I am drawn to this line in the gospel, and it is spoken by Jesus, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” Jesus knows us so well. There’s nobody down here but us humans and we do cling to our signs and wonders. A lost job is a sign of God’s curse or even absence. A new baby is a sign of God’s presence and favor. A miscarriage is a sign of judgment, a disease cured is an answer to prayer. I choose these examples because they are from my own life; yours is a different collection of signs.
In today’s story Jesus does indeed heal the Galilean’s son, but let us not conclude that the healing is a sign of God’s favor upon this one family at the expense of the family whose child succumbs. This kind of dualistic thinking is not what God and Jesus are about, nor is it helpful in our daily lives. It isn’t whether we win or lose, it’s how we play the game. I choose to play the game in God’s ball park and I choose to practice even after I strike out … because I strike out! I choose to shake hands with the other team and come back again tomorrow, to play like there is no more tomorrow. And to take a seventh inning stretch when I need it.
Namaste! Amen!
The Readings
Isaiah 65:17-21
Psalm 30
John 4:43-54
When the two days were over, Jesus went from that place to Galilee (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet 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.
Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in 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.’ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed 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 his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, 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 whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.
The reading is from the website below.
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