Sermons
February 15, 2026 (Transfiguration)
“At that very moment…”
John 4:46-54
In this text, we’re back in Cana.
Most scholars see the first twelve books of the Fourth Gospel as the “Book of Signs,” in which Jesus does things that cause others to know who he is and believe in him. And within that “Book of Signs,” according to some scholars, there is a discrete section from the beginning of chapter 2 through the end of chapter 4, bookended by the first and second of the seven signs taking place at Cana. I’m not sure I agree, because it would require some cohesion among the episodes contained between the two Cana stories, and I don’t know that there is. But in any case, we do have two sign stories that are set in the village of Cana.
The first one, you’ll remember, happens at a wedding, where Jesus changes a massive amount of water into fine wine to keep the hosts from suffering embarrassment and keep the party going. In that story, only a few servants and Jesus’ disciples have any idea what has happened, they don’t entirely understand, but even so they believe in him. And in today’s story, similarly, the “sign” happens in such a way that only a few people know about it.
In the story, a man who probably works for King Herod—most likely a Gentile—comes to Jesus asking him to return with him to Capernaum, where his son (or possibly a very young slave; the text isn’t totally clear) is gravely ill. And as happened at the wedding, Jesus’ response seems to our modern ears to be sort of rude. It’s sort of a non sequitur, honestly: the man has come asking for Jesus to heal his son, presumably because he believes Jesus can help, even though he hasn’t seen any signs yet, and Jesus says, “You won’t believe unless you see signs”?
But because of the way English works, as compared to the way ancient Greek worked, we miss that “you” in Jesus’ response is plural. He isn’t necessarily talking to the official. We might imagine him looking over his shoulder at a group of people who are watching and waiting to see what Jesus will do before they decide what they think of him.
The royal official isn’t interested in being some kind of object lesson, though. He has a sick boy, and he is afraid the child is about to die. He is desperate, which is clear in how he speaks to Jesus. “Lord, please come with me before my son dies!”
As often happens in these early signs, Jesus doesn’t do anything particularly dramatic. He just tells the man, “Go on home; the boy will be fine.” And the man doesn’t argue, doesn’t ask how it could possibly be so when Jesus isn’t going with him to see the boy, lay hands on him, or whatever it is that healers are supposed to do. He simply believes what Jesus tells him and heads home.
And when he gets there, he finds that indeed his son is on the road to recovery.
This is where the story gets really interesting.
The man asks his servants, “What time did he turn the corner?” And they tell him, “His fever broke at 1:00 yesterday afternoon.” He recognizes that that was the precise moment when Jesus sent him home with the promise that his son would be okay. He knows that isn’t a coincidence, but a sign of who Jesus was and what he was able to do. And he believed that Jesus was the Son of God, the Christ, the One who the Jews were expecting to come into the world.
When he told his family and his servants that it was at exactly the same moment the boy’s fever broke that Jesus had said the little fellah would be fine, they also believed. Again it was just a few people together in one house who understood the sign and believed in Jesus.
The folks in Cana may well never have heard about it; they might have heard the conversation between Jesus and this royal official, but did they ever find out what came of it? We don’t know. All we know is that the royal official and his household believed.
In another Gospel, Jesus told a couple of parables describing what the kingdom of God was like. It’s like a handful of sourdough starter that a woman—inexplicably—hides in a sack of flour; before long that whole sack of flour is sourdough and it fills the house.[1] It’s like a tiny seed, which falls into the ground and is forgotten, and then it grows into not just a fairly good-sized weed, but an abnormally large specimen of that weed, big enough to house whole families of birds.[2]
In Acts 17 we learn of Paul going into the city of Athens, speaking to a bunch of folks on Mars Hill about Jesus, and then going on his way having only converted two or three people.
And back in the first chapter of John we have a few people who leave John the Baptist to follow Jesus, and they go and get a few more to join them. Earlier in chapter 4 a woman has a conversation with Jesus, then goes and brings folks from her town to meet him.
You start to see a pattern, don’t you. The Christian church began with a handful of people, a few folks here and there who come to believe, and each of them tells a few more. The word about Jesus spreads, and sometimes people hear it who never knew him in person, never saw him perform a sign, never heard him speak a single word. Yet they come to believe also, just like the royal official’s household in today’s story.
I’d venture to guess most of the folks in the community for which John wrote the story never met Jesus in person. But the Fourth Gospel, which like the other three tells stories of Jesus’ life, his death, and his resurrection, under the surface is actually describing Jesus’ ongoing presence within that community.
Similarly, very few of us, if any, can say we have ever met Jesus in person, ever literally saw him perform signs or heard him teach, and yet we experience in some way his ongoing presence with us every day, and we believe in him.
Paul tells us that we are the body of Christ—we are Jesus’ ongoing presence in the world now. And therefore, what we say and do outside these brick walls shows the world more signs that Jesus is the Son of God, and that we belong to him and he works through us. And through us, others may come to believe in him.
It’s a pretty big responsibility, don’t you think?
[1] Matthew 13:33
[2] Matthew 13:31-32