31 March 2014 - unlimited faith

31 March 2014 - unlimited faith

Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
It doesn't seem like the official is particularly interested in signs and wonders for their own sake.  Yet Jesus lays the accusation, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe."

The official is desperate.  He hears that Jesus has some power to help him and he believes it enough to ask, and then to ask again when his first request isn't enough.

“Sir, come down before my child dies.”

We can see his faith and his doubt intermixed.  He believes that Jesus has power.  But he does not yet know that he is the Son of God.  He is in a rush to get Jesus physically to his son before the constraints of the situation make it too late.  Yet if he really understood who Jesus is, if I really believed in him, he would realize that, as God, it he can heal anyone from anywhere at any time.  He can wake children from death as easily as their parents wake them from sleep.

Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
The official comes to understand a little bit more deeply the truth of who Jesus is.  Jesus does not begrudge him the explanation.  He does not begrudge him the sign that he needs.  And the belief that comes from it doesn't stop at the official but fills his family as well.

The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.

Jesus isn't just someone who can patch things up if he gets there in time.  He is the one who is "about to create new heavens and a new earth" so completely that the "things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind.  Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness". 

The official had to realize that Jesus isn't a stopgap solution to temporal problems.  He is the one who makes all things new.  Signs and wonders in themselves aren't necessarily enough to lead to this faith because they can, in theory, just patch up temporal problems. 

Jesus is doing a greater thing than we can ask or imagine.  He is ultimately not treating symptoms but the cause: sin and death.  He is doing something so significant that when it is done "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away" (cf. Rev 21:4).

This is how he wants us to understand who he is.  He isn't a button that we press to release painkiller when we hurt.  He is the one who "will wipe every tear from their eyes" forever.

At nightfall, weeping enters in,
but with the dawn, rejoicing.
“Hear, O LORD, and have pity on me;
O LORD, be my helper.”
You changed my mourning into dancing;
O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks.