Daily Devotional • August 16
A Reading from John 4:43-54
43 After the two days he departed to Galilee. 44 For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast.46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Caper′na-um there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was living. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to mend, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live”; and he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.
Meditation
Jesus is returning to Capernaum, the place of his first sign, making the water at the wedding feast into wine, and here he performs his second sign, a miraculous healing from afar. The miracles in John’s gospel are called “signs,” and are the confirmation of his teaching and self-revelation. Faith in who he is has to come first, as it did at the wedding feast – it was his mother’s faith that set that sign into action. Here it is the faith of an official who surely does not know Jesus and may not have even heard him preach but believes that Jesus can heal his son. Perhaps he is simply desperate, but he has enough faith to ask for a miracle.
Jesus has just spent two days with Samaritans who said they now believe in him as “Savior of the world” because of his words – his teachings. He seems to have that in mind when he says to the official in Capernaum, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe,” contrasting the faith of the often-despised, mixed race Samaritans, with that of his fellow Jewish Galileans. Nevertheless, he assures the father, “Go, your son will live.” The father believes him and returns to his home about 25 miles away to find it was the exact hour when Jesus spoke to him that the fever left his son. His initial faith in Jesus is confirmed so strongly that he converts his whole household.
There are stages in our faith, times we may doubt, or despair, or need a sign to help us keep that faith in difficult circumstances. What is needful is to ask for what we need in faith, however faltering it may be at the time. Approach Jesus and humbly ask. The miracle we receive may not be obvious to other people like this healing was, but it is nevertheless a sign that Jesus indeed is the Savior of the World.
The Rev. Dr. Jean McCurdy Meade is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana, formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church, New Orleans.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Ife – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. John’s Church, Tampa, Florida