This official in Capernaum probably had tried everything else. Maybe he had heard that Jesus was a healer. How difficult it must have been, to watch your own child get sick, and come nearly to the point of death.
Jesus expresses disappointment at a lack of faith that he has seen in general. The context for this is Matthew 16:4, and Mark 8:38. In those places, people were witnesses to a miracle, and still asked Jesus to prove himself. Maybe Jesus thought that this official wouldn't believe, either. On the other hand, we have the believing centurion in Matthew 5:5-13. That man knew that Jesus had the power to do anything, and Jesus praised him for his faith. This official must have been somewhere in between the faithless, and the Roman centurion, because Jesus told him to go, and he went. There is some faith there, to take Jesus at his word.
Faith is supernatural, but it is also simple. At any moment, you and I have the opportunity to take Jesus at his word, to trust Him. In this way, faith is a loving trust in Jesus as a friend.
"Religion" gets a bad rap, but it comes from the Latin which means, "to bind together." So if we put that all together, we are bound together to one another, and to God, by certain practices that teach us to trust in God, and especially in Jesus our Savior.
One thing that St. John--and Jesus--don't want us to miss is that the miracles are signs. Like all other signs, they let us know that something is going on. There is nothing special about a road sign, necessarily. Even so, we can think of times when we were glad that we read the signs. In the same way, it's amazing that Jesus can turn water into wine, or to heal an official's son, but Jesus wants to tell us about himself, and about the Father.
Comments