A Homily for the Twenty-first Sunday after
Trinity
Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not
believe.
—Saint John 4:48
In today’s Gospel lesson we heard about the second sign (or miracle) that Jesus performed in the course of his ministry. As you know, the first half of Saint John’s Gospel (that is, almost all of what does not directly concern Holy Week, the Passion, and the Resurrection) is organized around a series of seven miraculous signs. Saint John indicates that the purpose of the signs was to reveal Christ’s glory and to cause people to believe in him.
The first sign, of course, was the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana; and Jesus had returned to Cana after having traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover. He had returned to Galilee by way of Samaria, a region inhabited by people who possessed Torah and worshipped Yahweh, but who were regarded as heathen outcasts by the Jews. And in Samaria he had been warmly received, even hailed as a prophet and as the Saviour of the world, although he had performed no signs there. The Samaritans had believed in Jesus based upon his words alone.
When it became known that Jesus was in Cana, an official from the court of Herod Antipas, rushed to him to insist that Jesus come immediately to Capernaum (some twenty miles away) and heal the official’s dying child. This is remarkable in several respects. In the first place, according to Saint John, Jesus had not yet performed any healing miracles. Perhaps the official had heard about the miracle of the water and wine at the wedding in Cana; after all, Jesus had been in Capernaum for a few days shortly after the wedding.
Later, of course, as we know from the other Gospels, when Jesus was staying in Capernaum and was well known as a miracle worker, people lined up around the block to be healed. The crowds became so large that when Jesus wanted to be alone to pray he had to go out in the desert. But Jesus did not yet have a reputation as a healer when the official approached him.
Second, the official insists that Jesus come back immediately with him to Capernaum. He assumes that whatever power Jesus may have over health and sickness, life and death, must be exercised by his touch—or, at least, by his presence. The official does not implore Jesus to speak a healing word, but, rather, to come himself to where the sick boy lies.
Jesus’s initial response to the official is also remarkable. In the Gospel, it is written that Jesus “said unto him”; but Jesus spoke in the plural. He was speaking not only to the official, but to all those standing around and, more generally, he was speaking to and about the people of Galilee. “Unless ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” He was contrasting the attitude of the people of Galilee with that of the people of Samaria, who had believed in him without seeing signs or wonders. Saint John himself adduces the Galileans’ attitude in support of Jesus’s observation that a prophet is without honour only in his own country.
Here, the official seems to come to Jesus not out of faith, not out of a belief that Jesus is the Messiah or trust that Jesus has power over the forces of nature, but, rather, out of desperation: having tried everything else he could think of, he will give this young miracle-worker a chance.
And
yet, he believes what he has heard about Jesus at least to the extent
that, in
desperation, he travels from Capernaum to Cana in the hope of bringing
Jesus
back with him. As Saint John tells the
story, we see the official move from a mere hope that Jesus may be able
to do
something for the child to actual faith in Jesus. Saint
Augustine, in a sermon about this
Gospel lesson, preached that
shows us a man lukewarm, or cold in faith, or
of no faith at all; but
eager to test by the healing of his son what manner of person Christ
was: who he was, what he could do. The words of the suppliant, indeed, we have
heard: we have not seen the heart of the doubter; but he who both heard
the
words and saw the heart has told us this
Jesus accedes to the official’s request, but not in the manner that was asked. He will not go to Capernaum, but he says to the official: “Go thy way. Thy son liveth.” And the response to this is remarkable, also: the official believes Jesus’s word, and goes home. He has not gotten what he thought he came for. He has not seen any sign. He has no assurance but Jesus’s word. And he believes that word.
It is not until late the next day that members of his household tell him that his son’s illness had actually broken, and that his recovery had begun at the very time that Jesus spoke. The official had, in fact, believed without seeing the sign; although, when he did see the sign it confirmed not only his own belief, but that of his whole household.
The great teachers of the Church, in discussing today’s Gospel lesson, contrasted Jesus’s encounter with the official (presumably a Jew and a Galilean) with a similar incident involving a non-Jew. Saint Matthew and Saint Luke describe Jesus’s encounter with a centurion, a Roman military officer. When the centurion tells Jesus that his servant is ill, Jesus offers to come with him to his house; but the centurion says that that is unnecessary: “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof: only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
Saint John Chrysostom, in a homily preached some 1600 years ago, asked:
What can be the reason why in the case of the
centurion Jesus freely
offered to come, while here, though invited, he would not go? Because in the case of the centurion faith
had been perfected, and therefore he undertook to go, that we might
learn the
right-mindedness of the man; but here the official’s faith was
imperfect. When therefore he entreated
him, saying,
"Come down," not yet knowing clearly that Jesus could heal even when
absent, Jesus shows that even this was possible unto Him in order that
this man
might gain from Jesus’s not going that knowledge which the centurion
had of
himself.
Some two hundred years later, Saint Gregory the Great suggested another answer to the question:
Why is it that, when the official asks him to
come to his son, he refuses
to go there bodily, and yet, though not asked to come to the servant of
the
centurion, he offers to go there at once? . . .
What is this but a rebuking of our pride, which leads us to
honour in
men, not their nature, in which they are made to the image of God, but
their
dignity and riches? While our mind is
drawn to the things that surround men, we have no thought for the
inward things
of man; we consider carefully what can be seen on their bodies, we fail
to
think of what they are themselves. But our Redeemer, to show us that
what is
high to men is not to be esteemed by the saints, and that what men
despise the
saints must not despise, refuses to go to the son of the official, but
is ready
at once to go to the centurion's servant.
There are several things that we can learn from Saint John’s account of Jesus’s second miraculous sign, the healing of the official’s son.
We see that we should approach the Lord in humility. The official seems to have expected special treatment because of his position. The gentile centurion, however, said, “Lord, I am not worthy.” To the former, Jesus said, “Go thy way”; to the latter he said, “I will come.”
Whatever mercies the Lord may vouchsafe to us will not be a reward for our merit, a prize for our being good Christians or good people, or for our crying out to him, “Lord! Lord!” Our attitude should be that of the centurion, who said, “Lord, I am not worthy,” and of the publican who prayed, “Have mercy upon me, a sinner.”
We also see that we should take our concerns to the Lord, but not necessarily our solutions. We can be confident that the Lord will respond to our concerns, but he may do so in unexpected ways. The official wanted Jesus to come with him to Capernaum; but Jesus healed the official’s son without leaving Cana. The official’s imagination did not comprehend the scope of Jesus’s power.
We are blessed in ways that the royal official was not. We have heard not only of Jesus’s sign wrought at Cana of Galilee, but of his passion, death, and resurrection. We have heard not only by rumours in the Galilean street, but by the testimony of the apostles and evangelists and martyrs, and of the whole Church through nearly two thousand years. But our imaginations still cannot comprehend the scope of his power. The best prayers are always these: “Kyrie eleison. (Lord, have mercy.)” and “Not my will, but thine, be done.”
Go to an index of the deacon’s homilies.