John 4:43-54

00:00:00:23 – 00:00:19:54
Clint Loveall
Hey, thanks for joining us as we continue through the Gospel of John. We’re in the fourth chapter, verse 43. And this just a little bit of a transitional verse as we move out of the story from the woman at the well and into, another healing story. We’re going to see a couple of these now put together.

00:00:19:58 – 00:00:48:46
Clint Loveall
I’ll just read verses 43 through 45 for you. Just and then we can see why they’re there. When the two days were over, he went from that place in Galilee. For Jesus himself had testified about a prophet that he’s no he has no honor in the prophet’s own country. When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival, for they too had gone to the festival.

00:00:49:01 – 00:01:11:18
Clint Loveall
So this a little bit of a just a travel verse here, a transition verse, just talking from Jesus, going from the the place in Samaria now to Galilee, where we’re going to get some various stories and I don’t know, might go unless you have some insight here. I don’t think that this is, a lot other than transition.

00:01:11:18 – 00:01:27:21
Clint Loveall
We get the idea of the the prophet has no owner in his in his hometown. That’s really, I mean, literally parenthetical in John in other places. That’s a more protracted story, but it seems to me that John is just moving us from one place to another here.

00:01:27:34 – 00:01:53:09
Michael Gewecke
I think. So, two quick notes. I think just really briefly, we’ll we’ll keep going on this text. First is just to note, I think that this is an example of what happens when a different gospel writer takes similar stories of Jesus and they’re embedding it into their gospel telling. So here, like you said, Clint, and I think it’s right to point out, it’s just this is a very brief account of what we see told differently and with different emphasis to another gospel.

00:01:53:09 – 00:02:16:11
Michael Gewecke
So John often makes things longer, but here John is really condensing and making this component of the prophet who has no honor in his own countries. Yes, keeping that, relatively short. And the other thing I think worth noting is just that the commentators make the case that, one way that you can read this idea here that they had seen all that you’d done in Jerusalem there in verse 45.

00:02:16:26 – 00:02:39:29
Michael Gewecke
One way to read that is to say that essentially they’re interested in what Jesus has done. The miracle he’s done, and what it might be able to do for them, that there might be some self-interest in that. I think that’s reading between the lines, but maybe that’s fair, right? The idea that here the people are less compelled by what the sign says about Jesus, and more potentially compelled by what the sign might mean for them.

00:02:39:34 – 00:02:51:15
Michael Gewecke
I I’m not certain. I don’t think that that’s clear or explicit, but one commentator point that out, and so I’ll just share that. But I think you’re right. I mean, the narrative, we’re moving somewhere and we keep going and.

00:02:51:16 – 00:03:12:16
Clint Loveall
And maybe there’s a sense or there’s a little less of this in John because John’s going to spend a lot of time in Jerusalem. But, I think you we shouldn’t pass the idea that this is these stories of Jesus are fairly nomadic. They happen outside, they happen on the way to places. They happen in villages and outdoors.

00:03:12:21 – 00:03:37:01
Clint Loveall
There’s a kind of movement to this that we can miss because it’s contained in the story. And so Jesus here is an itinerant. He’s he’s moving from one place to another. And that’s woven into really all of the gospels. Let’s jump in, though, back into the text, picking up at verse 46 and read through here, and then we’ll come back and try to discuss it with you.

00:03:37:06 – 00:03:59:39
Clint Loveall
Then he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he changed water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay healing Capernaum. 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. Then Jesus said to him, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

00:03:59:43 – 00:04:21:54
Clint Loveall
The officials said to him, sir, come down before my little boy dies. Jesus said to him, go, your son will live. The man believe the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that the child was alive. So he asked them what our was it when he began to recover?

00:04:21:59 – 00:04:48:10
Clint Loveall
And they said to him yesterday at one in the afternoon, the fever left him. The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, your son will live. So he himself believed along with his entire household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee. So a dramatic story, a healing story, a miracle story.

00:04:48:25 – 00:05:13:31
Clint Loveall
And, if you remember, we’ve mentioned that there are seven stories that are considered the seven signs of the Gospel of John. We’ve seen the first one. Now we see the second one. An interesting text in that it happens from distance. Again, John is not, John wants us to know that Jesus power really has no limitations.

00:05:13:46 – 00:05:40:24
Clint Loveall
He doesn’t need to be there. He doesn’t need to touch. None of that needs to happen. And there is the struggle here that we’ve seen consistently in John already, the idea of belief or non-belief. Jesus says to him, your son will live. And the man believed. So Jesus pronounces a thing and the man believes that thing to be true to himself, putting trust in Jesus power.

00:05:40:24 – 00:06:04:54
Clint Loveall
So, a lot happening here, not just the healing story. Also, I think a demonstration of of the way in which Jesus has this kind of authority. The confirmation of the servants is interesting. This, you know, the kind of. I don’t want to I don’t want to minimize the story, Michael, but a a kind of run of the mill miracle story in John.

00:06:04:58 – 00:06:36:43
Michael Gewecke
Yes, that’s an interesting way into it, though. I think, because on one hand, this story, it really harkens back to a faith story. So the idea that a person has the faith to ask of Jesus to do a thing that they can’t do for themselves, and we see this told in lots of different ways, right? That idea, you know, he says to the Roman centurion, you know, that you have such great faith because, you know, he said, you don’t even need to come to my house.

00:06:36:50 – 00:07:02:36
Michael Gewecke
This is a different way to tell a faith story. And yet it doesn’t have any twists or turns. There’s there’s not really anything here that is really going to shock a modern reader of Jesus’s story. But that being said, isn’t it interesting how we’ve been now four chapters late, four chapters into the book of John, and there’s not a lot of miracle stories up to this point.

00:07:02:36 – 00:07:25:57
Michael Gewecke
So really, this is this is our first healing story. Is it? Now, I don’t want to misspeak, but I believe that to be true. It’s true, and I think so. Here you have you have this really where Jesus in the first part of today’s lesson. Right. You have that idea, that they had seen everything that Jesus had done at the festival.

00:07:25:57 – 00:07:46:53
Michael Gewecke
Right? So they had seen the miracle. You have this illusion. Back to the water, changing the wine. Okay. But then maybe you do have this sense that that they are looking for more signs to prove who he is. Well, here comes the man. And Jesus’s critique in verse 48 is clear. Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

00:07:46:53 – 00:08:14:42
Michael Gewecke
And I imagine here that you has far more than just this man implied, but also all those gathered. Right. Well, what are you looking for in order to believe and for this man’s sake, know this? He believed verse 53, along with his whole household. So Jesus, for two days in just the preceding text, Jesus is spending time living and teaching with the Samaritans, a place he shouldn’t have been.

00:08:14:47 – 00:08:36:54
Michael Gewecke
Now he comes back and he’s he’s once again in Galilee, a place where as as it was set up, you know, the prophet, is an honor that his own hometown here Jesus goes. He’s asked to do a thing. He does it. And it’s not said that the entire community believed like, well, we had the Samaritan text where it said, you know, Jesus stayed.

00:08:36:54 – 00:09:00:00
Michael Gewecke
And many believed in that time here it was this man. And it’s the numerics of that are slightly off in one place. Jesus is encountered and and it changes the community in another place. Jesus is encountered and it changes one family. And that’s a good thing. It’s a gift. But we’re really reading deeply into the text at that point.

00:09:00:01 – 00:09:14:56
Michael Gewecke
Clint, I think your point stands. I do think this story is in John’s not going out of his way to tell this story in a novel way, but he’s incorporating these themes that we’ve said are so important already the sign language, the believing language. I mean, all all that’s embedded in here.

00:09:15:09 – 00:09:35:45
Clint Loveall
Yeah, there’s an interesting, intersection here, I think, between the communal story and the personal story. Right. And and you pointed it out, Michael. Jesus says unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe both of the uses of the word you. There are the plural in Greek. So they’re they’re it’s not him speaking directly to the man.

00:09:35:47 – 00:09:58:55
Clint Loveall
There’s a there’s a certain word for that. And there’s another word for a plural usage, like you all and the both of those, unless you all see signs and wonders, you all will not believe. But then the official personalizes it. Sir, come down before my little boy dies. And the desperation of that, the pain of that, the uncertainty of that.

00:09:59:00 – 00:10:22:13
Clint Loveall
And then Jesus says, go, your son will live and and there’s a sense in which you could read that to say Jesus is perhaps critiquing the crowd for needing a sign. And the man says, I don’t need a sign. Jesus, I need you to come heal my son. I, I don’t, it’s not about that. I already believe that you’re capable.

00:10:22:13 – 00:10:48:48
Clint Loveall
And then when Jesus pronounces the healing, he does in fact believe he he and he believed. And that’s the word. Belief is not used lightly in John that that comes with some weight. The man believe that’s a that’s a powerful statement in this gospel. And it’s interesting the way that that John lets us listen in on a conversation that functions at two levels.

00:10:48:48 – 00:11:10:26
Clint Loveall
There is the crowd and there is this desperate father. And, knowing that those that those words are plural, I think helps understand that you could easily miss that in English. And and be confused as to why he’s saying that to the father, when in reality that’s intended for a bigger audience.

00:11:10:33 – 00:11:36:03
Michael Gewecke
And there’s a really interesting story telling you, a storytelling technique that is being utilized here by John. I just want to point this out. When Jesus says, 20, 50, your son will live. I that moment, you know, John presents this man believes what Jesus spoke to him and gets on his way. And what’s fascinating is he doesn’t just go home, but he’s going down when he’s met by slaves.

00:11:36:16 – 00:12:01:49
Michael Gewecke
So there’s this a long journey. It’s a long path. And I think, Clint, a preacher’s view of a text like this would. And John is not just a writer and not just, biographer, that John’s a theologian. John is a pastor. I think there’s a beautiful kind of image in the man who believes who that sets him back home with a new orientation.

00:12:02:02 – 00:12:32:02
Michael Gewecke
And along the way, as he goes home, he discovers by this encounter with the person who has come from his home that that this miracle has already been done. So what is different about this healing story is that Jesus and the and the boy are not the same place, so that it, though the healing may be instantaneous, the man doesn’t experience it that way, and so his belief is really strung out along this path that he’s running.

00:12:32:02 – 00:12:56:35
Michael Gewecke
There’s there’s this period of time where he doesn’t know the outcome, and yet he trusts. And in a book like John, I just think details like that matter. Clint. Because they provide a kind of spiritual definition of the lives that Christians live. We two might not yet see the fruit of the miracle that Jesus is doing in our life, or the fruit of what we believe to have already happened.

00:12:56:40 – 00:13:22:01
Michael Gewecke
But that doesn’t take away the reality of it yet. We’ve just not arrived yet. To see it as a detail like that in John is left as a breadcrumb. I say not just to tell us the story of Jesus, but to remind the disciples who are going to believe after they read this book that they, like this man, might not discover the full news of the miracle Jesus has done until they make further steps down the road.

00:13:22:06 – 00:13:56:24
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and there there is another one of those kernels at the end of this story, and it could easily be missed because this is a dramatic story, right? A man comes to faith, the the the healing of a child. Those are all significant moments. But then notice what John tells us. So he himself believed, along with his whole household, we saw this in the woman who entertain the idea that Jesus is the Messiah and she spread word.

00:13:56:29 – 00:14:35:52
Clint Loveall
Here again, we see John’s passion for the idea that belief begets more belief that in this man’s believing, he is compelled to share that belief with others and and as such, an entire household in this would include children, wife, servants. His entire household comes to believe through his experience. And so, we see it’s very subtle and it’s very brief, but John is almost always going to couple evangelism with understanding.

00:14:35:52 – 00:14:54:30
Clint Loveall
When one comes to Jesus, they are going to, out of natural, inclination to share that belief, that word, that experience with others. And, and it’s it’s just, it’s just a small thread here, but if you follow it, I think it’s really important.

00:14:54:37 – 00:15:19:53
Michael Gewecke
I also think there’s an important contrast that comes because. Jesus, just a moment ago, was revealing himself to a Samaritan woman at the well. And now in this story, Jesus is interacting with literally, a royal official, someone of a radically different social class and status. And here belief is growing the same kind of fruit in this man’s life.

00:15:19:53 – 00:15:41:27
Michael Gewecke
And that is a coherent and consistent theme in John, that it does not matter how low or high you may think you are. Doesn’t matter how good your pedigree might be, doesn’t matter how privileged you should be. The point is not how you get to Jesus. The point is how you respond upon the revelation of Jesus.

00:15:41:27 – 00:16:06:50
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and that’s a really interesting point, Michael, because the mention of royal official would lead us to think maybe Herod and the idea of Capernaum, which is an outlying village, I mean, we don’t know this, and there’d be no way to to prove it. But some scholars think that this is an insinuation that this man’s a Gentile, that he may be non-Jewish.

00:16:06:50 – 00:16:35:48
Clint Loveall
And if so, fascinating that we start with a Samaritan woman and then we get to a Gentile. Employee of Herod. I mean, we’re doing a little speculating at that point, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. And if there’s any if there’s any sense in which that’s correct, that’s a fascinating way to tell the story. It doesn’t really matter who the man is, but if he’s a Gentile, it might matter of time.

00:16:35:52 – 00:17:01:26
Michael Gewecke
Well, isn’t it interesting? We’re now at the end of chapter four. It’s fascinating that when John wants to tell us the story of the first people who Jesus is revealing himself to, and who are believing, these are not the fan club that you would expect this is that the population of people who’ve been earnestly awaiting the Messiah for generations, that this is not an accident.

00:17:01:26 – 00:17:24:46
Michael Gewecke
This is carefully told story of of Jesus’s revelation to humanity. And I think, friends, that there’s a disruptive aspect to this. Those who expect that they will be the first to know, and those who have been most anticipating Jesus, that they are not the ones told to be the first to really understand who he is. You have this woman.

00:17:24:46 – 00:17:45:05
Michael Gewecke
You have this royal, official. These people are not the fan club that would have been chosen before Jesus. And yet they’re the ones who John puts first in the story. And that is. That’s an amazing detail. And I think both a caution and an encouragement, depending upon the season of life you might find yourself in.

00:17:45:12 – 00:17:45:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah.

00:17:45:57 – 00:18:03:03
Michael Gewecke
Well, thanks for being with us here today, friends. We’re certainly glad that you would take time to study the Book of John with us as we end chapter four. If you found this helpful, give this video a like helps them as they study their own way through John. And then of course, if you want to follow along with us as we go through studies just like this one, subscribe.

00:18:03:14 – 00:18:05:04
Michael Gewecke
We will see you next week. Monday.

00:18:05:07 – 00:18:06:19
Clint Loveall
Have a great weekend everybody!