Is Seeing Really Believing?

The Sea of Galilee. It was the setting for a number of Jesus’ miracles like the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus’ stroll on the water, and nearby, his first miracle in Cana, where he saved a wedding when he turned water into wine.

But when we talk about the wedding miracle at Cana, we often forget the other miracle that happened there on Jesus’ next visit to the region.

A royal official heard that Jesus was back in Cana, and he was desperate to see him. His son was deathly ill in Capernaum, about twenty miles away, so the dignitary journeyed to Jesus in Cana, and begged him to come and heal his son.

“Sir, come down before my child dies.” “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live” (John 4:49-50).

Then Scripture says the man took Jesus at his word and departed. On the way home, the man’s servants delivered the news he longed for. His boy was living, and was healed at the exact time Jesus said to him, “Your son will live.” So because of this, he and his entire household believed in Jesus.

Aren’t we like the official from Capernaum? To be true followers of Jesus, we have to believe what he says without seeing. We can’t physically speak to, or touch Jesus today, so we have to take him at his word. But there was still an element of doubt in this story. If you pay careful attention to the message about the royal official, he didn’t fully believe until he was told the healing took place exactly when Jesus said, “your son will live.” What if his son had gotten well ten minutes before, or ten minutes after Jesus’ words? I wonder if he would have credited Jesus with the healing, or would it have been coincidence?

Jesus still performs miracles and heals, but half the battle is believing he can do it, and then believing he did it. Over my lifetime, I have been occasionally called to lay hands on someone who is sick, but I have found that when they make a miraculous recovery, they often don’t give credit to the supernatural.  Even though their cancer goes into remission, the tumors shrink, the gangrene diminishes, and the blood pressure goes down.

Is it because the healing didn’t happen at the moment of prayer? Is it because Jesus healed them gradually? Did they not understand that the illness changed direction as they were prayed over?

If there is healing, there has to be participation through believing.

When Jesus healed the ten men with leprosy, he told them to go show themselves to the priests. They did what Jesus asked, and as they were walking, they were healed, because they acted on faith.

When some bold men lowered their paralyzed friend through the roof to place him in front of Jesus, Jesus saw their faith and healed him. You have to discern the paralyzed man believed, or he would have never let his friends go to such extreme measures.

Jesus does not choose to heal everyone, but I think we have to trust he still can, even though he is not physical walking the earth right now.

In this case, seeing is not believing. We must believe even though we don’t see. (LBW)