Fresh Eyes On Jesus' Miracles - Healing The Man's SonSample

Consider that immeasurably brief moment just before the beginning when there was nothing and then there was something. Is it really possible for something—energy or matter—to come out of nothing without the causal action of a nonmaterial entity? People who trust Scripture’s testimony believe God’s Word sheds light on that shadowed moment just as the universe began. Whatever you may believe about the timing of creation events, Holy Scripture declares one paramount fact: the only true God created everything by the power of His word. Keep this in mind as we focus on the miracle of Jesus healing the royal official’s dying son. But first, to see this text with fresh eyes, you must paradoxically and intentionally put yourself in the dark. Sometimes in order to see what you’ve never seen before, you have to forget whatever you’ve heard before. Think of it this way. When you watch a movie with a surprise ending the second time, you can no longer be surprised. You probably won’t watch with rapt attention as you did the first time. You might even go get a snack while the movie still plays, because you know you won’t miss anything. In the same way, we tend to read familiar Scripture passages with less than rapt attention. So, the secret to approaching this and many other familiar passages is to pretend you’ve never read it before and you don’t know how it turns out. That’s hard to do, but as you will see in this case, everything hangs on not knowing what you already know. This miracle began with a royal official whose son was dying in Capernaum, a town about eighteen miles from where Jesus was staying in Cana. In a last-ditch attempt to save his son’s life, the royal official sought out Jesus to ask Him to go back with him and heal his son. That’s as far as we should go now or else we will start dragging in ideas we need to forget. You’ll see what I mean as we dig deeper over the next few days.