Once more Jesus visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

"Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders," Jesus told him, "you will never believe." The royal official said, "Sir, come down before my child dies." Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live." The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, "The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour."

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he and all his household believed. This was the second miraculous sign that Jesus performed, having come from Judea to Galilee.

John 4:46-54

This passage describes Jesus’ second miracle, the first was in the same town of Cana, the change of the water into wine. Here the stakes are raised. Both miracles are depictions of God’s grace through Jesus’ actions. In this one, however, it’s a matter of life and death.

The official would have been a man in service to Herod, Rome’s ruler of Israel. It doesn’t tell us if he’s Jewish or Gentile. Either way, the locals would not have trusted him because he worked for Herod. In desperation, he came to Jesus to heal his dying son. As so often in the gospels, the narrative here is abbreviated. Jesus words to him sound like a mild rebuke but were probably not really, they were meant for everybody gathered and Jesus proceeded to tell the official to go back, the accurate wording is “your son lives.” Shortly, the official learned his son had been healed exactly at the moment Jesus said, “your son lives.”

Part of this story is about the desperate love of a father for his son who “begged” Jesus to heal the boy. Jesus did not need to be begged, God knows the issues of loving His sons and daughters. But the dad’s fear shows in his urgency to reach Jesus before the boy died. Any of us who have been through the illness or loss of a loved one know the intensity of our feelings. Parents of sick or dying kids know a special trauma, both in the fear of the loss but the wish and need to take care of the child.

The second message of this story is the “scandal of grace” of Jesus dealing with a Roman official, whether or not he was Jewish. The Jews of the time despised the Romans and this guy would be on their black list. Jesus did not seem to care who he worked for, Jesus saw a suffering dad. And John, the author clues in the readers that this gospel, these miracles, this Savior, was not there just for the Jews, Jesus had been sent to reach and redeem every man and woman.

So this miracle, as we’ve been saying, has a real purpose and it was tailored for this official. But miracles also provoke problems, soon confrontation. Jesus did God’s tasks for God’s reasons, not to impress people and not to be politically correct – he sure was not. But the official and his household believed – believed that Jesus was Messiah and believed that God loved them. Which is the function of miracles, to confound the smug and to convince the recipients that God really loves them.