March 9, 2023
Are You Walking in Chaos or Calm?
“As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. So, he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, Your son lives; and he himself believed and his whole household. This is again a second sign that Jesus performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.” John 4:51-54 (NASB)
Have you ever been around people who are never in a big hurry? They seem to just walk really casually and slowly sometimes without a seeming care in the world. My wife does this sometimes. I have to say it’s hard for me to walk that slowly. With some folks I notice when things are in utter chaos, they seem to be untouched by what is happening. Gosh, I wish I was one of them. Life is busy for all of us, and we are in a big hurry most of the time. We want to get to the “next thing.” This way we can rush off to another. In this story we see two people who posit a relaxed mentality. One is a royal official. One is God incarnate. Jesus Christ. One didn’t start out that way though. His life was in chaos of whether his son would live or die. The Other was always in perfect control, and nothing could shake Him.
“So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, Your son lives…” Matthew Henry says this perfectly, “The father went his way, which showed the sincerity of his faith. Being satisfied, he did not hurry home that night, but returned as one easy in his own mind. His servants met him with the news of the child’s recovery. Good news will meet those that hope in God’s word.”[1] As we look at these passages, there is something apparent. The verbs in these passages indicate a sense of calm and peace by Jesus and the official after the discovery. It’s not one particular verb here, but the sense of it is present in these verses. The father could return to his home in a sense of peace, not panic. He knew all was well, even in his soul. It was confirmed as a miracle which came down to the minute Jesus spoke it. “So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” He confirmed the miracle.
Imagine the relief of the father who knew his son was well. The sweat could now dry upon his forehead. He could clean all the dirt off his body from the high paced journey to find Jesus. His blood pressure could finally settle to where he could finally think straight. His son had been healed and he experienced something as well. Now his search ended in the one thing he had never imagined. He looked for a miracle, and the Miracle found him. He came looking for someone to take away the pain of a life being taken, and in return received a new one. He couldn’t contain his excitement and began to share it with his family. It saved him. His faith changed and his whole family heard about it. It went from superficially looking for an immediate need to securing a future need. This is what real faith and belief looks like. Not panic, but profound belief. What began as a searching for a man to heal his son, resulted in the man’s salvation and his whole family as well. Take a page from this man’s diary today. He came looking for something and ended up with something he never knew he needed. He came looking for a life to be saved, and ended up with a whole family’s life being saved. He found the true Healer!
[1] Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Jn 4:43.