“Healing Stories” John 4: 43-56

 Have you ever met someone who didn’t ask you for something, but demanded it? You know what I’m talking about, right? Folks who have an air of confidence about them - like you need to do what they say or there will be consequences. Or if they say please, it is as they are offering you a gift. 

That is the type of person I imagine the royal official to be in today’s Gospel text. Jesus has just traveled throughout the region of his home town - where he wasn’t really respected or listened to. Now he is headed back to Galilee and it is met with fanfare. People know what he is capable of. They have heard the stories of the miracles and the hearings and they are coming seeking that for their own lives as well.

Amongst those seeks is a royal official. When we are told his is a royal official that means he isn’t a Jewish leader. He is related to the Roman government. The occupiers. The others. The folks who everyone else in the area had grown to detest just the presence of for all that it represented in their lives. 

Yet, here comes this royal official who we are told begged Jesus to come and heal his child who was on the brink of death. Friends, royal officials did not beg for anything. In fact, they didn’t have to ask for anything. They simply commanded and expected people to do it in return. 

But this royal official comes before Jesus this day, not in his title or role, but as a father. As one who’s heart is broken open for his child, who is so sick that he doesn’t know where else to turn. He is beyond the point of commanding that the doctor come. He is no longer at the point where he can demand healing. He just comes in total and utter grief, begging Jesus, his last hope for his child.

And Jesus says this funny thing in return, “you all only want to see signs and wonders, because without them you fail to believe.”

Of course people were coming to believe in Jesus because of the signs and wonders taking place. Sometimes its the disciples coming into greater realization of who Jesus is and what his Kingdom is all about. Sometimes its people who are seeking Jesus out and coming to believe because of what he can do in their lives. But the trust is people are coming to belief through those signs and wonders. 

Or at least their version of belief.

But the official - he has no desire to dwell on belief. Belief to him seems like a far removed thing, when he is dealing with matters of life and death right before him. Brushing off Jesus’s statement, he begins begging again - come down, Jesus, before my child dies. 

And Jesus does something he hasn’t done up to this point with healings. He simply speaks the child’s healing into being. No laying on of hands. No grabbing the child and telling him to get up. No mud and spit. No one grasping on to him. He just says that the child will live. 

Even more unusual - this man who is used to demanding things - simply takes Jesus at his word -  leaves to go home and finds out from his servants that at the exact hour that Jesus had spoken - that’s when his child began to be renewed and healed, as his fever broke. 

This man came to Jesus and he was at rock bottom. He thought that he was about to lose that which was most dear to him. Not his title. Not his power. But his child. The one whom he loved. So he came to Jesus in this posture of humility, asking that he heal his son. 

He came asking for one thing and received something different. He came begging for the preservation of life and Jesus ended up offering him the true meaning of life. 

Notice the words that Jesus spoke over the boy - that he will live. Future tense. 

Jesus was offering this boy a future with hope. 

And to do that, he didn’t need the royal official to believe. Or say the right words. He just accepted him as he was - grieving heart and all. He didn’t go. He didn’t command. He simply spoke - and it was enough for the royal official. 

At first glance, we could misunderstand the meaning of the word belief, it we think its only about the official saying the right words or reciting what he believed when Jesus was talking about signs and wonders. But the royal official lived into the truest meaning of the word belief - for when he believed, he trusted Jesus at his word.

There are a lot of folks who say that they believe in Jesus, but they don’t have the level of trust in him that this father did with his child. How many of us would be tugging Jesus by the hand to make sure that he came back to heal our child? When this royal official was able to recognize the power in Jesus’s words. 

Henri Nouwen was a catholic priest and spiritual teacher. He once explained trust this way. Imagine that you are at a circus and there are trapeze artiest who are singing from one small swing to the next. One has their legs hooked over the bar of the swing, arms extended to catch the next artist as they let go and fly through the air. Trust is that moment of letting go of the bar. Trust is believing that the person will catch you. 

If we see that type of trust at the circus, amongst performers who trust each other with their lives, do we have the same level of trust of our Lord and Savior?

Now, this doesn’t mean that we are to test Jesus to prove that he is trustworthy - life will bring us enough of that on its own. Nor do we manufacture circumstances to show to others that we have belief in Jesus. No. But we trust Jesus with what comes and we cry out to him because of our belief in our times of need. 

This, my friends, is our testimony. This is the witness we bear. 

We aren’t told of the religious affiliation of the royal official before he came to Jesus, but we are told that after this encounter that he and his entire family believe. Because of Jesus. 

This royal official was by no means the only person in need of healing and wholeness. In fact, we all stand in need of healing and wholeness every single day. Yet, even more important than the healing that comes in ways big and small, is the power in that word live. For when we live, we grow, and when we grow we trust and when we trust we believe. Not in ourselves, but in the power of Jesus. 

So let us take time this day to pray to the one who is the giver of life, that belief takes root in our hearts and is lived out in trust with our lives….

Amen.