So...Jesus went back to Cana, in Galilee--you know...where He turned water into wine--and a certain official who had a sick son in Capernaum, having heard that Jesus was in the area, decided to come and ask Christ to heal his child.
I had two thoughts reading this. First - Jesus seems to mistake the man's intent. I assume the statement was as much (or more) for those around him as for the man himself, but Christ accuses the man of asking for a sign. For some reason, as I read this, I thought, if the man were asking for a sign, I cannot imagine that his only reply would be "Sir, come down before my child dies." I would think something along the lines of "No, no, no, You have it all wrong," would be in line. Maybe a bit of "I had heard that You could do miracles, and thought you might pop one out for me." or "If you are the Messiah, heal him!"
Instead, the man somehow knows without the miracle that it is something that Christ can do. (That is the second thing that I thought, btw.) The phrasing of his request "Sir, come down before my child dies," carries with it an assumption that Christ has the power to heal his son. It says, "my child will die if you don't do something," rather than, "do something to prove yourself." The man isn't asking because he wants to believe, he's asking because he believes. And when it was verified by his servants, "he and his whole household believed."
Which leads me to a third thing that I just thought - in addition to believing before he asked, he continued to believe after what he asked happened. Things went right, and he remembered Christ.
And that spoke to me this morning.
Comments (1)
I totally hear you. When things go right, when God answers our prayers, do we remember He was the one who touched us? Or do we just revel in the answered prayer (wow, I'm so glad I got this new job I? I really needed it!)