John 4:43-54

Hey, thanks for joining us as we continue through the Gospel of John.

We're in the fourth chapter, verse 43.

And this just a little bit of a transitional verse

as we move out of the story from the woman at the well

and into, another healing story.

We're going to see a couple of these now put together.

I'll just read verses 43 through 45 for you.

Just and then we can see why they're there.

When the two days were over, he went from that place in Galilee.

For Jesus himself had testified about a prophet

that he's no he has no honor in the prophet's own country.

When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that

he had done in Jerusalem at the festival, for they too had gone to the festival.

So this a little bit of a just a travel verse here,

a transition verse, just talking from Jesus, going from the

the place in Samaria now to Galilee,

where we're going to get some various stories

and I don't know, might go unless you have some insight here.

I don't think that this is, a lot other than transition.

We get the idea of the the prophet has no owner in his in his hometown.

That's really, I mean, literally parenthetical in John in other places.

That's a more protracted story,

but it seems to me that John is just moving us from one place to another here.

I think. So, two quick notes.

I think just really briefly, we'll we'll keep going on this text.

First is just to note,

I think that this is an example of what happens when a different

gospel writer takes similar stories of Jesus

and they're embedding it into their gospel telling.

So here, like you said, Clint, and I think it's right to point out,

it's just this is a very brief account of what

we see told differently and with different emphasis to another gospel.

So John often makes things longer, but here John is really condensing

and making this component of the prophet who has no honor in his own countries.

Yes, keeping that, relatively short.

And the other thing I think worth noting is just that the commentators

make the case that, one way that you can read this idea here

that they had seen all that you'd done in Jerusalem there in verse 45.

One way to read

that is to say that essentially they're interested in what Jesus has done.

The miracle he's done, and what it might be able to do for them,

that there might be some self-interest in that.

I think that's reading between the lines, but maybe that's fair, right?

The idea that here the people are less compelled by what the sign says about

Jesus, and more potentially compelled by what the sign might mean for them.

I I'm not certain.

I don't think that that's clear or explicit, but

one commentator point that out, and so I'll just share that.

But I think you're right.

I mean, the narrative, we're moving somewhere and we keep going and.

And maybe there's a sense or there's a little less of this in John

because John's going to spend a lot of time in Jerusalem.

But, I think you we shouldn't pass

the idea that this is these stories of Jesus are fairly nomadic.

They happen outside, they happen on the way to places.

They happen in villages and outdoors.

There's a kind of movement to this that we can miss

because it's contained in the story.

And so Jesus here is an itinerant.

He's he's moving from one place to another.

And that's woven into really all of the gospels.

Let's jump in, though, back into the text,

picking up at verse 46 and read through here,

and then we'll come back and try to discuss it with you.

Then he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he changed water into wine.

Now there was a royal official whose son lay healing Capernaum.

When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him

to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

Then Jesus said to him,

unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

The officials said to him, sir, come down before my little boy dies.

Jesus said to him, go, your son will live.

The man believe the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way.

As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that the child was alive.

So he asked them what our was it when he began to recover?

And they said to him yesterday at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.

The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him,

your son will live.

So he himself believed along with his entire household.

Now this was the second sign

that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

So a dramatic

story, a healing story, a miracle story.

And, if you remember, we've mentioned that there are seven stories

that are considered the seven signs of the Gospel of John.

We've seen the first one.

Now we see the second one.

An interesting text in that it happens from distance.

Again, John is not,

John wants us to know that Jesus power really has no limitations.

He doesn't need to be there. He doesn't need to touch.

None of that needs to happen.

And there is the struggle here that we've seen consistently

in John already, the idea of belief or non-belief.

Jesus says to him, your son will live.

And the man believed.

So Jesus pronounces a thing and the man believes that thing

to be true to himself, putting trust in Jesus power.

So, a lot happening here, not just the healing story.

Also, I think a demonstration of of the way

in which Jesus has this kind of authority.

The confirmation of the servants is interesting.

This, you know, the kind of.

I don't want to I don't want to minimize the story, Michael, but a

a kind of run of the mill miracle story in John.

Yes, that's an interesting way into it, though.

I think, because on one hand,

this story,

it really harkens back to a faith story.

So the idea that a person has the faith to ask of Jesus

to do a thing that they can't do for themselves,

and we see this told in lots of different ways, right?

That idea, you know, he says to the Roman centurion, you know,

that you have such great faith because, you know,

he said, you don't even need to come to my house.

This is a different way to tell a faith story.

And yet it doesn't have any twists or turns.

There's there's not really anything here that is really going

to shock a modern reader of Jesus's story.

But that being said, isn't it interesting how

we've been now four chapters late, four chapters into the book of John,

and there's not a lot of miracle stories up to this point.

So really, this is

this is our first healing story.

Is it?

Now, I don't want to misspeak, but I believe that to be true.

It's true, and I think so.

Here you have you have this really

where Jesus in the first part of today's lesson.

Right.

You have that idea,

that they had seen everything that Jesus had done at the festival.

Right? So they had seen the miracle.

You have this illusion.

Back to the water, changing the wine. Okay.

But then maybe you do have this sense that that they are looking for

more signs to prove who he is.

Well, here comes the man.

And Jesus's critique in verse 48 is clear.

Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

And I imagine here that you has far more

than just this man implied, but also all those gathered.

Right.

Well, what are you looking for in order to believe

and for this man's sake, know this?

He believed verse 53, along with his whole household.

So Jesus, for two days in just the preceding text, Jesus is spending time

living and teaching with the Samaritans, a place he shouldn't have been.

Now he comes back and he's he's once again

in Galilee, a place where as as it was set up,

you know, the prophet, is an honor that his own hometown here Jesus goes.

He's asked to do a thing. He does it.

And it's not said that the entire community believed

like, well, we had the Samaritan text where it said, you know, Jesus stayed.

And many believed in that time here it was this man.

And it's the numerics of that are slightly off in one place.

Jesus is encountered and and it changes the community in another place.

Jesus is encountered and it changes one family.

And that's a good thing. It's a gift.

But we're really reading deeply into the text at that point.

Clint, I think your point stands.

I do think this story is in John's not going out of his way

to tell this story in a novel way, but he's incorporating these themes

that we've said are so important already the sign language, the believing language.

I mean, all all that's embedded in here.

Yeah, there's an interesting, intersection here,

I think, between the communal story and the personal story.

Right. And and you pointed it out, Michael.

Jesus says unless you see signs and wonders,

you will not believe both of the uses of the word you.

There are the plural in Greek.

So they're they're it's not him speaking directly to the man.

There's a there's a certain word for that.

And there's another word for a plural usage, like you all and the both of those,

unless you all see signs and wonders, you all will not believe.

But then the official personalizes it.

Sir, come down before my little boy dies.

And the desperation of that, the pain of that, the uncertainty of that.

And then Jesus says, go, your son will live and and

there's a sense in which you could read that to say

Jesus is perhaps critiquing the crowd for needing a sign.

And the man says, I don't need a sign.

Jesus, I need you to come heal my son.

I, I don't, it's not about that.

I already believe that you're capable.

And then when Jesus pronounces the healing, he does

in fact believe he he and he believed.

And that's the word.

Belief is not used lightly in John that that comes with some weight.

The man believe that's a that's a powerful statement in this gospel.

And it's interesting the way that that John

lets us listen in on a conversation that functions at two levels.

There is the crowd and there is this desperate father. And,

knowing that those that those words are plural,

I think helps understand that you could easily miss that in English.

And and be confused as to why he's saying that to the father,

when in reality that's intended for a bigger audience.

And there's a really interesting story telling you,

a storytelling technique that is being utilized here by John.

I just want to point this out.

When Jesus says, 20, 50, your son will live.

I that moment, you know, John presents

this man believes what Jesus spoke to him and gets on his way.

And what's fascinating is he doesn't just go home,

but he's going down when he's met by slaves.

So there's this a long journey.

It's a long path.

And I think, Clint, a preacher's view of a text like this would.

And John is not just a writer and not just,

biographer, that John's a theologian.

John is a pastor.

I think there's a beautiful kind of image in the man

who believes who that sets him back home with a new orientation.

And along the way, as he goes home, he discovers by this encounter

with the person who has come from his home that that this miracle

has already been done.

So what is different about this healing story is that Jesus

and the and the boy are not the same place,

so that it, though the healing may be instantaneous,

the man doesn't experience it that way, and so his belief

is really strung out along this path that he's running.

There's there's this period of time where he doesn't know the outcome,

and yet he trusts.

And in a book like John, I just think details like that matter.

Clint.

Because they provide a kind of spiritual definition

of the lives that Christians live.

We two might not yet see the fruit of the miracle that Jesus

is doing in our life, or the fruit of what we believe to have already happened.

But that doesn't take away the reality of it yet.

We've just not arrived yet.

To see it as a detail like that in John is left as a breadcrumb.

I say not just to tell us the story of Jesus, but to remind the disciples

who are going to believe after they read this book that they, like

this man, might not discover the full news of the miracle

Jesus has done until they make further steps down the road.

Yeah, and there there is another one of those kernels at the end of this story,

and it could easily be missed because this is a dramatic story, right?

A man comes to faith, the the

the healing of a child.

Those are all significant moments.

But then notice what John tells us.

So he himself believed,

along with his whole household,

we saw this in the woman who entertain the idea

that Jesus is the Messiah and she spread word.

Here again, we see John's passion for the idea

that belief begets more belief that in this man's believing,

he is compelled to share that belief with others and and as such,

an entire household in this would include children, wife, servants.

His entire household comes to believe through his experience.

And so,

we see it's very subtle and it's very brief,

but John is almost always going to couple

evangelism with understanding.

When one comes to Jesus, they are going to,

out of natural, inclination

to share that belief, that word, that experience with others.

And, and it's it's just,

it's just a small thread here, but if you follow it, I think it's really important.

I also think there's an important contrast that comes because.

Jesus, just a moment ago, was revealing himself to a Samaritan woman at the well.

And now in this story, Jesus is interacting with literally,

a royal official, someone of a radically different social class and status.

And here belief is growing the same kind of fruit in this man's life.

And that is a coherent and consistent theme in John,

that it does not matter how low or high you may think you are.

Doesn't matter how good your pedigree might be,

doesn't matter how privileged you should be.

The point is not how you get to Jesus.

The point is how you respond upon the revelation of Jesus.

Yeah, and that's a really interesting point,

Michael, because the mention of royal official would lead us to think

maybe Herod and the idea of Capernaum, which is an outlying village,

I mean, we don't know this, and there'd be no way to to prove it.

But some scholars think that this is an insinuation

that this man's a Gentile, that he may be non-Jewish.

And if so, fascinating that we start

with a Samaritan woman and then we get to a Gentile.

Employee of Herod.

I mean,

we're doing a little speculating at that point, but it's not outside

the realm of possibility.

And if there's any if there's any sense in which

that's correct, that's a fascinating way to tell the story.

It doesn't really matter who the man is,

but if he's a Gentile, it might matter of time.

Well, isn't it interesting?

We're now at the end of chapter four.

It's fascinating that when John wants to tell us the story of the first people

who Jesus is revealing himself to, and who are believing,

these are not the fan club that you would expect this

is that the population of people who've been earnestly awaiting

the Messiah for generations, that this is not an accident.

This is carefully told story of of Jesus's revelation to humanity.

And I think, friends, that there's a disruptive aspect to this.

Those who expect that they will be the first

to know, and those who have been most anticipating Jesus, that they are not

the ones told to be the first to really understand who he is.

You have this woman. You have this royal,

official.

These people are not the fan club that would have been chosen before Jesus.

And yet they're the ones who John puts first in the story.

And that is.

That's an amazing detail.

And I think both a caution and an encouragement,

depending upon the season of life you might find yourself in.

Yeah. Well, thanks for being with us here today, friends.

We're certainly glad

that you would take time to study the Book of John with us as we end chapter four.

If you found this helpful,

give this video a like helps them as they study their own way through John.

And then of course, if you want to follow along with us

as we go through studies just like this one, subscribe.

We will see you next week. Monday.

Have a great weekend everybody!