had sent His Son to touch his life—and yours.

It was the rumor that Jesus was just the kind of man this nobleman needed that drew him to Jesus in the first place. Perhaps he had heard how Jesus had motivated servants at the Wedding of Cana to go along with His big idea of serving the guests water, only learning after the cups were filled that Jesus’ word had turned it into wine. Jesus was a man who could step in and solve any dysfunction—even death.

That feeling of being stuck in the middle—between those who demand of you and those who let you down—is relative. Surely, there are those who feel they can never please you, and those who feel you’re the one who’s failed them. The Scriptures teach that sin, common to us all, is the true cause of this broken model. When God seems like Herod—the capricious king whose demands make no sense—it’s our perspective that is flawed.

God in heaven does make an impossible demand of us: to be righteous in every single interaction in life. Lacking both motivation and ability, we sinners cannot fulfill this demand. But this is the real dysfunctional dynamic Jesus steps in to resolve. From this His middle management position of Savior, everything else Jesus can make happen flows.

Jesus met the nobleman’s boss for Himself. Abandoned by His disciples who couldn’t even last one hour, Jesus stood before Herod, enduring the shame of his every whim. When Jesus didn’t perform a miracle on command, Herod mocked Him, dressed Him in a gorgeous robe, and sent Him to Pilate to be sentenced to death. If Herod had bothered to follow, he would have witnessed the miracle he desired. For after appearing before Herod, Jesus went to Golgotha to meet our Maker and face the consequences of every demand we have failed to fulfill.

Following through on the Father’s big idea, the Son bridged the gap between us and God, between our souls and the wrath our sin deserves. He earned for us perfect success through His cross, as the Apostle declares: “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.undefined

Jesus the middle management between God and man also testified in due time about God’s big idea. It was and is preached to you this day that you have no capricious God but an all-forgiving Savior whose resurrection from the dead reveals your ultimate end in Him. Until that day the promise that anything He chooses to send your way must be good, for if something as seemingly senseless as Jesus’ innocent suffering and death has given rise to your freedom from sin and hell, your eternal life, how could the very worst that comes your way not also serve that glorious goal. In His good and perfect grace, it does. As we sing:

Now the nobleman learns halfway home how with Jesus in the middle, how His Word makes all things come together. You too learn today that as you keep in God’s Word, God will send you glimpses of the same, of promises fulfilled all around you until you reach your heavenly home. As by faith in the cross and empty tomb, you begin to grow in confidence that God’s decisions for your life, though contrary to what you would have chosen, are truly for your best.“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” saith the Lord, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

In the midst of what seems senseless, pray boldly, a prayer better than any corporate slogan, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.undefined

You are never left alone to try and mediate this vale of tears, when you keep the God-man in the middle of every matter of life. The Apostle Peter teaches, “casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.” Receiving through this Gospel the strength to “be subject one to another, [to] be clothed with humility…” and by so doing “humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.”

When you trust His mighty hand to have placed you in the middle of every situation you find yourself in, then you will realize that God has placed you between Him and the soul about to discover what only Jesus can give and do. You are middle management in the best of senses, as between here and eternity, you get to watch each day God’s better plan unfold all about you and learn like the nobleman how there’s no business as efficient as the kingdom of God.

Now the peace that passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

—Pastor Timothy T. Daub

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church
Hecla, SD

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Ministry by Mail is a weekly publication of the Church of the Lutheran Confession. Subscription and staff information may be found online at www.clclutheran.org/ministrybymail.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the King James Version.