“JESUS’ MIRACLE—HE FORGIVES YOU ALL YOUR SINS”
Saint John 4: 46-54
21st Sunday After Trinity: 16 October Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
Jesus is always coming to Cana of Galilee, that is, His own familiar land and place—The place where His glory dwells. He is always making water into wine to gladden the hearts of men…His beloved friends and disciples. Not wine that is ordinary but wine that is His true and real Blood—The Blood of the New Testament, the life liquid flowing from Immanuel’s veins.
Only in His Blood, the Blood of the Lamb of God, is there forgiveness. And only in His forgiveness for your trespasses is there any lasting and true healing. You need restoration from not just physical brokenness but from spiritual and family rot and despoiling. You need to be brought home again. You need your original and rightful place at The Lord’s table.
There was a man who was a “nobleman” Saint John informs you. Being noble, having money, power, prestige, and a “comfortable life-style” doesn’t seem all that important when your boy is about to die. All the mammon in the world doesn’t take away the sting of tears and the knotted stomach when your child is crying in pain and slowly slipping away from you.
The man did the right thing in coming to Jesus and asking for Him to heal his son. The words which Christ spoke to the nobleman were not so much harsh and rebuking as simply foundationally true of fallen and doubting man. How many of you will only attempt to keep the 1st Great Commandment, all the time, knowing that God does not answer your prayers the way you pray them? Do you have any other gods before The Lord? In times of crisis do you offer all your suffrages unto The Lord trusting in His mercy alone, or do you hedge your bets with actual reliance upon your own resources. Or, do you bargain with God attempting to hinge your worship of Him upon His granting of your request? All have fallen short of the Glory of God and of keeping the 1st Commandment.
Do we not see many, most, almost all, simply following the footsteps of Caiaphas, and the Pharisees? There were scores of men who saw the Messiah perform supra-natural miracles and still refused to believe. Seeing is not believing. The hard heart and stiff neck will always overrule the eyes…and sadly even the ears that receive the counsel of God. But the Word nonetheless must be preached in its fullness and boldness…and Hell be damned!
The man’s faith that this Nazarene Rabbi could and would heal his son did nothing to effect the cure. Rather, by the power of The Holy Ghost, it was strong enough to persist in fervent prayer and belief to receive whatever gift Jesus would bestow. “Sir, come down ere my child die.” Jesus did come down. Jesus, The Eternal Logos, Who with The Father and The Spirit is One God, One Lord, did come down from heaven, was incarnate and conceived by The Paraclete, and was born of The Virgin Mary. He came “down” all the way from Empyrean of Majesty to the manure scented Bethlehem stable to seek and to save that which was lost. Not to perform was a “faith healer” but to retake the prisoners of death, Hell, and Satan from the prison house of sin. Jesus would not come down to fanciful and selfish desires but for the rescue of His stolen sheep. He would rather go “up,” up to the cruel cross to suffer and die. He didn’t heal the lad by His awesomeness or His power, He healed the dying boy by His own anguish, sacrifice, and death.
The heart of this periscope is not the final result: “…his servants met him, and told him, saying ‘Thy son liveth.’” The heart of everything is Jesus Christ The Word. Jesus first spoke. “Jesus saith unto him, ‘go thy way; thy son liveth.’” Jesus healed with a Divine “thought” spoken from His Divine Mouth: The Word! For the man Jesus, is God. And again, the miracle is not the physical reversal of near and certain death, but rather the miracle Christ The Word wrought in the nobleman by His words: “and the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and went his way.”
And while today, Sunday 16 October, is not the second miracle that Jesus did, it is nonetheless the same miracle this morning that He always does. Hear The Word. Know that you are + washed in The Word. Taste The Word. Believe The Word. Here The Word. The Word made flesh speaks: “I forgive you all your sins.” And hence, you dear Saint “liveth.”
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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