SIGNS OF FAITH
John 2 and 4
“What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. … Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” … After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”
John tells us that the miracle in Cana was the first of the signs through which Jesus revealed his glory and the healing of the royal official’s son was the second. Throughout Jesus’ life on earth, many supernatural acts were performed by him, the final of which was his resurrection from the dead. In all of these instances some people responded in belief, notably in the passages we are looking at, the disciples and the royal official and his family.
Harry Blamires, in his book “The Christian Mind” tells us that Christians readily accept the presence of the supernatural because God is supernatural. It would be odd for Jesus to claim to be divine but show no signs of the supernatural. Signs and wonders attest to the divine and they should be a part of a Christian’s reality in which the Holy Spirit indwells them, the Son intercedes for them, and the Father is pleased to listen to their prayers.
However, Jesus clearly tells us that faith that rests solely on signs and wonders is weak and one should move from a fascination of signs and wonders to being in awe of the man whom the signs and wonders reveal. Ultimately our journey of faith should lead us to walk with him, learn from him, trust him and obey him. Along the way we will experience signs and wonders because we are in fellowship with the Triune God but that will only be a part of the total experience of being with him.
It is a mistake to avoid signs and wonders, keeping our faith solely rational, because it denies an important dimension of the God we worship. It is also a mistake to let our faith be shaped by signs and wonders because we then miss the person behind the signs and wonders, who is much, much more. Moreover we must not deny the rationality of the life we live because this is the life that God created for us. It is not rational for the royal official to go home empty-handed save for the words of Jesus but he did. It is rational to check the circumstances of the healing and he did. In the rational and the irrational, Jesus did not fail him. Our response of faith is both rational and irrational because this is the reality of our God.
The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” “Go,” Jesus replied, “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, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.” Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.