Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

We look for signs in times of distress

“Show me a sign.” This is a plea from those who feel lost, not just those driving around the city looking for a sign to tell them where to turn, but from those who feel lost in life, not knowing where to turn for help to ease their distress. “Show me a sign.”

 

Now this distress might take on any number of manifestations. It may be distress due to a personal illness or the illness of a family member, causing you to wonder where to find health and healing. It may be distress due to reaching a crossroads of life and not knowing which direction you should head next, concerning education or career or a relationship. It might also be distress due to a spiritual crisis, when you are not sure what to believe in regard to the power of a god or even the one true God. “Show me a sign.”

 

Signs are only good, if they point the right way.

The man in today’s Gospel reading was in distress because his little son was dying. We can understand the distress. What should I do? Where should I turn for help? And whereas we might be looking to the local health system or even to specialists far away, searching the internet for some cure or treatment that has not yet been tried, this man turned to Jesus. Why? Because he had seen signs.

 

It was in his region of Galilee that Jesus did His first sign of turning water into wine at a wedding in the town of Cana (John 2:11). This sign would not have been particularly helpful for the man and his dying son, but because of this first sign many of Jesus’ disciples began to believe that He had been sent from God to be the Saviour of His people. After that first sign Jesus came to the man’s own city of Capernaum and lived there. At least there was a local connection.

 

And then at the Passover festival in Jerusalem Jesus had done signs there too, so that many people then believed in Him (2:23). Therefore it was, that upon His return to the region of Galilee, people took note and the news spread that He had come back. People were wondering what they might expect Jesus to do next. What wonders or signs might He do again in the surrounding towns and villages?

 

This was enough of a sign to point the man in the direction of Jesus in his search to find a means to save the life of his little boy. It is the same reason why we follow the signs to the hospital or to the emergency department. Despite the reports of long wait times and medical errors and so forth, we know that medical care happens at hospitals and doctors and nurses are there who help people in their medical distress every day. There is no other place where more healing happens than at the hospital.

 

The man came to the town of Cana because he had heard that Jesus was there, and at that time there was no other place where there was as much healing as whatever place Jesus was. This is why the man wanted Jesus to come with him to Capernaum where his boy was dying. He believed that if Jesus was there, death could be stopped and health restored.

 

It is similar to the later plea of Mary and Martha concerning their brother Lazarus (John 11) when he had fallen ill. They had sent for Jesus but Jesus did not come at once, and when He did Lazarus had been dead for four days. Both of the sisters said to Jesus in their private conversations, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32). They believed that where Jesus was there death could be stopped and health restored. That is why we follow the signs to the hospital.

 

But apparently Jesus wants us to follow the signs that point to Him for a different purpose. To the man whose little boy was dying Jesus said, “Unless you [people] see signs and wonders you will not believe” (John 4:48). It sounds like a rather harsh response to a man in great distress. Granted, Jesus was not speaking of the distressed man alone, but of all those who had seen the signs that He had done and welcomed Him into their region. And as we hear His words today, He is also speaking to us: “Unless you people see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

 

Signs are only good, if what they point to what you truly need.

I have followed signs that have taken me to entirely the wrong place. I remember once when a generator was not working, I looked up where I might get it repaired and I followed the signs to a local electric repair company and they told me that they don’t work on generators at all. Those signs did not help me. I needed, rather, to go to an engine repair shop to try to bring my dead generator to life.

 

Sometimes signs take you where you need to go even if you didn’t know it.

Jesus does not tell us that we have followed the signs to the wrong destination. Rather, we have come to the right place, although we don’t know exactly what we are looking for. Perhaps you have searched all over town to find the right item to solve your problem, and found out that they didn’t have what you were looking for. However, after explaining your dilemma, they could offer you a better a solution than you had thought of yourself.

 

Sometimes it is that way when we go to the hospital or the doctor’s clinic. We think we know what we need and are sure that they will provide it, only to find out that we really needed something different, and were ever so grateful that they could provide the correct treatment and cure.

 

That is what happened, not only to this man with his dying son, but to all in Galilee who came to believe in Jesus, and to us also. Even though Jesus has to redirect the man to go back home to his son, there he will find what he is searching for. There he will find his child alive. “Go, your son will live” (John 4:50). The man searched out Jesus to come and provide a healing. Jesus sent him home alone and provided life.

 

What is the difference? It became clear when the man found out that his dying son had miraculously recovered at the same hour when Jesus had told him that his son would live. Later when the sisters of Lazarus come to Jesus with the identical request that He come to their dying brother. They find out that they did not need Jesus to come to provide a healing. What they needed was for their brother to have life. And just as Jesus gave life to the man’s dying boy, He gave life to Lazarus who had been dead for four days.

 

The difference was between Jesus as healer and Jesus as life. It is a difference between Jesus Himself as a sign of where healing can be found, and Jesus Himself as the very life that we seek. He told Martha, “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). Do you believe this?

 

What the signs point us toward is not Jesus as another sign of healing from disease or a sign of rescue from the threat of death, or a sign to relieve any of our distresses. Rather, the signs point us to Jesus who is not another sign, but life itself. He is the divine life. He is God, come to mankind to give His life so that we may have His life.

 

The prophets Elijah and Elishah brought life to dead children (1, 2 Kings) and it was a sign that the word that they spoke was truth. They prophesied and their words were from God and they pointed toward salvation being sent from God. Jesus brought life to dead children and to grown men, not as a sign, but as that life and salvation to which the prophets and all the Word of God pointed. Jesus’ healings and resurrections were not signs to point in a direction, or signs to tell people that they had arrived where there distresses might be eased. Rather, the signs that point to Jesus are signs that He has come; that God has come to give life to His people.

 

In the following chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus points out this difference between the sign and the salvation to which it points. He said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

 

Jesus not only healed people on the brink of death, not only restored those who had died, not only brought back to life those who were dead and decaying in their graves, but He Himself passed through death to life. He died upon the cross for all of your sins and bore the punishment of death that God imposes for every sin. Fully dying your death, it was not until the third day that Jesus rose to life and fully conquered sin, death, and the grave for you.

 

Signs do not save. They only point you to where salvation can be found. Jesus is here not to point you to a way of salvation, but because He is your salvation. He turned water into wine not so that people would come to Him when they run short of alcohol, but so that they know He is the creator of all things. Jesus did signs of healing, not so that we would come to Him only to heal our broken lives, but so that we may know that He is our life.

 

He is the life who gives life to the world. He is the life that overcomes the disease and death of this life. He is the life that always is and who gives eternal life to all who believe in Him. The man’s boy lived because Jesus is life. The granting of life to the boy is a sign for us to believe not that we might ask Jesus to give us something, but that we would know that Jesus Himself is the life.

 

At the end of the Gospel of John, the Evangelist tells us why he recorded these events: “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 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30-31).

 

Not only did the little boy live, having been healed by Jesus’ word spoken from far away in another town, but the healing of the boy also gave life to his father. The sign of the healing pointed to Jesus as the life that is eternal and victorious over death. The man believed Jesus to be the life that God wishes to give to all who are distressed, and so by believing the man had that very life. Furthermore, we are told that his whole household believed, and so not only was the man’s little boy saved from death, but his whole household was given eternal life through faith in Jesus.

 

We have our distresses in life, and we look for signs which would tell us where to turn in order to have life less distressed. Search the Scriptures (the Word of God) and see where it directs you to find a life that does not die, a life that conquers death, a life that removes the shame and disgrace and punishment of your sin. Jesus is the life that these distresses cannot overcome. “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have this life, in His name.”