He Gave Him Back His Son

Scripture: Transfiguration, A.D. 2016 C

Homily:

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

“But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.” He gave him back his son. “And all were astounded at the greatness of God.”

Our son was born with transposition of the major arteries. It was not expected. The pregnancy had gone well. We were happy and excited. Life was an adventure, though our apartment was small. He was healthy and strong inside of his mother for nine long months. The nursery was all ready. Transposition means that his pulmonary artery and aorta were swapped. He basically had two circulatory systems, one from his heart to his body and back, and another from his heart to his lungs and back. This means that no matter how much oxygen he breathed, none of it could get to the rest of him. The only way to detect this rare abnormality would have been with a $1200 fetal echocardiogram, which no one had any reason to suggest.

So here we were, all excited, our first kid, and he was born blue. And when they intubated him they punctured his lung. And I baptized him in a little plastic box, right before they flew him off to the Twin Cities for surgery, because we didn’t know if he would make it. Nine months of excitement turned to horror. Turned to grief.

And we were leaving at 1:00 a.m. to drive down to the hospital, just hours after my wife had given birth, to be with him, to spend the next two weeks sleeping on the hospital sofa, so I ran back to our apartment in Fargo to pack our bags as quickly as possible, and as soon as I hit the parking lot I remember snarling at God. “He’s baptized,” I grated. It was very hard to speak. “He’s Yours now. So You better remember who You are, and You better do what it is that You do, because You promised! And God does not break promises!”

That was my prayer, running to the car in a dark parking lot with a sore throat and plenty of tears. I will never forget it. And I will always hold Him to it.

In our Gospel today a man comes to Jesus in desperation. His son, his only son, is terribly afflicted, mauled and convulsed and tortured by a force that he has no power to oppose. Moreover, the disciples of Jesus have failed him. They are sinners, weak in faith, like anyone else, and have proved here to be of no help at all. And so he has come to Jesus with the most raw and desperate grief that there can be: the grief of a parent for his child, of a father for his son. And he lays this at Jesus’ feet and says, “Fix this. You can fix this. No one else can. Be who You are. Do what You do.” And Jesus gave him back his son. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

Now this is the Feast of the Transfiguration, and I promise you that I wrote up this whole sermon about the significance of this miracle on the Church calendar and all the pertinent Old Testament allusions and how Simon Peter gets it so right and so wrong at the same time. But I just couldn’t get that second part of the story out of my head. I just couldn’t ignore what happens after the Transfiguration, after the revelation of God’s glory in Christ Jesus, after they descend from that mountain. He gave him back his son.

And that’s where the greatness of God is revealed. Not in the cloud of God’s presence, not in the vision of Moses and Elijah, not even in the Voice that proclaims, “This is My Son! Listen to Him!” No. The greatness of God is revealed in Jesus Christ healing a child in response to his father’s desperate plea. He gave him back his son.

God gave me back my son. Not because I deserve it; God knows I’m not the world’s best father. Not because He had to; for I have no authority over God. I can’t tell Him what do to. God gave me back my son because He is who He is and He does what He does and God does not break promises. And I swear, by the Blood of Jesus Christ, that I will fight for that Man on that Cross, and I will serve Him with my last breath, no matter how many times His Church may falter or His disciples prove that we are not up to our tasks, because He gave me back my son. And I will war for Him, by the grace of God, until the day I die.

Now I know darn well that I owe a debt of gratitude to the God-given skill of all those doctors and nurses and hospital workers who made our family whole, and to all those friends and loved ones, bishops and pastors, who visited us and supported us in our time of need. And I also know that it could have gone the other way. Many fathers have lost their sons. I am horrified to say that such has been the norm through most of history. But I know now that even death cannot nullify the promises of God, and that someday every mother’s son shall be pulled up to life from the loamy depths of the grave. God knows exactly what it is to lose an only Son.

I don’t worship God because of His power or His glory or any shiny light show up atop a mountain. I don’t worship God because of His majesty or His might or His miracles. I worship God because when I was at my worst, when I was powerless and terrified and suffering and desperate, He was right there with me, suffering with me, and He pulled me up. He gave me back my son. And that’s the true greatness of God. That’s the true glory of God. Not a crown, not a sword, not a victory in battle, but His willingness to do what no one and nothing else on this planet can do: to meet us in our hell and bring us back to life.

That’s what God does. That’s who God is. He heals what cannot be healed, forgives what cannot be forgiven, and raises up what cannot be raised. That is why His Cross, and not His Crown, shall ever be the holiest and most unassailable sign of His glory. When I could do nothing, He did everything. It was pure grace. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

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