What Faith!

I've long known the special story of how a father travelled from Capernaum to Cana to ask Jesus to heal his son, but I learned something new about this story while studying to teach it to kids. Which just goes to show that no matter how many times we read the Bible, there will always be something new for us to learn.

Let's talk about this wonderful story now.

"He Believed"

A father had a sick son, and he went to ask Jesus to heal that son. Only, the Savior said along the lines of, "You need signs and wonders just to believe." That seems rather dismissive and maybe even a touch cruel to our ears, but the nobleman did not give up or get offended. Instead, he just asked Jesus again to heal his son.

This time Jesus said, "Go thy way; they son liveth."

And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoke until him, and he went his way. John 4:50

I'd always thought the father's faith was pretty big to take the second thing Jesus said without need for reassurance. I don't know what Jesus's expression was, or why he said, "ye" won't believe without signs and wonders. Maybe he was talking more to the crowd (hence the "ye"), but it seems to include the father as well.

I know I would have been offended if someone said that to me. And even after Jesus said, "Go thy son liveth", I might have been concerned whether or not it was true. I might have asked Him one or two more times to make sure. But not that father. He came, took the rebuke from our Lord, and believed anyway.

It wasn't until I taught this story in Sunday School that I learned the man walked about 5-7 hours just to get there. It's not like his son was close by. He couldn't run home and check the boy lived and dash back to Jesus' side if he wasn't better yet. That was a long walk of faith back to his house.

And yet the Bible said, he believed. Just like that. No proof, whatsoever.

In fact, he didn't even get home until the next day!

What faith!

But the story isn't finished yet. John had one more point to make which toppled my own personal thoughts about the father. A part of me had always assumed the father travelled all that way and believed without question because he'd heard of Jesus' many miracles. He "knew" Jesus had been done this sort of thing before.

But John said this was only the second miracle Jesus had done since he'd come out of Judaea into Galilee.

There were no piles of proof before the man. The first miracle was turning water into wine. That's certainly not the same as healing a boy hours away. Many other people later on believed that Jesus had to touch them to be healed, but this man believed without proof, without physical contact. He only got Jesus' Word that it was so, and that was good enough for him.

Now, that's faith.

How do you cope when you don't have evidence or at least experience in a situation? Can we trust God will do something we've never seen Him do before? Will it be said of us that we believed?