Let’s Get Our Hopes Up

I’m sure we’ve all experienced the very common misreading the tone of a text message. I think I’ve done that with one of Jesus’ lines in today’s gospel. First of all it says that he had just come through Samaria from his hometown where his friends and neighbors rejected him big time. In Samaria he was able to minister to a woman that desperately needed living water and just to be loved by a good man, and because of his kindness, she introduced an entire town to Jesus, Messiah. From there, Jesus wanted to go back to the place where it all began for him, Cana. Perhaps Jesus was being sentimental after being rejected at home. I know for me sometimes I just need to spend time in a place that has special meaning just to get back to center, don’t you? Cana was where he performed his first miracle and maybe Jesus needed to do some reflecting on how his ministry began and where it has come since. Rejection tends to tenderize my heart a lot and I find myself a bit nostalgic for the “good ole days”. (This is, of course, my own interpretation of the scene) 

A royal official got word that Jesus was in the area and because of his reputation throughout that region, the water to wine guy, he wanted to get a miracle of his own. Isn’t that how it works? When we hear about other people’s miraculous healings, when we study the lives of the saints, when we see Jesus’ working in others, we want what they have. The royal official wanted his son to be changed from dying to alive. People’s testimony of the miraculous activates the faith in others. It’s a thing, so share your miraculous stories with one another! When the official asked Jesus to come down to Capernaum to heal his son, Jesus responded, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” And there is the text message that I think I have read incorrectly all my life. I always put a bit of a snarky tone behind this because of the “you people” bit, however, this morning from that place of tender heartedness and sentimentality, it feels like Jesus is reminiscing, “Oh yeah, this is where my first miracle took place so of course they expect the miraculous, and they should!” What would really help us understand that line of text would be a light bulb emoji, just sayin’. We can and should EXPECT the miraculous. We have all the stories of healing in the gospels, we have real life examples of signs and wonders, we know people that have been healed, saved, rehabilitated, and we have seen the miraculous with our own eyes, therefore, we should expect miracles, just like the royal official did in today’s gospel. Expectation requires a faith that stands on the shoulders of witness. Once you’ve witnessed signs and wonders, you expect them, and the more signs and wonders you expect, the more you will witness!!! I know I’ve heard things like, “let’s not get our hopes up,” or “don’t give that sick person a false sense of hope”, and it hurts my heart because the very definition hope is expecting something unlikely and if we can’t have hope then faith and love also go out the window because they are a package deal! Hope or expectation in the miraculous is the anchor of our virtue. 

After Jesus’ light bulb emoji moment, the official tried to persuade him to come down, knowing that his presence alone was needed, and Jesus healed his son in that moment because of his expectation and faith. When we put ourselves in the presence of Christ and expect miracles, we stir his heart in the same way. He knows that we need signs and wonders to believe and he is constantly sprinkling our lives with these things. I know that I need to step up my expectation, my confidence in his will to heal all things, and my belief that he will do so. Today’s gospel reminds me the importance of hope and how it remains at the center of faith and love. Here is a piece I wrote about hope that might capture it: 

 Faith leads to hope, and love flows from hope, 

but hope resides in the middle of both. 

Hope binds the mystery of faith to the testimony of love, 

and together a trinity of grace circles the soul 

singing you into wellness, 

cheering you to thrive, 

and catching you when you fall. 

It is well with my soul.