A sermon for
Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
6th
February 2022
John 4.46-54
You don’t often hear sermons
on the story of the healing of the Royal Official’s son,
probably because it’s so similar to the more well-known story
of the healing of the Centurion’s servant
that we find in both Matthew (8.5-13) and Luke’s (7.1-10) gospels.
But our readings this year through the gospel of John,
bring us this week with Jesus back to Cana,
after his trip to Jerusalem and the Temple,
and the excursion through Samaria;
and we find ourselves back at this site
of the first of the ‘seven signs’ of John’s gospel.
Last time Jesus had been in Cana he had turned water into wine,
with the author of the gospel declaring
that this was the first of Jesus’ significant actions,
which point to the nature of his ministry and mission (2.11).
And it’s here in Cana, again, that we get the second of these ‘signs’;
and this time it’s the healing of the Royal Official’s son.
Beyond the geography, there are other parallels
between this story and the first sign given at the wedding.
On both occasions someone approaches Jesus uninvited,
asking him to sort out a problem.
At the wedding, it’s a shortage of wine;
in today’s story, it’s a sick child.
And on both occasions,
Jesus comes across as rather ambivalent to the request.
It’s almost like he is annoyed that people keep thinking
he will pull a solution out of his hat, on demand.
Of course, on both occasions he does in fact resolve the issue;
but the way John’s gospel reports his reaction
feels like there’s something more going on here
than Jesus simply solving a wine crisis, or making a sick child better.
And, of course, that’s exactly what John is trying to achieve:
John’s gospel constantly invites its readers to dig deeper,
to go beyond the obvious
to explore the deeper significance of the events it narrates.
This is why the water-into-wine,
and the healing of the official’s son,
are both described as signs.
The point of these stories is not that Jesus does miracles,
it’s not even that people should believe in Jesus
because he’s a miracle worker.
Rather, these stories point to the underlying meaning of the incarnation.
They invite us to contemplate what, exactly, it means
for Jesus to be the word of God made flesh
as a gift of good news for the world.
So when we meet Jesus getting frustrated
that people are asking him for another miracle,
we can hear the author of the gospel offering Jesus’ words to us,
inviting us to go deeper than the surface significance
to discover the underlying sign of the kingdom.
In the case of water into wine, as we explored a few weeks ago,
the miracle was a sign of God’s abundance,
of the joyfully overflowing love of God
that transforms shame into honour,
overwhelming disgrace with grace.
And so also in the case of the Royal Official’s son,
we are also asked to delve deeper,
to explore what the story of this healing reveals to us
about the love of God made flesh in Jesus.
The point of this story is not that Jesus heals,
nor is it that Jesus does miracles at a distance.
Rather, this sign is an exploration
of the significance of the prologue’s statement
that in Jesus ‘was life, and the life was the light of all people’ (Jn. 1:4)
This theme of life as a gift from God given through Jesus,
is something that the gospel returns to again, and again.
We find it in John 3.16, possibly the most famous verse in the Bible,
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life.’
We find it in John 10.10, where Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd,
who ‘came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’
We find it in the last verse of the gospel, which tells us,
‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,
and that through believing you may have life in his name.’
(Jn. 20:30-31)
And I could go on, but you get the idea…
So, what we meet here, in the healing of the Royal Official’s son,
is Jesus speaking a word of life,
with new life itself coming into being, at the very moment that he speaks.
It’s an echo of the creative act from Genesis,
with Jesus taking his place as the word of God
through whom all things come into being.
As the prologue put it:
‘All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.
What has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.’ (Jn. 1:3-4)
Jesus speaks life, and life takes shape,
because Jesus is the life-giving word of God,
spoken to a broken, hurting and dying world.
This healing of this young boy
is a sign of God’s intent to bring life to the world through Jesus,
to create life and light in the lives of human beings,
banishing the fear of death and deeds of darkness
that blight the human experience.
So what do we know about this young man?
We’re told that his father was a royal official, living in Capernaum.
This places him as a servant of Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great,
whose royal palace was on the shores of Lake Galilee at Tiberias.
The family of the sick young man was therefore of high social status:
it was a family of privilege, it had its own servants (4.51).
And whilst it is true that sickness and death can strike any household at any time,
it was also as true back then as it is now
that the better-off tend to enjoy healthier and longer lives.
A Royal Official of the court of Herod
would not have expected his son to get sick and die;
in stark contrast of course to those in that region
who eked out their living as peasant farmers,
for whom child mortality was something to be expected.
So when this man’s son falls seriously ill,
he makes the journey to Cana of Galilee,
a walk of about seven hours from Capernaum,
to beg for help from Jesus.
This is a man who is desperate,
having suddenly discovered that all his wealth and status
have not, in the end, protected his family from sickness.
And, maybe because he had heard about Jesus
and the water into wine at the wedding,
he goes on a quest to find Jesus,
to see if he and his family can also receive
the blessing of God’s gift of abundant life.
Although the text doesn’t say so explicitly,
it’s very likely that this Royal Official was a Gentile.
Certainly, in the parallel stories in Matthew and Luke’s gospels,
the man begging Jesus for help is a Roman.
And if he is a Gentile, then this story takes one step further
the trajectory we have already seen of the widening of God’s mercy.
From a Jewish Wedding, to a Samaritan woman,
we now encounter Jesus speaking words of abundant life
to a Gentile official in the royal household.
For the original readers of John’s gospel,
the statement at the end of the story,
that the man believed, ‘along with his whole household’ (4.53)
would have made sense to them in their context
of a church that included not only Jewish followers of Jesus
but also Gentile converts as well.
This gift of life, that comes into being in Jesus,
is not restricted to one group, to one nationality,
to one religion, to one social class.
Rather, this is a gift for all people,
it is abundant life welling up in people’s lives
like a spring of water gushing up from the ground,
creating new life in the parched landscapes of the human soul.
All of which is deeply symbolic, deeply spiritual,
deeply mystical, and deeply compelling
as you would expect from a sign of the kingdom in the gospel of John.
But in the midst of all the symbolism,
I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact
that this is a story about a healing.
It’s a story about a young child at the edge of death,
a story of a desperate father pleading for his child’s life.
And in this sense, it’s a story that resonates with our world,
and the situation faced by so many people around the globe.
The statistics on infant mortality make depressing reading.
On any average day, 15,000 children under the age of five die,
that’s just under 4% of all live births,
and almost all of these are of preventable causes.[1]
This is much better than the estimates for the ancient world,
where a quarter of all children born died before their first birthday,
with nearly 50% failing to reach adulthood.
But then, as now, the distribution of child mortality was disproportionate,
with those living with poverty facing a far greater risk.
The knock-on effect of child mortality is itself deeply problematic,
with parents consequently choosing to have larger families,
something which then negatively impacts opportunities for women.
In fact, it is in countries with higher infant mortality,
that population growth is also at its highest,
whilst female education is at its lowest.
And as we face pressures on the environment
from an expanding global population,
addressing infant mortality,
and consequently giving women the education and ability
to make choices about family planning,
are key factors in addressing the impact of humanity on our planet.
But even in a globally prosperous city such as London,
inequality still affects issues of infant mortality.
Did you see the version of the Tube Map that was released a few years ago,
which showed how life expectancy changes in different areas?[2]
The average life expectancy for people born where I live, at Canada Water, is 78;
if you’re born near Marble Arch, it’s 91.
The greatest disparity in life expectancy,
from the richest to the poorest areas of London,
is nearly 20 years.[3]
And of course, as with all life-expectancy statistics,
the key factor is not the age at which an average adult dies,
although that is part of the story,
rather, it is the number of children who die in infancy.
So when you hear of a country with an average life expectancy of less that 50,
such as the African country Lesotho,
this doesn’t mean that a person of 60 would be a rarity there,
rather it means that a very large number of children die in early life.
And our story for today,
of a rich man at his wits end because his child is dying,
invites us to reflect on the correlation between wealth and infant mortality,
and to then reflect on what it means,
for us to be proclaiming a gospel of life
to a world where too many, far too many, children
never get their chance to live.
Well, I think we should resist any application of this passage
which suggests that someone who asks Jesus for healing,
either for themselves or for someone else,
will automatically receive it.
Firstly, that patently isn’t the way it works,
and secondly, this would be to focus on the sign,
rather than on what the sign points to.
This story is not about Jesus miraculously relieving humanity
of its responsibility to care for the poor and the vulnerable.
Rather it speaks to us of the care that Jesus has for those facing tragedy,
and of his desire for all, whatever their nationality, creed, colour, or status,
to receive the gift of life in all its fullness.
In other words, it tells us
that we cannot separate spiritual and practical concerns.
We cannot say that we long for people to receive life eternal,
if we do not also desire that they get to live life in all its fulness.
This story directly challenges all forms of Christianity
which focus on the spiritual
to the detriment of the practical.
We are not called to save people’s souls for the hereafter,
so much as we are called to save people’s lives in the here and now.
This is a recurring theme in John’s gospel:
that the benefits of following Jesus are more about today
than they are about some unspecified otherworldly future.
And in the desperation of the wealthy official
at the sickness of his child,
we are reminded that, in the end, all of us are mortal,
and that those of us with the means and resources
to keep us healthy into old age
are in no way more deserving of our good fortune
than those whose place of birth condemns them to a different prospect.
So this passage calls us to compassion,
to action for justice,
and to following the example of Jesus,
who took action at a distance
to bring life to a child he had never met,
and in all likelihood would never meet.
Jesus didn’t go to Capernaum to bring the child back to life personally,
rather, he spoke words of life from afar,
transforming the life of the stranger and their family.
As a church, we have long supported Christian Aid,
and they have recurring campaigns to address issues of child mortality.
As we close our reflection on this passage for this morning,
let me share a story from one of those campaigns
which ran a couple of years ago,
and we’ll let these words challenge us
to continue our generous and life-giving support
for those who bring life to children around the globe.
The project was a partnership for Improved Child Health
and ran in Nigeria until 2019
Every year, hundreds of thousands of children
under the age of five years in Nigeria do not live up to their fifth birthday
due to preventable childhood illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia,
diarrhoea and severe acute malnutrition.
Most under-five death occurs in remote, hard to reach communities
where caregivers are faced with physical, social and financial barriers
to access health services.
Christian Aid , through this project,
has empowered communities to take ownership of their own health
by improving knowledge and health-seeking behaviour,
giving hope in despair,
and saving children under five who face imminent death
due to barriers of access to and uptake of quality health services.[4]
Thanks be to God for Christian Aid,
and may we here in Bloomsbury
once again hear the call to be partners with them
in the life-giving work they do
bringing the gift of life in all its fullness
to those who need it the most.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality#child-mortality-is-an-everyday-tragedy-of-enormous-scale-that-rarely-makes-the-headlines
[2] https://life.mappinglondon.co.uk/
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18917932
[4] https://www.christianaid.org.uk/resources/about-us/press-release-changing-course-under-five-mortality-nigeria
You don’t often hear sermons
on the story of the healing of the Royal Official’s son,
probably because it’s so similar to the more well-known story
of the healing of the Centurion’s servant
that we find in both Matthew (8.5-13) and Luke’s (7.1-10) gospels.
But our readings this year through the gospel of John,
bring us this week with Jesus back to Cana,
after his trip to Jerusalem and the Temple,
and the excursion through Samaria;
and we find ourselves back at this site
of the first of the ‘seven signs’ of John’s gospel.
Last time Jesus had been in Cana he had turned water into wine,
with the author of the gospel declaring
that this was the first of Jesus’ significant actions,
which point to the nature of his ministry and mission (2.11).
And it’s here in Cana, again, that we get the second of these ‘signs’;
and this time it’s the healing of the Royal Official’s son.
Beyond the geography, there are other parallels
between this story and the first sign given at the wedding.
On both occasions someone approaches Jesus uninvited,
asking him to sort out a problem.
At the wedding, it’s a shortage of wine;
in today’s story, it’s a sick child.
And on both occasions,
Jesus comes across as rather ambivalent to the request.
It’s almost like he is annoyed that people keep thinking
he will pull a solution out of his hat, on demand.
Of course, on both occasions he does in fact resolve the issue;
but the way John’s gospel reports his reaction
feels like there’s something more going on here
than Jesus simply solving a wine crisis, or making a sick child better.
And, of course, that’s exactly what John is trying to achieve:
John’s gospel constantly invites its readers to dig deeper,
to go beyond the obvious
to explore the deeper significance of the events it narrates.
This is why the water-into-wine,
and the healing of the official’s son,
are both described as signs.
The point of these stories is not that Jesus does miracles,
it’s not even that people should believe in Jesus
because he’s a miracle worker.
Rather, these stories point to the underlying meaning of the incarnation.
They invite us to contemplate what, exactly, it means
for Jesus to be the word of God made flesh
as a gift of good news for the world.
So when we meet Jesus getting frustrated
that people are asking him for another miracle,
we can hear the author of the gospel offering Jesus’ words to us,
inviting us to go deeper than the surface significance
to discover the underlying sign of the kingdom.
In the case of water into wine, as we explored a few weeks ago,
the miracle was a sign of God’s abundance,
of the joyfully overflowing love of God
that transforms shame into honour,
overwhelming disgrace with grace.
And so also in the case of the Royal Official’s son,
we are also asked to delve deeper,
to explore what the story of this healing reveals to us
about the love of God made flesh in Jesus.
The point of this story is not that Jesus heals,
nor is it that Jesus does miracles at a distance.
Rather, this sign is an exploration
of the significance of the prologue’s statement
that in Jesus ‘was life, and the life was the light of all people’ (Jn. 1:4)
This theme of life as a gift from God given through Jesus,
is something that the gospel returns to again, and again.
We find it in John 3.16, possibly the most famous verse in the Bible,
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life.’
We find it in John 10.10, where Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd,
who ‘came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’
We find it in the last verse of the gospel, which tells us,
‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples,
which are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,
and that through believing you may have life in his name.’
(Jn. 20:30-31)
And I could go on, but you get the idea…
So, what we meet here, in the healing of the Royal Official’s son,
is Jesus speaking a word of life,
with new life itself coming into being, at the very moment that he speaks.
It’s an echo of the creative act from Genesis,
with Jesus taking his place as the word of God
through whom all things come into being.
As the prologue put it:
‘All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.
What has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.’ (Jn. 1:3-4)
Jesus speaks life, and life takes shape,
because Jesus is the life-giving word of God,
spoken to a broken, hurting and dying world.
This healing of this young boy
is a sign of God’s intent to bring life to the world through Jesus,
to create life and light in the lives of human beings,
banishing the fear of death and deeds of darkness
that blight the human experience.
So what do we know about this young man?
We’re told that his father was a royal official, living in Capernaum.
This places him as a servant of Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great,
whose royal palace was on the shores of Lake Galilee at Tiberias.
The family of the sick young man was therefore of high social status:
it was a family of privilege, it had its own servants (4.51).
And whilst it is true that sickness and death can strike any household at any time,
it was also as true back then as it is now
that the better-off tend to enjoy healthier and longer lives.
A Royal Official of the court of Herod
would not have expected his son to get sick and die;
in stark contrast of course to those in that region
who eked out their living as peasant farmers,
for whom child mortality was something to be expected.
So when this man’s son falls seriously ill,
he makes the journey to Cana of Galilee,
a walk of about seven hours from Capernaum,
to beg for help from Jesus.
This is a man who is desperate,
having suddenly discovered that all his wealth and status
have not, in the end, protected his family from sickness.
And, maybe because he had heard about Jesus
and the water into wine at the wedding,
he goes on a quest to find Jesus,
to see if he and his family can also receive
the blessing of God’s gift of abundant life.
Although the text doesn’t say so explicitly,
it’s very likely that this Royal Official was a Gentile.
Certainly, in the parallel stories in Matthew and Luke’s gospels,
the man begging Jesus for help is a Roman.
And if he is a Gentile, then this story takes one step further
the trajectory we have already seen of the widening of God’s mercy.
From a Jewish Wedding, to a Samaritan woman,
we now encounter Jesus speaking words of abundant life
to a Gentile official in the royal household.
For the original readers of John’s gospel,
the statement at the end of the story,
that the man believed, ‘along with his whole household’ (4.53)
would have made sense to them in their context
of a church that included not only Jewish followers of Jesus
but also Gentile converts as well.
This gift of life, that comes into being in Jesus,
is not restricted to one group, to one nationality,
to one religion, to one social class.
Rather, this is a gift for all people,
it is abundant life welling up in people’s lives
like a spring of water gushing up from the ground,
creating new life in the parched landscapes of the human soul.
All of which is deeply symbolic, deeply spiritual,
deeply mystical, and deeply compelling
as you would expect from a sign of the kingdom in the gospel of John.
But in the midst of all the symbolism,
I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact
that this is a story about a healing.
It’s a story about a young child at the edge of death,
a story of a desperate father pleading for his child’s life.
And in this sense, it’s a story that resonates with our world,
and the situation faced by so many people around the globe.
The statistics on infant mortality make depressing reading.
On any average day, 15,000 children under the age of five die,
that’s just under 4% of all live births,
and almost all of these are of preventable causes.[1]
This is much better than the estimates for the ancient world,
where a quarter of all children born died before their first birthday,
with nearly 50% failing to reach adulthood.
But then, as now, the distribution of child mortality was disproportionate,
with those living with poverty facing a far greater risk.
The knock-on effect of child mortality is itself deeply problematic,
with parents consequently choosing to have larger families,
something which then negatively impacts opportunities for women.
In fact, it is in countries with higher infant mortality,
that population growth is also at its highest,
whilst female education is at its lowest.
And as we face pressures on the environment
from an expanding global population,
addressing infant mortality,
and consequently giving women the education and ability
to make choices about family planning,
are key factors in addressing the impact of humanity on our planet.
But even in a globally prosperous city such as London,
inequality still affects issues of infant mortality.
Did you see the version of the Tube Map that was released a few years ago,
which showed how life expectancy changes in different areas?[2]
The average life expectancy for people born where I live, at Canada Water, is 78;
if you’re born near Marble Arch, it’s 91.
The greatest disparity in life expectancy,
from the richest to the poorest areas of London,
is nearly 20 years.[3]
And of course, as with all life-expectancy statistics,
the key factor is not the age at which an average adult dies,
although that is part of the story,
rather, it is the number of children who die in infancy.
So when you hear of a country with an average life expectancy of less that 50,
such as the African country Lesotho,
this doesn’t mean that a person of 60 would be a rarity there,
rather it means that a very large number of children die in early life.
And our story for today,
of a rich man at his wits end because his child is dying,
invites us to reflect on the correlation between wealth and infant mortality,
and to then reflect on what it means,
for us to be proclaiming a gospel of life
to a world where too many, far too many, children
never get their chance to live.
Well, I think we should resist any application of this passage
which suggests that someone who asks Jesus for healing,
either for themselves or for someone else,
will automatically receive it.
Firstly, that patently isn’t the way it works,
and secondly, this would be to focus on the sign,
rather than on what the sign points to.
This story is not about Jesus miraculously relieving humanity
of its responsibility to care for the poor and the vulnerable.
Rather it speaks to us of the care that Jesus has for those facing tragedy,
and of his desire for all, whatever their nationality, creed, colour, or status,
to receive the gift of life in all its fullness.
In other words, it tells us
that we cannot separate spiritual and practical concerns.
We cannot say that we long for people to receive life eternal,
if we do not also desire that they get to live life in all its fulness.
This story directly challenges all forms of Christianity
which focus on the spiritual
to the detriment of the practical.
We are not called to save people’s souls for the hereafter,
so much as we are called to save people’s lives in the here and now.
This is a recurring theme in John’s gospel:
that the benefits of following Jesus are more about today
than they are about some unspecified otherworldly future.
And in the desperation of the wealthy official
at the sickness of his child,
we are reminded that, in the end, all of us are mortal,
and that those of us with the means and resources
to keep us healthy into old age
are in no way more deserving of our good fortune
than those whose place of birth condemns them to a different prospect.
So this passage calls us to compassion,
to action for justice,
and to following the example of Jesus,
who took action at a distance
to bring life to a child he had never met,
and in all likelihood would never meet.
Jesus didn’t go to Capernaum to bring the child back to life personally,
rather, he spoke words of life from afar,
transforming the life of the stranger and their family.
As a church, we have long supported Christian Aid,
and they have recurring campaigns to address issues of child mortality.
As we close our reflection on this passage for this morning,
let me share a story from one of those campaigns
which ran a couple of years ago,
and we’ll let these words challenge us
to continue our generous and life-giving support
for those who bring life to children around the globe.
The project was a partnership for Improved Child Health
and ran in Nigeria until 2019
Every year, hundreds of thousands of children
under the age of five years in Nigeria do not live up to their fifth birthday
due to preventable childhood illnesses such as malaria, pneumonia,
diarrhoea and severe acute malnutrition.
Most under-five death occurs in remote, hard to reach communities
where caregivers are faced with physical, social and financial barriers
to access health services.
Christian Aid , through this project,
has empowered communities to take ownership of their own health
by improving knowledge and health-seeking behaviour,
giving hope in despair,
and saving children under five who face imminent death
due to barriers of access to and uptake of quality health services.[4]
Thanks be to God for Christian Aid,
and may we here in Bloomsbury
once again hear the call to be partners with them
in the life-giving work they do
bringing the gift of life in all its fullness
to those who need it the most.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality#child-mortality-is-an-everyday-tragedy-of-enormous-scale-that-rarely-makes-the-headlines
[2] https://life.mappinglondon.co.uk/
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18917932
[4] https://www.christianaid.org.uk/resources/about-us/press-release-changing-course-under-five-mortality-nigeria
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