The Official’s Son
49 The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Later, Jesus would test the faith of a Greek woman from Syrian Phoenicia; after he insultingly compared her people to “dogs,” she would throw herself at his mercy by saying, “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” This royal official also threw himself at Jesus’ mercy. There was nothing he could do. Dazzling miracles didn’t interest him any longer. His boss King Herod might have had nothing but curiosity, but this man’s child was dying. He opened his heart and put all of his trust in Jesus. “Come…before my child dies.”
50 Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
The man showed his faith by the way he simply believed Jesus’ statement: Your son will live. That wasn’t a prediction, it was the power of God working through the words of Jesus. We have other statements from God equally as simple: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26). Most of us have been hearing about our salvation which comes to us as a free gift from God our whole lives; but do our actions speak as loudly as this man who turned away from Jesus, closed his mouth, and walked away? Jesus said it, and the man just took him at his word.
What would you do differently in your life today if you shoved aside your doubts and took Jesus at his word?
51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. 52 When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.” 53 Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and all his household believed.
By another miracle, Jesus’ action converted the man’s whole household. Here we have faith coming to an entire family and the servants who worked for them. Here is one of several examples in the Bible of a child coming to faith, since of all the nobleman’s household only the son has been identified (the servants are just mentioned as a group and the rest of his family is only implied by “his household”). A person does not have to be an adult to trust in Jesus and have saving faith (Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21).
54 This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee. (NIV)
John has mentioned other miracles since the first one Jesus ever performed when he changed water to wine (John 2:11). These included certain miracles performed in Jerusalem during the first Passover of his ministry (John 3:2, 4:45). But this, John says, was the second miracle Jesus performed coming from Judea into Galilee. Perhaps it is also significant that this one, like the first one, was also performed in Cana.
From this point, John breaks off his account of Jesus’ first year of ministry and then does something none of the other Gospel writers do. He leaps ahead from here (spring of 27 AD) to the spring of 29, almost entirely skipping a year of Jesus’ ministry. That second year is sometimes called “The Year of Popularity.” In it, Jesus called out twelve of his disciples to become apostles, preached the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), told many parables (the Sower, the Weeds, the Mustard Seed, the Yeast, the Pearl, the Net, and others), he calmed a storm, and he was saddened by the death of his harbinger John the Baptist.
John tells only one story from that eventful year, and we will turn to it next, in Chapter 5.
Something Extra:
Ecclesiastes 1:3-7
3 What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again. (NIV)
Steve Martin once joked that life would be completely pointless if it weren’t for his “lucky astrology mood watch.” Even in humor, man reaches for something beyond this world. Without something beyond, the world is a grim place of pain, loss and the experiences we can appreciate before death inevitably takes us. I have officiated at more than a hundred funerals, I have attended many more, and one day, the funeral will be my own—but what comes after that is what I’m really looking forward to. I don’t dread the casket; I’m looking forward to the place Jesus has ready for me in heaven.
What makes the difference in funerals is what the family believes will happen next. When they have faith in their savior, the kind of faith that takes God at his word (like the royal official in John 4:50), then the family can dry their tears, hear the saving message of forgiveness and the resurrection, and be comforted. When faith isn’t there; when a family is bound by possessions and the desperate need to have a “celebration of life” for the deceased, then there will be a focus on what a great person this was, on what great things this person did, or on how much they will be missed. And those tears will dry, too—but only in bitterness, doubt and fear.
Solomon does us a favor by getting right into the gritty emptiness of a life that doesn’t look to God. The hopeless turn of the clock and the wild cycle of the world’s weather brings no comfort without the Spirit of God bringing the message of forgiveness and peace. Where there is faith, then a “celebration of life,” if a family still insists on it, can really take place. We celebrate life because God is the one who gives it, just as God gives eternal life, too.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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