Nobleman and Jesus

Nobleman and Jesus John 4: 46

   Have we ever been so overwhelmed and desperate that we go to God for a need that we cannot meet anywhere else?  I know we have.  We have asked I am sure for a loved one that has been deathly ill or have asked God, " Why?  Why?  Why did my loved one die ?"  At many times in our lives we feel absolutely helpless.  Perhaps we have experienced loss in other ways....thru a divorce or the loss of a friendship for some reason. Or a personal crisis in the life?

   Thomas Merton well-known writer and Catholic Trappist monk was not always so.  In his auto-biography The Seven Storey Mountain, he tells of his worldly life. His conversion he said was when he, " ...was pierced deeply with a light that made me realize something of the condition I was in, and I was filled with horror at what I saw...and my soul desired escape . And now I think for the first time in my whole life I really began to pray...and praying to the God I had never known , to reach down towards me out of His darkness and to help me get free of the thousand terrible things that held my will in their slavery."

   Point 1.   The king's man, lit. was at a loss .  His son was at the " point of death" .  He had heard of the sign/miracle that Jesus had done apparently at Cana turning the water into wine.  The nobleman had come 25 miles from Capernaum to Cana to see for himself because he was facing a great possible loss.  Someone has said that the original word for crisis means also an opportunity.  In this it certainly was.  When we experience crisis in our life there is a place for decision and opportunity. 

Point 2. Examine the motive we have for going to God.  Jesus says something which does not sound altogether comforting to them all and he includes the nobleman in that, " Unless you see signs and wonders you will in no wise believe."  Of course this man was as a man under the authority of the king used to getting things done .  He had power, but this was a situation over which he had no control.  Jesus knows the man has come to him to have his son healed, but he will not heal him without dealing individually with the nobleman to find out what is true about his life. 

Point 3.  When facing difficulty and trial we should be like this man who was " a man of courage.....and a man of new vision and a new conviction." We can be people of belief and faith even when the worst looks like it is going to happen and is happening. G Campbell Morgan, The Great Physician.     The nobleman says, " Come down, ere my child die."  Jesus says , " Go " to him. " Your son liveth."  He became a man of belief .  Vs 50,53  " And he believed the word of Jesus." In vs 53 we read that it was at the same hour that Jesus said his son lived that his servants said his son got better. " And he himself believed and all his house."