Did you know that the pastors at Easter Lutheran Church (I’m one of them) record a weekly podcast where we discuss the text for the upoming weekend’s worship service? Oh yes, we do. Enjoy this one on the healing story of John 5:1-18. Below I will contrast this story with the one that comes just before it in John 4.

Comparing Stories

Jesus heals the son of a royal official in John 4:46-54. The scene takes place in Cana of Galilee. This is the same town where Jesus turned the water into wine; his first sign. Since then Jesus has proclaimed that God loves the whole world (John 3:16-17), not just the religious leaders in Jerusalem. We saw that Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-42. She represented the world.

The same thing happens in this story. The man is identified as a royal official. This means he is either, a) a non-Jewish Roman citizen who has been planted in Galilee to rule the people, or b) a member of the Herodian Dynasty, which was a quasi-Jewish puppet government of the Roman Empire. Either way, he would not be considered among the “in crowd” by the relgious establishment.

Yet, he trusts Jesus so completely that he believes he can heal his son long distance. That’s exactly what Jesus does. The man’s entire household trusted Jesus. 

Two foreigners–the Samaritan woman and the Royal Official–each embodied trust and their entire clan was transformed.

The next story takes us back to Jerusalem. Remember, John uses geography to teach. What happens in Galilee demonstrates the abundance of God’s vision for the whole world. What happens in Jerusalem exposes the blindness of the religious establishment. 

Jesus heals a man and two levels of blindness are exposed. First, the religious leaders can only see a legal infraction. You aren’t supposed to carry your mat on the Sabbath. Seriously, that’s all they cared about after witnessing the healing of a man that had been lame for 38 years?!?

Secondly, the man himself remained in the dark. He never recognized who Jesus truly was. It never says the man trusted Jesus. It only tells us that he called Jesus out to the leaders, like he was tattling.

What do you think these two stories tell us about Jesus’ message?