READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 32:22-32
1 Thessalonians 4:1-7
- St. Matthew 15:21-28
Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
Who speaks today, saying:
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. That’s the sort of song we would give this woman in our Gospel reading, were she to grace us with her presence. Not because we wanted to be mean, but because we wanted to help. She would ask us what Joy is, and we would continue to confuse joy with happiness, of which that woman has none.
Do we know Joy? Maybe you have the name joy or know someone named joy. But sometimes people named Joy, aren’t joyful at all and just scream and whine on TV. There are also those who tell us to find joy in what we do. However, the word they use is not joy, but enjoy.
Enjoy is something we can understand and know, again, because we mistake it for happiness. We can enjoy our hobbies. We can enjoy our food. We can enjoy our work. Or maybe you wish for the joy of your youth and your chase after it with all your mind, body, strength and soul.
When we find that we cannot grab onto joy, we throw Bible verses at it.
Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in our confident hope.”
Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say again—rejoice!”
Unfortunately, those tell us that there is such a thing as joy, but not where to find it. They tell us that we are to have it, but does not lay out the plan to grab a hold of it. It is the Law once again we are facing as we encounter God’s goodness, and cannot get to it.
Our lady in the Gospel today knows this quite well. She has had to watch her daughter suffer while no one could help her. I’m sure, just like the woman with the flow of blood, she tried all the pharmaceuticals. But they are only in it for profit and not any real healing, so no joy there.
She probably even went to the priests who gave her prayers, verses, and maybe even some holy food or 10 hail Mary’s and a jar of holy water. Yet, there again she would find profit values and no virtue, for even the Apostles had trouble casting out demons, at first.
What we come to is that joy is not what we think it is. Because of this sinful misunderstanding, we often seek joy in foul and accursed places, only to find our hearts empty again. Thus, in order to fill that “feeling we had” back up, we become like an addict searching fouler and more cursed ways.
Yet, with this insight we glimpse what true joy is. It is a longing or an unsatisfied desire, more desirable that any other satisfaction. It is not a feeling of joy, neither is it some self-induced mental state. To find true joy, we must find the object it points to.
This is what the Lord has made: people. People who have a longing and a hungering, not just for truth or for happiness, but for the things of the Lord. Adam was made as a man that was designed to receive good things from God. We were made such that all of what God wants to give, we can handle.
Repent! We were made to be religious and we sinfully use that gift in two ways. First, we deny it. We see God’s Church and we scoff at it. It is so irrelevant and unmeaningful, how can I find joy there. Second, we embrace the gift sinfully. We take this religious feeling and make other objects false gods for us.
Whether it is a joy we think we have found or a pharmaceutical that just has to work, because why would I be lied to? We find our objects and pour our religious spirit into them, without limit. Yet, when we are faced with what God has offered, we treat it like trash.
Here is Jesus’s offering to us today, in His Gospel. Yes, the woman is seemingly mistreated, even before she gets to Jesus. Her cries for mercy were made before this meeting, today. The silence from Jesus is His answer as Savior. He has not come to heal, but save and heal perfectly. You can be a found-sheep and saved, without being healed.
The woman did not object to this, but still asked for help. Yet, there was still one area in need of confession. Are there any works left in her, blocking salvation by grace alone? Is she still holding on to genetics or false religion in her heart? Will she make excuses for herself?
No, if Jesus were to just look her way, it would be enough. If Jesus were to just breath in her direction, it would be enough. If He were to just see me empty and acknowledge my emptiness it would be enough.
Jesus is mistreated for this woman and for you. Shamefully mistreated. Shamefully mistreated unto death. We have heard Scripture already teach us to rejoice in the Lord and this is why. Jesus carries the hope that His mistreatment will be our honor. Jesus carries the hope that His death will be our life. Jesus carries the joy that comes on Easter morning, when all those promises come true for us.
There is the surprise that joy gives. That Jesus does not pass by this woman and her daughter and that He does not pass us by either. Jesus, in all His promises to us, stands faithful and completes His work on the cross. Before we were even born, Jesus is the object of Joy.
And there is the key to Joy: Jesus. He is the object of our longing that no satisfaction on earth can fill and He came to give us the power to house His Spirit, which sin, death, and the devil had thoroughly corrupted in us. Jesus is that object outside of us, which our body and soul hunger for.
Doesn’t the Bible talk this way? It says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). Can you eat or drink righteousness? Or from St. Matthew 4:4, “He answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
And every word from God is a meal for the soul and a meal for the body. Jeremiah 15 preaches, “Your words were found, and I ate them; and your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by your name, Lord God of Sabaoth” (v.16).
From the moment man was created, he was created to receive the Holy Spirit to gain power “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph 3:17). Hearts that rely on God’s words and hearts that rely on God’s nutrition.
Now, in the sacrament, our joy is three-fold. Not only has God sent His Son for us, but He has also given His Word to us. And not only has He given His Word to us, but He has manifested His Word among us, by promise, that we may feed on it and live.
Truly we sing properly, during Christmas: “Oh where shall joy be found? Where, but on heavenly ground? Where the angels singing with all His saints unite, sweetest praises bringing in heavenly joy and light!” (LSB 386). This heavenly ground is Christ Himself, True Vine, and True Cornerstone of His Church. Into Whom we are baptized and find the fertile soil of salvation, in His Body and Blood.
Now, we may return to our verses from before to put flesh on Joy. When Psalm 118:24 said, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” we now understand that “this day” is the Day of our Lord’s Resurrection, which is now “this day”, today, in which we celebrate it, in His Church.
When Psalm 30:5 said, “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning”, it is the same Easter morning which brings our Lord back from the dead, to serve His living Body, the Church, His true forgiveness of sins. And we are surprised by the fact that He was telling the truth and surprised that He kept His Word. Joy.
What the Canaanite woman was searching for was the joy that had eluded her life for so long. She was not really searching for help for her daughter, though faith would give it. She was searching for a Savior Who would redeem all the things that had gone wrong in this world of suffering she lived in. Her joy came when faith pointed her to the object, Jesus, and He said to her, “You, yes you, O woman. Great is your faith. Your will be done”.
Psalm 126:2-3, “Then was our mouth filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation: then would they say among the Gentiles, The Lord has done great things among them. The Lord has done great things for us, we became joyful.”
Who speaks today, saying:
“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall
from their masters' table.”
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. That’s the sort of song we would give this woman in our Gospel reading, were she to grace us with her presence. Not because we wanted to be mean, but because we wanted to help. She would ask us what Joy is, and we would continue to confuse joy with happiness, of which that woman has none.
Do we know Joy? Maybe you have the name joy or know someone named joy. But sometimes people named Joy, aren’t joyful at all and just scream and whine on TV. There are also those who tell us to find joy in what we do. However, the word they use is not joy, but enjoy.
Enjoy is something we can understand and know, again, because we mistake it for happiness. We can enjoy our hobbies. We can enjoy our food. We can enjoy our work. Or maybe you wish for the joy of your youth and your chase after it with all your mind, body, strength and soul.
When we find that we cannot grab onto joy, we throw Bible verses at it.
Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”
Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in our confident hope.”
Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say again—rejoice!”
Unfortunately, those tell us that there is such a thing as joy, but not where to find it. They tell us that we are to have it, but does not lay out the plan to grab a hold of it. It is the Law once again we are facing as we encounter God’s goodness, and cannot get to it.
Our lady in the Gospel today knows this quite well. She has had to watch her daughter suffer while no one could help her. I’m sure, just like the woman with the flow of blood, she tried all the pharmaceuticals. But they are only in it for profit and not any real healing, so no joy there.
She probably even went to the priests who gave her prayers, verses, and maybe even some holy food or 10 hail Mary’s and a jar of holy water. Yet, there again she would find profit values and no virtue, for even the Apostles had trouble casting out demons, at first.
What we come to is that joy is not what we think it is. Because of this sinful misunderstanding, we often seek joy in foul and accursed places, only to find our hearts empty again. Thus, in order to fill that “feeling we had” back up, we become like an addict searching fouler and more cursed ways.
Yet, with this insight we glimpse what true joy is. It is a longing or an unsatisfied desire, more desirable that any other satisfaction. It is not a feeling of joy, neither is it some self-induced mental state. To find true joy, we must find the object it points to.
This is what the Lord has made: people. People who have a longing and a hungering, not just for truth or for happiness, but for the things of the Lord. Adam was made as a man that was designed to receive good things from God. We were made such that all of what God wants to give, we can handle.
Repent! We were made to be religious and we sinfully use that gift in two ways. First, we deny it. We see God’s Church and we scoff at it. It is so irrelevant and unmeaningful, how can I find joy there. Second, we embrace the gift sinfully. We take this religious feeling and make other objects false gods for us.
Whether it is a joy we think we have found or a pharmaceutical that just has to work, because why would I be lied to? We find our objects and pour our religious spirit into them, without limit. Yet, when we are faced with what God has offered, we treat it like trash.
Here is Jesus’s offering to us today, in His Gospel. Yes, the woman is seemingly mistreated, even before she gets to Jesus. Her cries for mercy were made before this meeting, today. The silence from Jesus is His answer as Savior. He has not come to heal, but save and heal perfectly. You can be a found-sheep and saved, without being healed.
The woman did not object to this, but still asked for help. Yet, there was still one area in need of confession. Are there any works left in her, blocking salvation by grace alone? Is she still holding on to genetics or false religion in her heart? Will she make excuses for herself?
No, if Jesus were to just look her way, it would be enough. If Jesus were to just breath in her direction, it would be enough. If He were to just see me empty and acknowledge my emptiness it would be enough.
Jesus is mistreated for this woman and for you. Shamefully mistreated. Shamefully mistreated unto death. We have heard Scripture already teach us to rejoice in the Lord and this is why. Jesus carries the hope that His mistreatment will be our honor. Jesus carries the hope that His death will be our life. Jesus carries the joy that comes on Easter morning, when all those promises come true for us.
There is the surprise that joy gives. That Jesus does not pass by this woman and her daughter and that He does not pass us by either. Jesus, in all His promises to us, stands faithful and completes His work on the cross. Before we were even born, Jesus is the object of Joy.
And there is the key to Joy: Jesus. He is the object of our longing that no satisfaction on earth can fill and He came to give us the power to house His Spirit, which sin, death, and the devil had thoroughly corrupted in us. Jesus is that object outside of us, which our body and soul hunger for.
Doesn’t the Bible talk this way? It says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6). Can you eat or drink righteousness? Or from St. Matthew 4:4, “He answered, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
And every word from God is a meal for the soul and a meal for the body. Jeremiah 15 preaches, “Your words were found, and I ate them; and your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart: for I am called by your name, Lord God of Sabaoth” (v.16).
From the moment man was created, he was created to receive the Holy Spirit to gain power “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph 3:17). Hearts that rely on God’s words and hearts that rely on God’s nutrition.
Now, in the sacrament, our joy is three-fold. Not only has God sent His Son for us, but He has also given His Word to us. And not only has He given His Word to us, but He has manifested His Word among us, by promise, that we may feed on it and live.
Truly we sing properly, during Christmas: “Oh where shall joy be found? Where, but on heavenly ground? Where the angels singing with all His saints unite, sweetest praises bringing in heavenly joy and light!” (LSB 386). This heavenly ground is Christ Himself, True Vine, and True Cornerstone of His Church. Into Whom we are baptized and find the fertile soil of salvation, in His Body and Blood.
Now, we may return to our verses from before to put flesh on Joy. When Psalm 118:24 said, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it” we now understand that “this day” is the Day of our Lord’s Resurrection, which is now “this day”, today, in which we celebrate it, in His Church.
When Psalm 30:5 said, “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning”, it is the same Easter morning which brings our Lord back from the dead, to serve His living Body, the Church, His true forgiveness of sins. And we are surprised by the fact that He was telling the truth and surprised that He kept His Word. Joy.
What the Canaanite woman was searching for was the joy that had eluded her life for so long. She was not really searching for help for her daughter, though faith would give it. She was searching for a Savior Who would redeem all the things that had gone wrong in this world of suffering she lived in. Her joy came when faith pointed her to the object, Jesus, and He said to her, “You, yes you, O woman. Great is your faith. Your will be done”.
Psalm 126:2-3, “Then was our mouth filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation: then would they say among the Gentiles, The Lord has done great things among them. The Lord has done great things for us, we became joyful.”
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