Jesus' Third Sign Series

Introduction

Loving parents will do anything to get their sick child well.

When two of John Crowley’s young children, Megan and Patrick, were diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular disease called Pompe Disease, the disease was considered a death sentence.

Crowley gave up his entire life to pursue a cure for his children. Geeta Anand of the Wall Street Journal writes,

“Seeking a treatment, Mr. Crowley… quit his job as a financial consultant, met with legions of scientists and teamed up with one. He borrowed $100,000 on his home and 401(k) plan to start a biotech company, then raised $27 million in venture capital when the company developed an enzyme that showed early promise. When he thought he needed the muscle of a big company to get a drug into production and testing, he sold his company to Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., for $137.5 million.”

There’s a lot more to the story, but it ends with Crowley getting the needed medication for his children.

Having saved their lives, his new mission is to find a medication that works even better, as well as help other families find medications to treat rare diseases (Geeta Anand, “For His Sick Kids, a Father Struggled to Develop a Cure,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2003, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB106184568337857300.)

Today, we are going to examine the story in John’s Gospel where Jesus healed an official’s very sick son.

This is the third of seven signs—or miracles—in John’s Gospel that he wrote so that his readers “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing [they] may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

Scripture

Let’s read John 4:43-54:

43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 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 Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus 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 on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, 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.

Lesson

The third sign in John 4:43-54 teaches us that Jesus is the Son of God who grants life by the word of his power.

Let’s use the following outline:

1. Jesus Returned to Galilee (4:43-45)

2. Jesus Received a Request for Help (4:46-49)

3. Jesus Healed the Official’s Son (4:50-53a)

4. Jesus Evoked a Response of Faith (4:53b-54)

I. Jesus Returned to Galilee (4:43-45)

First, Jesus returned to Galilee.

We read in John 4:43-45, “After the two days he departed for Galilee. (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 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.”

Jesus spent two days in Sychar. He met a woman who had come to draw water at the well in the middle of the day (see John 4:1-42). After a remarkable discussion with the woman at the well, she came to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and the only Savior of sinners.

In addition to the Samaritan woman, many more Samaritans came to believe that Jesus was indeed the Christ.

Then Jesus left Sychar and traveled to Cana in Galilee.

The road from Sychar to Cana is about 49 miles. It would have taken Jesus and his disciples two or three days to walk that distance.

Jesus’ “hometown” was the place of his birth, that is, Bethlehem in Judea. He was shunned there by the religious leaders. Thus, he had “no honor in his own hometown.”