The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way, And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him saying, Thy son liveth…
The Gospel text for today is framed by two very different stories in John’s Gospel. This account of a nobleman coming to Jesus and interceding for his dying child is contained in the last 9 verses of Chapter 4. It is a complete story in itself and except for the fact that it is clearly the next event in a travel account of Jesus’ ministry it could have been placed anywhere. There are 54 verses in Chapter 4 of the Fourth Gospel and the first 45 verses are given over to the account of Jesus conversation with a woman at Jacob’s well. She was “a woman of Samaria.” Let’s get our bearings by looking first at the context.
Jesus had been in Jerusalem where he had a long theological conversation with Nicodemus who was identified as a “ruler of the Jews.” It was pretty much a one sided conversation with Nicodemus coming up short. At this point Jesus attracted the attention, and suspicion of the Pharisees. Shortly after that he left Jerusalem for Galilee. He was traveling through Samaria when he and his disciples came upon a well and Jesus, tired from the journey, sent his men into a neighboring village to find food. He found a spot of ground and sat down next to the well, known to be Jacob’s well. He was resting his weary body and all he needed was a drink of water. But he had no rope or pail to draw water from the well.
And then a woman from the village came to draw water. According to the text it was high Noon, a weird time of day to come after water but she had her reasons. In all likelihood she had come to this well at Noon to avoid the women of her village. It is fair to reason from what we learn of this woman that she was probably shunned by the respectable, well-brought-up folk of the village who did not want her around. She was shameful. Her behavior was such that no one wanted anything to do with her, except, of course, those who wanted to use her. That much she had learned.
This Stranger, obviously a Jew, surprised her. Note the posture. Jesus is resting on the ground next to the well. She is standing. Jesus had to be looking up to her when he said: “Give me a drink.” She began arguing with him in a somewhat playful, familiar, even skillful manner. Her argument took a decidedly theological direction. Frankly, Jesus seems to have been enjoying this conversation. He made promises to her. That was not the first time a man had made promises to this woman. She was skeptical. She had good reason.
But here he is, this Stranger, this Jew, making a very big promise: Living Water. In fact the original audience of this Gospel could not help but to see the irony here: The conversation Jesus is having with this non-Jewish woman is exactly the same conversation he was just having with Nicodemus, “a ruler of the Jews,” except that this conversation with the woman makes far more theological progress than the one he had back in Jerusalem. And Jesus made a very big promise to her that Nicodemus would have to wait for: living water just for the asking.
She shot back “Hey, you can’t even get regular water for yourself and you are promising me ‘living water.’” He told her that if she would merely ask him, (she, this unwanted outcast, manipulated and manipulating sinner) then God Almighty would fill her life with true, permanent happiness. Jesus then revealed to her that she has had five husbands and is now with a man to whom she was not married. Then in a flash she said: “I know that Messiah is coming and when he does he will make everything right.” And then Jesus said to her: “I who speak to you am he.” There you have it! Unambiguous! What frank openness! What love! Is there another event you can cite in the New Testament where Jesus declared his messianic identity so straightforwardly? Not to Nicodemus! Not even to his own disciples. The woman believed him. And she acted on her belief so quickly that she dropped her pail and ran into the village and told everyone about Jesus. Most every Samaritan in that village believed on him that day as the Messiah. He and his disciples stayed in that non-Jewish city for 2 days, and on the 3rd day he returned to Cana of Galilee where he had turned the water in the wine. So that is where he was when a nobleman of the city of Capernaum, a 15 mile walk, came interceding for his dying child.
The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way, And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him saying, Thy son liveth…
There are three great lessons for us to take from the Gospel for today and these are again lessons that have been emphasized throughout Trinity season. First of all we learn again the lesson that we share a common life in which intercession has become a distinguishing mark of the Christian Church, and secondly, we learn that intercession is effectual. Let’s keep these two facts together. As I pointed out a couple of Sundays ago, what this and other accounts like it in the Bible have in common is that Jesus acted on the faith of the sick person’s friends not the sick person himself. Jesus frequently acted upon the faith and request of one person, for the benefit of another person. Intercession is effective because Christ answers intercessory prayer. And in fact this is so frequently the case in our Lord’s earthly ministry that, I submit to you, that intercessory prayer is a criterion, the decisive factor, that identifies the way God has ordained that we must live together. Intercession, friendship, fellowship, common prayer, common life are all ways of saying the same thing: that which binds us to Christ also binds us to one another– and that is the fact of the Incarnation. We have all been baptized into Christ. We are not merely baptized into the Logos nor were we baptized merely into the Word of the Father. We are baptized into the Word of the Father made flesh – made our flesh through the Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, we are bound to Christ, we are bound to Mary his Mother and we are also bound to one another by the Incarnation. And this common life that is constituted by the Incarnation is a New Creation and the criterion of that New Creation is the duty, the joy, the holy work of intercession, first for one another, and then for the life of the whole world – for kings and rulers, all people in authority, for the laborer and the philosopher, for mothers and father and children, for the refugee, for our best friends, for those closest to our heart and for those we cannot bear to be around and for the stranger we have never met. Take this with you today: the prayers of the saints are like clouds of sweet smelling incense brought before the heavenly throne of God by his holy angels. You are not the helpless. You are not predetermined by forces and powers beyond your control. You have access to the power of another order, the heavenly order, the power of Almighty God, before whom you are to bring the whole creation.
The third gospel truth is that Jesus is quite capable not only of working healing miracles, but he does so at a distance. This is not the only account of Jesus working miracles at a distance. This testifies to both his authority over sickness and evil as well as his divinity. The fact that he heals at a distance does not deny his full humanity, but it does affirm his full divinity. Jesus told the royal official that his child was healed – “thy son liveth.” How did he know that? He knew that because he had healed him, but he also knew it because in his divinity he is omniscient. Jesus speaks a word in Cana and effects a miraculous healing in Capernaum.
In summing up, I want to make one last point: “He came unto his own and his own received him not, but as many as received him, as many as believed on his name, he gave power to become children of God.” Remember that today’s Gospel account of the healing of the official’s child is framed by two very different stories. In fact, we can go further and put all of Chapter 4 together: the account of the woman at the well and the healing of the nobleman’s son, neither of them Jews, are nestled between accounts of Jesus’ dealings with faithless Jews in Jerusalem. On the front end is his long conversation with Nicodemus where the “ruler of the Jews” comes up short on faith and understanding.
The backend is given after Jesus heals the nobleman’s son. It is the healing of a man who had been lame for 38 years. It occurred in the Temple in Jerusalem. This is an odd story because the person who was healed responded in an unexpected way. When the Pharisees saw that he was healed and they asked him who did it and he said he didn’t know. Which was true because Jesus left before he identified himself. But later on Jesus saw him and tells him that his sins are forgiven as well. The man who was healed then went to the Pharisees and told them that the man who healed him was Jesus. John tells us that that is when the Pharisees consciously and intentionally began to seek to destory Jesus. What I want you to see is John put a spot light on the unbelief of the Jews: “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” But where the rulers of Israel rejected Jesus, the woman at the well and the nobleman, neither one a Jew, believed on the name of Jesus. Furthermore, the woman at the well was instrumental in the conversion of her village, and according to the text, the nobleman’s whole family believed on Jesus. Nicodemus bore not fruit at all. Both the woman and the nobleman are presented to us as examples of people who believed that Jesus came to give us the happiness of God. Life bound to Christ and life bound to one another through the Incarnation; abundant life, a common life of intercession first for one another and then for the life of the whole world.
The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him…