Is seeing necessary for believing?

“Your Son Will Live”

(John 4:43-54, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, March 15, 2009)

John 4:43-54 ⁴³ After the two days he departed for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) ⁴⁵ So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. ⁴⁶ So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ So Jesus said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe." ⁴⁹ The official said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies." ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, "Go; your son will live." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. ⁵¹ As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." ⁵³ The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." And he himself believed, and all his household. ⁵⁴ This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

From Samaria to Galilee (43-45)

In the second chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus was in Galilee at a wedding in Cana. That was where He turned the water into wine, and the steward said it was the best wine, though it had been surprisingly saved for last. That is a good principle for you to believe; with Jesus, the best wine is saved for last. Jesus did not stay in Galilee forever, though we are told that he was there for a few more days in another town. But in John 2:13 we read, “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” That was what Jews were supposed to do. When the Passover came, they were supposed to travel to Jerusalem. When John says that Jesus went up, don’t be confused about the direction in which He was travelling. Galilee is in the north. Jerusalem is in Judea in the south. To go from Galilee to Judea meant travelling in a southerly direction, though going to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem meant travelling up, and there is something right about thinking of Jerusalem as up from everywhere else. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now He was returning to Galilee, going through Samaria, as we saw earlier in this chapter.

You may remember that Jesus had caused quite a stir in Jerusalem at that Passover. At this beginning of His public ministry, the Lord cleansed the temple using some kind of whip or scourge. In verse 23 of chapter 2, mention is also made of signs that were performed on that occasion: “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.” This must refer to miracles, though the details of these signs are not given to us, since John will focus at length on only seven signs throughout His gospel. We are told here at the end of chapter 4 that the miracles in Jerusalem had an impact on the people that had travelled up from Galilee to Jerusalem to the Passover feast. Jesus had taught the disciples that a prophet had no honor in his hometown. Now they were welcoming Him because they had seen what He could do in Jerusalem. They must have been eager for Him to do these same things back home, for they had gone in a large group to Jerusalem for the Passover.

It should not surprise us that large groups of people would travel together back and forth to Jerusalem from as far north as Galilee. Remember that in Luke 2 we learned that Joseph and Mary travelled from Galilee every year with a large crowd from Nazareth. It must have been a large crowd because they did not immediately notice that Jesus was not with them when He stayed behind at the temple in Jerusalem at age twelve. It was some time before they even realized that He was not there with them, and they had to go back to Jerusalem in order to find Him. When they did, He said to them, “Why are you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Of course Joseph and Mary had been extremely concerned.

Unless You See Signs and Wonders (46-53)

Parents care about their children. They don’t always know how to show it. More specific to the miracle that we are about to consider at the end of John 4, fathers care about their sons. When Jesus came back to Galilee after leaving Jerusalem and travelling through Samaria, He was met by a father who was deeply concerned about his son. This man was some official, but I don’t think that makes a difference. This is about a father and a son, and the son is at the point of death. Some miracles happen because a person is pleading for himself, like when blind Bartimaeus cried out for his own healing, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Other miracles happen because someone pleads for another person. Very often that other person is a child, and a parent is doing the pleading. In that case, it is never the faith of the child that is determinative in the narrative of what happens, but the faith of the parent.

Parents can hardly help but have expectations for their children. From the moment a son is born, a father is thinking. When the son is at the point of death, as in this case, something has gone horribly wrong, something that is not at all in accord with the father’s hopes and dreams. This father needs Jesus to come down and heal his son. It is at this devastating emotional moment that the Lord of compassion says something that sounds surprisingly like a rebuke. He does not say it into the air or to no one at all. We are told that Jesus says these words to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” Jesus knows that the man is distressed. That must be obvious. Of course He is not being nasty to this man at the worst moment of his life. The Lord must have a good point to make that would help this man now. Jesus wants to take away this father’s distress. It may help us to state the Lord’s words as a positive instruction, something like this: “You should believe even if you don’t see signs and wonders.” Jesus is calling on this man to believe that his son is well even when he is not yet able to see that his son is well.

This instruction, even though it is spoken to this one man, is spoken not with the singular you, but with the plural you. It is as if He is looking into this man’s eyes, but He is saying to all of us, “You all should believe even if you cannot possibly see what you are asking for.” This experience is not only the experience of one man in Galilee. Any parent that lifts up a sick or troubled child to Jesus in prayer may be asking for a result that he cannot see. Many things have to do with timing. What we ask for will come, but it will come later. Many answers to prayer, like this one, cannot be seen because of distance. The boy is healed at the time that Jesus speaks, but he is healed in another place, and the father cannot see it quite yet, though Jesus is calling him to believe in what he cannot see. Many heartfelt requests remain unseen because there is no way that we can see what is going on now, because the request is made on earth, and the healing is given in heaven. This is not an unusual thing. This happens very often. It is more unusual when we get everything that we ask for now. When Jesus was ministering on earth, He was ministering heavenly signs. The Lord answers our prayers all the time, but very often the blessing is in heaven, and we still are called to believe, even though we cannot see. We do not want to be so earthly minded that we are no heavenly good. We do not want it said of us, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

Every distraught father or mother who lifts up a child to Jesus, should do so believing. Sometimes our prayers will be answered here and now, but sometimes it will not be here and now. It is of the essence of who we are as Christians that we keep on believing that our prayers have been heard by a loving God with great and sure intentions of resurrection blessing for his people, especially when we do not see what we desire here and now. The words that we need to hear are those powerful words spoken by our Lord that day. “Go; your son will live.”

It is not easy to believe what you do not see. Some people have decided that they will only believe what they see. Those people do not believe in very much. We do need to hear in order to believe. We do not need to see, at least not today. We hear the Word about Jesus, about His signs, about what He came to do, about His death, and about His resurrection, and like King David of old who said somewhere that he would dwell in the house of the Lord forever, when his infant son died, we need to say with him, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” He believed what He heard from God’s word, though He did not yet see it. Now David does see. The official in John 4 believed before he saw, but then later he saw, and he believed again, and his household believed with him. Jesus knows that we need to see eventually, and we will see. That will be a great day, when we see that Jesus is our yes.

The Second Sign (54)

On what basis do I make the claim that there is something here more than just one father who believes what Jesus says and one son who is healed? Could it be the case that there is no general point being made here, and that we are making too much of a specific event that simply took place and was recorded so that we could know that Jesus could heal at a distance? First, we need to remember that we are always told to believe when we ask Jesus for something we understand to be consistent with His holy and compassionate will. God is our God, and the God of our children. David was not being presumptuous when he said that he would see his son again. He had been given true faith to ask, and he was obliged to believe in faith that he would receive, though it had become clear by the child’s death that he would not receive here and now. He knew that he would see his son again.

More to the point, John 4:54 suggests a more general application to the resurrection promises of God. Here in our final verse we have some words that place this one sign within the context of the seven signs that are given to us in John’s gospel. Jesus must have performed thousands of miracles during his days on earth. John picks out seven that he particularly calls signs. The first was the sign of heavenly wine showing up at an earthly wedding. The seventh sign comes three days after the death of our Lord, the sign of an immortal heavenly man appearing to his disciples after fully dealing with our wretched sin. The miracle at the end of chapter four is said to be the second of John’s signs, the sign of a son who will live when a father asks Jesus in faith. All of the seven signs are heavenly signs. They tell a heavenly story by way of visible earthly manifestations. When we hear these words, it is as if we are given the blessing of seeing, because it does help us when we see. We are called by God to pray, believing that we will see, if not now, then surely one day. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, and fellow-laborers in the good news of the cross and the resurrection, hear the word of the Lord, pray, and believe. “Go; your son will live.”

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. Describe the movements of Jesus to and from Jerusalem in the first four chapters of John’s gospel.

2. What brought this official to Jesus that day, and why does Jesus response to him seem surprising?

3. What lessons are being taught in this passage that go beyond one miraculous healing?

4. What does it take for a person to believe? Is it necessary to see in order to believe? Is it necessary to hear?