Nobility and Humility (witness number seven) ...

There are many things that appeal to us about the idea of living a life with great wealth.  With wealth, comes a better education.  With wealth, comes the potential to eat better foods, and enjoy a diet with far greater variety.  With wealth, comes a certain presumption that our children will be provided for, and perhaps have an even better life than the one we live.  A nobleman in the time of Christ, would have known all these things, or rather should have known all these things.  But then as now, the pain of evil that our world has embraced, the sickness and decay of death that was introduced when Eve bit in to that forbidden fruit, knows no respecter of persons.  The poor may die more quickly, and perhaps suffer more along the way.  But the rich die too, sometimes just as harshly, sometimes for just as unexplainable reasons.  Death itself was never the intent of God.  Nor was His intent to see suffering and sickness in the world.  Sickness and death were never the will of God.  They are our reality, because once the opposite of life is embraced, the only other path is pain and death.  What Christ came into this world to demonstrate, was what a restoration to life could free us from – both pain and death.

And so in the gospel of John, in chapter four and verse 46 we find that after His encounter with the Samaritans, Jesus had come into Cana in Galilee near where He had made the water into wine at the wedding He recently attended.  By this point, the fame and news of Jesus and where He went was becoming the top story of the communities there.  It was not just what Jesus did, though He had already done some miraculous things, it was also what Jesus said.  His teachings were revolutionary.  His teachings were new, they were fresh; they caused His hearers to examine their motives and desires, even more than their actions.  With hearing this news, a certain Nobleman whose son was sick at home in Capernaum, decided to seek Jesus out and plead for the health of his son.

You can bet the most prized possession of any Jewish nobleman would have been his son.  Having a male inheritor was an extremely important part of Jewish society and culture.  And being a man of wealth, I am certain when his son first became ill, he would have received the finest medical attention money could buy.  Every expert in the region would have been sought after to heal an ailing nobleman’s son.  But then as it is now, sometimes there is just nothing medical skills are able to do, against a determined illness.  Things were getting desperate.  This was serious.  It was approaching life and death.  Against this backdrop, the father chooses to leave the side of his son, even though his son is knocking on death’s door, and could well die without his father with him.  But the father is not ready to yield his son to death just yet.  The nobleman knows of Jesus, and has hope Jesus might be able to cure his son.  Yet as later texts reveal, the nobleman does not believe Jesus is the Messiah.  Only that he might be able to help his son.  He has heard stories, but he has not witnessed them himself.  Still, if there is any hope, to Jesus he will travel.

In verse 47 we find … “he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.”  The noble father knew the stakes; the noble father knew that were no other options left.  He knew that only a miracle could now save his son, and so he wanted to see one.  In verse 48 Jesus responds … “Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”  Obviously this was not a statement about the belief the nobleman had in the ability of Jesus to heal his son.  He would not have left the side of his dying son if he did not think Christ could heal him, or if he had had any other option.  However, despite his desire for a miracle, he was not quite willing to accept the idea that Christ was the Messiah, the true Son of God.  It was this belief, that Christ was referring to.  Christ wanted to save more than the illness of the nobleman’s son, He wanted to save the souls of father and son.  In addition, His words were for a broader audience.

There are those in our world, who refuse to accept the idea that God exists.  They cite a lack of empirical evidence.  In short, they have not seen a miracle, therefore they refuse to accept that any sort of divinity could exist that could do one.  They choose rather to believe in themselves, and in what they know, and in what they have seen.  Of course, no one has ever personally witnessed the transformation from reptilian dinosaur into mammalian modern man either; but there is a theory based on limited changes we can witness that has been postulated (and given the lack of creation); it must have taken place that way.  So they are willing accept that idea having never witnessed it, rather than accepting the improbability that divinity could have simply willed it.  Without personally witnessing a divine miracle that they would have no other choice but accept; they will not believe.  This is more of a problem than you might at first imagine.

Evil entered our universe, because when confronted with the unknown, Lucifer chose to trust himself, and his own ideas about where pursuing the idea of pleasing self might take him, rather than where God told him it would lead.  In short, when confronting what we do not understand, choosing to trust in ourselves rather than in God, is how evil came into existence.  This is a mistake that cannot be repeated.  In order for evil to never rise again, the universe must come to a place where it trusts in God, more than it trusts in itself, and in our own wisdom.  Witnessing a miracle, would never be sufficient proof to turn someone determined not to believe, into a believer.  The “miracle” would simply be explained away, as some sort of trickery, random luck, or self-delusion.  When one is determined not to believe in something, one will always find a “legitimate” reason not to believe.  It is the determination itself that presents the problem. 

The nobleman had heard the stories, but not witnessed them.  The stories told more than simply of Jesus the miracle worker, they told of Jesus the Messiah and Son of God.  The fact that he was in front of Jesus to plead for the life of his son, reveals that he believed at least in that much.  But without personally seeing these miracles, he was unwilling to take it a step farther and believe in the soul saving work the Messiah had entered our world to complete.  But pride in our own ideas, is often humbled as we realize how little we control.  When circumstances take away our perceptions and put our wisdom to folly, sometimes then we are willing to let go our own ideas about how things “should” work and reach out for something more.  Illness had come to the door of the nobleman and had taken the most prized possession in his home, his son.  Medical skills had been unable to do anything about it.  Science had failed.  Reason had been strained.  Pride at this point, was all but dead.  Now, only the life of his son mattered.  Now, no matter what, he was willing to put aside his own ideas and reach out for something beyond himself.  And so he responds in verse 49 saying … “The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.”  This was last ditch effort of the nobleman saying please.  This was the nobleman admitting there were no other options.  It would be Christ, or death.

The conclusion the nobleman had reached about the life of his son, was the same conclusion each of us must reach about our own lives.  It would be Christ, or death.  If we are to continue to trust in our own wisdom, even as it relates to salvation and the interpretation of scripture, we are doomed to fail.  It is not our wisdom that saves us, only Christ.  It is not our ideas about truth that save us, only Christ.  There is nothing about us, that saves us, only Christ.  In short, it will be Christ, or death.  When we realize this, we can offer up our minds to Christ, as well as our hearts.  When we allow Him to teach us without bringing in to it, our own preconceptions, and misplaced interpretations, we can finally find what He has been trying to say to us all along.  It is our own ideas that blind us to His truth.  It is our own clinging to trust what we know, instead of what He knows, that keeps us poor, and blind, and naked.  It is our trust in self, that is at the core of how evil was introduced into the universe, and what must be altered in us if evil is ever to fully and finally be exterminated.  It will forever remain, that life will be found only in Christ and His wisdom, or in the alternative, death.  There is no other reality, no other choice.  In his desperation to save his son, the nobleman had reached this point.

Jesus responds in verse 50 … “Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth.”  At this point, the battle for the salvation of the nobleman, and his son, had already been won.  When pride had been killed, belief could be born.  It would take the death of pride in himself, to allow for the birth of belief in something greater than himself.  The nobleman had reached this point.  Have you?  Are we so disgusted with our repeated failures, and persistent embrace of sin and pain, that we are finally ready to cast aside the pride in our own ideas about salvation, and truly seek salvation from outside of ourselves, in Jesus Christ alone?  The nobleman was, and he would find it.  When our pride is killed, we will find it as well.

Verse 50 continues … “And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.”  This is a powerful verse of scripture.  The nobleman had still “seen” nothing, yet he believed.  When his pride was killed, he no longer needed to “see” the miracles for himself, he was now willing to accept the words of Christ as facts.  He was not returning to his home in order to be with his son before he would die.  He was returning in anticipation of finding his son alive.  But more than that, his belief had transcended the idea of Jesus the miracle worker, to Jesus the Messiah and true Son of God.  And as he returns home, like in the parable of the prodigal son, his servants are already running out to meet him.  They cannot simply wait at home, for him to return, but must share the good news with the nobleman.  A transformed life cannot be silent, it must testify as to the good news it has witnessed.

Upon learning of the time when the healing had begun, the nobleman knew it was at the same time Jesus had told him to return home that his son would live.  And the greater goal of Jesus in the sharing of the nobleman’s experience would be achieved.  The scripture records in verse 53 … “and himself believed, and his whole house.”  Salvation in the life altering Son of God, was not just instilled in the nobleman and his son, but in his servants, and family, and everyone in the home.  The life giving transformational encounter with Christ had done more than cure illness; it had liberated the nobleman from the slavery of trusting in self, to the freedom that comes from trusting in Christ.  Desperation had given birth to belief that can and did save.  It was and is belief in Christ that saves us, and sees us find life eternal.  When we trust in God, more than in ourselves, we find evil vanquished unable to face Him.  This is how evil will finally and fully be extinguished in the universe.  For forevermore, we will always trust in God, more than we trust in ourselves, and that alone will keep evil dead forever.  Salvation and life begin, when we let go our pride, and look only to Christ.