John 4:43-54
John tells
us about a desperate father, a father did what had to be done to save his child.
We know
very little about this father. He was an
official in Herod’s court, he lived in Capernaum, and somewhere he had heard
about Jesus. Maybe he had been in
Jerusalem for the Passover and witnessed the miracles Jesus performed. Maybe he heard his neighbors talk about what
they had seen.
The most
important fact about him is that his son was seriously ill. Whatever the illness, it involved a
fever. This is why he found himself
going to Jesus for help. In our age
we’ve become so accustomed to having aspirin and antibiotics that we may not
fully appreciate just how serious this diagnosis was. You may be sure the best physicians in
Capernaum had seen this boy and they concluded that he was dying. His desperate father determined to go to Cana
and bring the Healer back with him.
Capernaum
was located on the northwest end of the Sea of Galilee about twenty miles from
Cana. It would later become Jesus' base
of operations for a while. But right now
it was simply the home of a father who wanted very much to see his son
live.
At this
point there are probably a couple matters we ought to note about this father:
1. He almost certainly had an inadequate
understanding of who Jesus was. There
were traveling “healers” who sometimes traveled around Galilee. It’s impossible to know if these individuals
actually possessed any special healing abilities, but it seems the people
believed they did. This nobleman was
convinced Jesus was such a healer.
2. He had no way of knowing that what Jesus had
been saying in his homeland. John says
that when Jesus returned to Judea, where he was born, he often reminded them
that a prophet receives no honor in his homeland.[1] Outside of Judea, would this man’s approach
truly “honor” Jesus?
On the
surface the Galileans seemed to welcome Jesus, even honor him, but their respectful welcome was given only as
long as Jesus behaved as they wished him to behave. They thought of Jesus as the man who
performed amazing miracles, turned water to wine, and did other things which
left them speechless; another words,
they pictured Jesus as a man who gave them a good show. They enjoyed Jesus but Jesus knew that if he
defied their expectations, they would turn on him.
We need to
keep this reality in mind when we look at the story of this desperate father.
We’re not
told the exact conditions under which the father finally found Jesus but we are
told of his plea for Jesus to come back with him. The language is very strong, suggesting the
man "begged" or "implored" Jesus to come. Any parent can understand his
desperation; so, any parent can
understood how he must have felt when Jesus refused to come.
How could
Jesus have been so indifferent? How
could he refuse? To understand let’s
take a look at the progress in this story.
The Call to Faith
What Jesus
wanted was genuine faith from this father and from anyone who came to him. Such faith included a proper understanding of
who Jesus was. At this point the father
did not possess such faith.
Remember,
he seems to have thought Jesus was just another miracle worker, like others who
sometimes appeared on the Judean scene.
Some of these men were charlatans, but some seem to have possessed some
kind of ability to bring about healing.
They may have possessed a rudimentary understanding of psychosomatic
illness or they may have just had a knack for being in the right place at the
right time so they could benefit from a sick person’s just getting better. The people would have known nothing about
psychosomatic illnesses; they thought these healers could change things just by
being in the room.
This father
seems to have seen Jesus in this way. One
clue is his request that Jesus come back
to Capernaum with him. Apparently, it
was firmly believed that the healer had to be present to heal.
This is why
Jesus’ response was so unnerving. It’s
clear he was refusing to go. His words
were pointed: “Unless you people see
miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never
believe."
These
critical words were addressed not just to that father from Capernaum but to all
who had come to see what exciting things he would do. Others may have been rebuffed by what Jesus
said but this father wasn’t. In fact, he
seems to have heard something in Jesus words which encourage him to keep
trying. Lenski suggests that Jesus words
were meant to convey a message which said, “Oh, that you were less concerned
about miracles and more concerned about me.”
[I have
some pastor friends in one of the Pentecostal denominations. As you know, these folks have a strong faith
in God’s power to heal. Most Baptists
believe God can heal, many Baptists believe God sometimes does heal. The difference between us and the
Pentecostals is, in some ways, a matter of expectation. If someone were to be crass enough to ask a
Baptist about the probabilities of God healing in a specific instance, we’d be
likely to describe it as less likely than the average Pentecostal would. Anyway, my Pentecostal friends tell me that
they must sometimes warn their congregations about the danger of seeking the
healing rather than the Healer.]
That father
from Capernaum seems to have heard Jesus say don’t focus on the healing, focus
on me.
The
father’s words in response to what Jesus said were much the same as before but
his perspective seems to have changed.
Again, Lenski says that the man’s words now possess a “pleading
reverence.” But the real change is seen
in his response to what Jesus says next.
Before we
examine that response let’s look at something important happening in this
story.
Jesus cared
about this unnamed father despite the fact that he had a faulty theology. Now it‘s important to see that Jesus did not
leave his faulty thinking undressed; he offered a clear and pointed correction
to his thinking. If we would follow
Jesus’ pattern, we would not reject any person as unreachable because their
thinking might be faulty. At the same
time, we would be irresponsible to leave them in the grip of their false
notions.
In an era
when many are confused about what it means to believe in Jesus we need to look
to this father to learn something about the character of faith.
The Character of Faith
How the
father responded to what Jesus said helps reveal the character of the faith
Jesus sought. Jesus said to him, “Go,
your son lives.''
How did he
respond to Jesus? The International
English Bible puts it succinctly, “The man believed. He took Jesus at his word
and left.”
He had gone
from the superstitious notion that Jesus had to be present to do anything to
understanding that this man’s power wasn’t limited by geography.
The
Galilean crowds "believed" only if they first saw, this man believed
without first seeing. He seems to have
suddenly understood that Jesus' mighty works were "signs" pointing to
identity; once that was established, his word should have been enough.
John can’t
resist telling us what happened next.
Jesus'
words had been spoken early in the afternoon.
Even if the man started back to Capernaum immediately, he might have
been forced to spend the night on the road since travel at night was often
dangerous, due to robbers and wild animals.
His servants may have set out to retrieve their master as soon as it was
certain the youngster was getting better or they may have set out early the next
day. In any case, the master was still
on the road when he encountered his servants bringing the wonderful news of the
boy's recovery.
Had his
servants known the purpose of his trip to Cana?
That's not clear.
The man
naturally inquired about the timing of the recovery. In an age before clocks or other timepieces
they were as precise as they could be, "Yesterday, about one o'clock, the
fever left him."
The man
then knew—and John lets us know—that this healing could be no mere
coincidence.
This man
had come to understand what many Christians never fully understand. Mature faith is rooted as much in what God
says to us as it is in what we may or may not have had the privilege of seeing
God do.
This takes
us to the next stage of this story.
The Contagion of Faith
When the
man got back home I can picture him finding his son sitting on his mother’s lap
or playing with other children, laughing and healthy. Things were back to normal. But were they? Do you suppose this man could ever forget his
hurried trip to Cana? Could he go on as
if he had never met the remarkable Man from Nazareth?
The Gospels
tell us that some who received Jesus’ blessings did forget, but not this man.
He told his
family all that had happened. And as a
result all his family and household became believers. Faith can be contagious.
There’s a
cultural element which we should note.
In some cultures, the head of the household is so revered that his
decisions establish the pattern for all other members of that household. This may have happened here. This doesn’t mean the faith of his family and
servants was subnormal, it simply means they came to embrace that faith in a
way which we Americans with our emphasis on individualism would find
strange. How they came to share his
faith says nothing about the quality of their faith. Robertson believes John is telling his
readers that this household, a household with direct links to Herod’s court,
had come to “complete faith in Jesus as the Messiah.”
Jesus
appealed to all levels of society. We
see so many poor and powerless respond to him in the gospel that we forget he
appealed to many in the upper classes as well.
During the so-called Domitian persecutions, one Christian executed was
Flavius Clemens.[2] He was a Roman consul and married to the
emperor’s kinswoman, Flavia Domitilla.
While Flavius was executed, Flavia was exiled. We don’t know what happened to their two
sons, whom Domitian had designated as his heirs. This prompted Harnack to write: “What a change! Between fifty and sixty years after
Christianity reached Rome, a [grand]daughter of the Emperor embraces the faith,
and thirty years after the fearful persecutions of Nero, the presumptive heirs
to the throne were brought up in a Christian house.”[3]
Wouldn't it
be wonderful to know what happened to this family in Capernaum once the gospel
began to be preached? As they began to
hear the name of Jesus proclaimed by the earliest evangelists, they must have
said to themselves, "We knew it--he was someone special."
In any
case, John tells us that this was the “second sign” that Jesus performed after
coming into Galilee. Exactly what he
means isn’t clear. He himself tells us
of other miracles. I’d suggest John is
trying to get us to pay special attention to the implications of this miracle,
implications which go beyond the simple fact that it proved Jesus could heal
over great distances.
Conclusion
This story
has something important to tell us about the nature of faith. It tells us that the quality of faith is
measured by the degree to which we hear Jesus and take him at his word.
And, of course, taking him at his word honors him.
[1] The exact meaning of that comment is
debated. In particular, it’s not clear
what Jesus means by his “fatherland.”
One commentator lists some ten possible interpretations.
[2] Technically, the couple was guilty of
“atheism,” but historians believe this was an appellation for being Christians.
