Gospel
At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee.
For Jesus himself testified
that a prophet has no honor in his native place.
When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him,
since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast;
for they themselves had gone to the feast.
Then he returned to Cana in Galilee,
where he had made the water wine.
Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum.
When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea,
he went to him and asked him to come down
and heal his son, who was near death.
Jesus said to him,
“Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
The royal official said to him,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.”
The man believed what Jesus said to him and left.
While the man was on his way back,
his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live.
He asked them when he began to recover.
They told him,
“The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.”
The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him,
“Your son will live,”
and he and his whole household came to believe.
Now this was the second sign Jesus did
when he came to Galilee from Judea.
How many times have we reached the end of our rope? How often do we find ourselves without recourse? With no solution available. Where we are struggling and have exhausted all other avenues… that is where the royal official was. He saw no way forward and his son was dying.
And at this place where relief had not been available anywhere else he went to Jesus. We are told this was the second sign that Jesus did when he came to Galilee. The people there knew of the first sign at the wedding in Galilee. So the official had hope. And he believed. His faith was small but absolute. And when he learned the boy was healed he and his family grew in faith.
This journey is our journey too. Often it is when there is nothing else and no one else to turn to that we grow in faith.
As we grow we change. We begin to learn to trust in God first. To live each day in faith that God will provide.
Where are we this Lent. Do we still put more faith, at least at first, in our own will and our own remedies? Do we only seek God when we are without other solutions.
Let us grow our faith like the official and become more trusting in God and trusting in his love for others. His plans and ways may be different that what we had planned. But God says to give him everything. Our hopes and desires. Place them all in his hands. Tell him our struggles and our joys. He wants all of us.
Then we wil begin living as children of God with our lives following his way and his path set for us.
Deacon Tony Pynes 
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