April 20, 2021 John 4: 46b-54
43 When
the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee 44(for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor
in the prophet’s own country). 45When he came
to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had
done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.
46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he
had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son
lay ill in Capernaum. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he
went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of
death. 48Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders
you will not believe.’ 49The official said to him, “Sir, come down before
my little boy dies.” 50Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The
man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that
his child was alive. 52So he asked them the hour when he began to
recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever
left him.” 53The father realized that this was the hour when
Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with
his whole household. 54Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after
coming from Judea to Galilee.
So we
transition to the new circumstances. A
royal official in Capernaum is no longer a person of importance. He is now a father who is desperate to cure
his child. He does not send a servant,
he does not attempt to use his royal position as a point of insistence or
persuasion, but he goes to Jesus himself, once he hears that Jesus has returned
to Galilee. The royal official does not come to ask, does not request, he comes
and he begs as his little boy is on the point of death.
Jesus’
initial response sounds so harsh. ‘Unless
you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.’ And it would be harsh if this were a private
conversation aimed at one desperate father.
But one thing we need to keep in mind as we read the gospel is how Jesus
communicates. It is for the audience
gathered around him. This could be the crowd
of Galileans who’d seen him act in Jerusalem and now want to see more. It could be the disciples whom Jesus is
instructing as he prepares them to take over the mantle of sharing the gospel
when he has gone. It can be in an
intimate moment when he is with a select few.
“Unless
you see signs and wonders.” Why does
Jesus say that? Just a few verses
before, John told us the Galileans were enthused about the presence of Jesus
because of what they had seen in Jerusalem.
It was not like the sharing of testimony and the truth of God’s Kingdom
as he’d been sharing for the past two days in the Samaritan city of
Sychar. Those were people who wanted to
hear the Good News of Salvation. Here,
Jesus’ reputation is based on the signs in Jerusalem, maybe on the ‘baptism
wars’ along the Jordan with John the baptizer.
It seems like there is a carnival atmosphere of expectation around
Jesus.
Into
this carnival steps a royal official. He
might possibly have been known by the crowd as a man of importance. But he does not engage with the
carnival. “Sir, come down before my
little boy dies.” Carnival be da**ed, this
is not an official, this is a broken father.
And Jesus’ response is not to turn this moment into a sideshow. He does not go down with the man, leading the
crowd, so that he may show them his newest parlor trick. Jesus said simply, “Go, your son will live.”
From
there, we have the takeaway of this story.
It is not about the signs and wonders, about the carnival and sideshows,
it is about faith. The official believed
what he’d been told and headed home again.
It is on the way home that he gets the good news from his slaves that
his son is alive. He does a little crosschecking
and discovers that the moment of his child’s recovery was the moment of Jesus’
promise of healing.
The windup
is that the man and his whole household came to believe in Jesus. There is no indication that the man went back
to Jesus to put on a public spectacle of thanksgiving, there was no buy-in to
the notion of a carnival. Jesus would
certainly be moving around Galilee enough in the course of his ministry that,
even if they did not meet in person, Jesus’ reputation would have been known to
the man.
For
the gathered audience, it is the contrast.
Jesus is not about the signs and wonders of themselves. They are rather evidence of something
greater, of the message and the Plan of God that He brings to unfold to the people. In this moment, the power of Jesus’ words was
enough to send the man back home, where the proof, the miracle, was laid out
for him when he received word that his boy was okay.
After
the water into wine, John is specific in identifying this as the second miracle
that Jesus did in Galilee, upon his return.
More
tomorrow,
Peace, Pastor Peter
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