The Gospel of JohnÀpẹrẹ

Taking someone at their word can become a serious challenge if it is (1) someone with a huge reputation and (2) you know the person well enough to doubt that reputation. Jesus is a Galilean from small town Nazareth. Nathanael has already opened the window onto what Cana’s villagers thought of any religious leader from Nazareth. John shoves Jesus into the midst of that degrading attitude in our passage by reminding us that Jesus was aware that a prophet would be without honor among his own. But Jesus returns with at least one surprising consequence. John informs us that Jesus, after a mind-blowing set of miracles in big-city Jerusalem at a national festival (Passover), had returned back home, where he experienced a surprising welcome. In fact, enough of the locals had been at Passover that John can, no doubt with some hyperbole, say they “had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem” (4:43–45).

With such an opening, Jesus makes a new move—what John calls the “second sign,” also done in Cana (4:54). Cana is north of the normal route to Capernaum from Nazareth, but a gentile “royal official,” or just “a royal,” searched out where Jesus was and found Jesus in Cana. His concern was his son, “who was close to death,” so he pleads with Jesus to come down to Capernaum to heal him (4:46–47).

Jesus seems never to respond quite the way we expect.

Jesus’ response to the royal is like his response to his mother. In fact, Jesus’ response is that these people don’t receive him well unless they see “signs and wonders” (4:48). We now have to think that initial Galilean response of “welcome” after his return from Jerusalem in verse forty-five was actually a shallow, not-yet-believing response. This challenges a response from the man, and respond he does with “come down before my child dies” (4:49). Jesus puts a serious challenge before the man: “Go, your son will live” (4:50). The Logos speaks in Galilee, the Light flashes in the darkness.

True faith in John takes Jesus at his word and acts upon that word. The heart of this passage is in the middle line. The NIV’s translation mutes the significance of the words. It is not “the man took Jesus at his word” but “the man believed the word [logos] that Jesus said to him” (4:50). How do we know he believed? He turned around and descended back to Capernaum, showing that believing means obeying. He hoped to get Jesus to come to Capernaum; he returns without Jesus (Reeves, Spirituality, 64). It was a two-day walk, and during those two days this desperate father, a bit like parents who take a child with serious illness from doctor to doctor or scroll through Google searches to find a medical solution, wondered if his son was alive and if Jesus’ word was worth trusting. He could not know until he got back down to Capernaum.

On his way back his servants meet up with him to inform him that his son was living, which means he had been healed (4:51). Noticeably, and this is one of the secrets to reading the Gospel of John, the man’s attention is not on his healed son but on the Healer. He inquires when that happened and realized it was the moment the Life-giving Logos uttered the word (logos) (4:52–53). Like the Samaritan woman, the official returns to his home, tells them about Jesus, and “he and his whole household believed” (4:53). Anyone who experiences redemption from Jesus can become a witness to Jesus simply by telling one’s story.

John calls this the “second sign,” and to repeat, a sign is a public deed performed by Jesus that reveals who he is but requires faith in order to perceive its truthfulness.

A sign, when a believer ponders and imagines by turning it over and over, reveals the deeper identity of Jesus. Signs are then iconic revelations of Jesus. In John’s prologue (1:1–18) we read that “in” the Logos/Jesus “was life” that is also “Light” that pierces the darkness, and here that darkness is unbelief in Cana and Galilee. Healing with only the word of the Logos reveals the power of the Life at work in Jesus. To perceive this sign and experience that Life one must believe Jesus and act upon the logos of the Logos. That man talked about Jesus the rest of his life because he saw that sign, and maybe he was the only one who did!

Respond

• This is the second sign at Cana. Compare the accounts of the two signs in Cana (John 2:1–11; 4:43–54). What similarities do you notice?
• What does this sign reveal about Jesus’ identity?
• Why does “believing mean obeying”? Have you ever taken a step of faith when you have shown your belief with your obedience?