General Idea:
After having stayed in Samaria for two days, Jesus ventured back to His hometown of Galilee. During this journey, Jesus arrived at Cana, where He performed His first public miracle—turning the water into wine. There, He encountered a government official whose son was very sick, who begged Jesus to help and to heal him. It was the passionate plea of a desperate father seeking any help he could get; and the One of True Help was right there in his midst! Jesus started to follow him to where the sick child was, in Capernaum. Yet, Jesus was perplexed and even upset that people just wanted a show of signs and wonders without the real Wonder that went with it. They wanted the show without the substance. Since this is where Jesus grew up, where He and His father had their carpentry business, and where people knew Him as the carpenter, they were not willing to see Him as more than a carpenter. They did not show belief or the essential, forerunning aspect that goes before faith. Jesus saw the faith in this official but not in his own people. Then, He told him to go ahead home, where his son had been healed, as Jesus said, your son will live, and the official saw this become fact. In so doing, his faith was not just mere belief; it was faith and reason that spread to his entire family.

Contexts and Background:
The coming chapters will testify what real true healing is all about, that Jesus nailed our debt of sin to the Cross! He paid a debt that we could never afford to do by any means conceivable—not by works, or ideas, or experiences, or education, or service, or being good. If these things could add even an insignificant amount to our debt of grace, then Christ’s work on the cross would have been unnecessary and meaningless because we could have done it on our own! Our saving faith is by Christ alone—nothing to add, and nothing to declare except to receive His most precious free gift of grace by our faith alone— period! The question inlayed in this passage is what will we do now? How then shall we live?

Devotional Thoughts:
John chapter four is asking us if we should choose to do what is right or what others say is right. Do we go outside of our own cultural and racial boundaries so we can relate to others? We have to see that the Gospel is about relationships and the impacting, redeeming power of our Lord. It is not about traditions or culture or a show. Christianity is cross-cultural and deeply impacting; it is more concerned with people than with customs. It is not about easy belief; rather, it is about the impact of our Lord going deeply within us, so He is displayed and deployed outside of us. Here is Jesus calling for us to cross our social and personal barriers to pursue people with a faith that is real, deep, and strong. Jesus transcended His and her culture to minister to a person who would not have been associated with or helped. In so doing, He cut across strict cultural barriers of race and gender, pointing us to the unity and impact of the Gospel. Our Lord engaged in conversation with a moral outcast and showed mercy to a public official, modeling for us the proper approach with which a man relates to a woman and to someone in authority: with gentleness and kindness and in respect. He practices what he calls us to: listening, valuing, caring, and conviction, all converging with the Gospel.
Jesus is directing us to look around and consider all the opportunities He has provided. What stops us? Is it our culture? Is it our fear? What about our past failures? Our expectations? Can we see what He has for us, the wonders of His grace and new life? Can we see His plan unfolding in front of us? Can we walk by faith, even when we are not sure where He is leading? Or, do we even see what is around us? Is the barrier so tall it blocks out the Son? Perhaps we are too busy running from what is ahead, taking the long road in a desert of despair and hopelessness. Our expectations must be in the reality and veracity of who Jesus Christ is, His perfection and activity, and what He came to do for us.