Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus replied, “You may go. Your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. 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.” 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 (Jn.4:46-53).
This is a familiar story from the Gospel of John. Jesus had grown up in Nazareth as the son of a carpenter. Nazareth and was less than 20 miles from the Sea of Galilee and less than four miles from Cana. He performed hundreds of miracles in the region of Galilee, the northern province of Israel in which the Sea of Galilee rests. Many of those were in Capernaum, a small city on the northwest shore of Galilee. Two notable miracles were seen in Cana. The story above describes the second notable miracle in Cana where Jesus had earlier turned water into wine.
The background is important here because in Mark 6 we are told that Jesus had returned to Nazareth after performing a number of miracles in Jerusalem and other towns in the region. Even though they had heard about his miracles, we are told that he could do none in Nazareth because of their unbelief. Familiarity was their problem. They had watched Jesus grow up in the shop of his father Joseph and could not see him as a prophet or the Messiah, but only as the carpenter’s son. In their minds he could never be more than that. Sometimes we need to get away from our old friends and family for us to take on our new identity in Christ because their inability to see us as a different person sometimes gets in the way of our ability to see ourselves as a different person.
In contrast, John tells us about a royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum and near death some 16 miles from Cana. Jesus had already performed miracles in Capernaum so we can assume that when the official’s son became gravely ill, hearing that Jesus was back in Galilee, he went after Jesus. Perhaps, he went on horseback or walked, but his mission was to find Jesus and take him back to Capernaum to heal his son.
After finding Jesus and pleading with him to return to Capernaum to heal his son. Jesus simply told him “You may go. Your son will live.” The remarkable statement in John is, “The man took Jesus at his word and departed.” That is the core of faith. Faith is taking God as Father, Son, or Spirit at his word and acting on it. Too many of us, myself included, tend to analyze the words of Jesus and then add our own “except when” or “except for me.” We tend to add footnotes that add qualifications to his words or his promises when he simply wants us to take him at his word. The minute we qualify his statement or add a disclaimer, the enemy has won.
I’m not saying that we should not be honest about our struggles to believe. Most of us believe Jesus totally in some areas of our lives but in other areas we are the man who cried out, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” Perhaps, the dividing line is defined by those promises on which we take action and those on which we want to give it some more thought. The royal official didn’t continue to coax Jesus to come with him. When Jesus told him his son would live, he headed home. The remaining question seemed to be whether Jesus was given a revelation as a prophet that his son would eventually overcome his illness or whether Jesus had the power and authority to direct healing from a distance. When the official heard that the fever left his son at the same time Jesus had declared that he would live, the question was answered. Surely Jesus was more than a prophet because even the great prophets of the Old Testament had to be present for healing to occur.
What promises do we say we believe but hesitate to take action on? Which promises do we believe for others, but not ourselves? What promises do we say we believe but then add qualifiers for when the promise might be true? Those are the questions we need to ask ourselves so we can address those areas of our lives for which we need more faith. Then we can mediate more on the promise, pray for a greater gift of faith from the Holy Spirit, listen to the testimony of others, and choose to take action on the promise even while a small cloud of uncertainty may still hover above our heads. Our goal is to bring our requests to Jesus, take Jesus at his word when we receive a promise, and then depart believing that it is done. That is the faith that moves mountains.
