This sermon was originally preached at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Sunday, November 9, 2025.
Text: John 4:46-54
“Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
Faith is a mystery. It’s a deep mystery of the human heart. What does it mean that a person has faith? And why is it that some people have faith and others don’t? Or that some have it and then they lose it? And how does a person acquire faith to begin with? How does it begin to take root in the heart?
There’s no straightforward answer to these questions, not least because there’s such a diversity in the way that Christian people come to faith. Some people are raised in church and in an atmosphere of piety. And they never remember a time when God was absent from their life. They’ve believed for as long as they can remember. And so, their spiritual growth in many ways went along with their physical growth.
But for other people, they did not have faith growing up. And it was only later in life that they came to faith. And it wasn’t something that was gradual and imperceptible, but something sudden and noticeable, perhaps a dramatic conversion experience.
So there’s all different kinds of ways that people come to faith. And these questions aren’t made easier by the fact that we believe a lot more than we’re able to express. And we see this especially in the faith of children. Children can have faith and they know a lot of things— and not just spiritual things, I mean, they know a lot of things about the world and about life and about themselves. They know a lot more than they can say. And so even if they’re not able to articulate their beliefs as eloquently as some adults, that doesn’t mean that the faith isn’t there.
So faith is a mystery. And in our Gospel reading today, although it doesn’t give us all the answers, it can be seen as a case study in how faith is born in a person’s heart, how it grows, and how it reaches maturity.
St. John tells of the royal official (older translations say a nobleman) whose son is terminally ill, and who comes to Jesus seeking a healing. This man was likely a Jew, a servant of the royal court of Herod Antipas, the Jewish governor appointed by Rome. The nobleman was distinguished, a man of importance. His son is ill and at the point of death, and like so many stories of healings in the Gospels, the man has heard of Jesus, the wonderworking healer of Galilee. He approaches the Lord and begs him to heal his son.
And Our Lord’s response might seem unexpected or even harsh to us. “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
This is different from similar situations in the Gospels. Often when Jesus is informed of someone’s illness, he says, “I will go and heal them,” like with the centurion’s slave or Jairus’ daughter. But here he seems to rebuke the man.
We must understand this response in the context of what St. John has just told us. Jesus has returned to Galilee from Jerusalem, where he cleansed the temple for the first time. This is after he turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cana. So St. John writes that the Galileans welcomed him. They liked the signs he was doing, the symbolic demonstrations, the miracles. And so, they received him gladly.
The people of Galilee were hungry for “signs”— they wanted to see something eventful; they wanted spectacle. And it’s this dependence on the miraculous that Jesus criticizes. They weren’t excited because of who Jesus was but because of the amazing things he could do. The hunger for spectacle, for experiences, can be dangerous, because even Satan can work miracles and disguise himself as an angel of light. If signs and wonders produce awe, but not faith, then they have failed.
So Jesus is responding to this hunger for spectacle in the Galileans. “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” And the “you” here is plural: Unless “you people” “you-all” see signs and wonders, you-all will not believe. He’s addressing not the man only but the community.
Jesus’ response is a challenge to the nobleman: Why are you really asking this of me? Will you believe in me only if you see me work a miracle? In other words, Do you really have faith? Or are you depending on sight, on seeing something spectacular?
But the man persists: “Sir, come down before my child dies.” He expresses to Jesus his genuine concern for his son. He’s not asking because he wants to see something miraculous. He’s asking because he wants his son to be healed.
So Jesus grants his request. He heals the man’s son— but from a distance. He only gives him the promise: “Go, your son will live.” That is, Go back to see that the healing has taken place.
Now this is the man’s opportunity to prove that he really does have faith, that he doesn’t need to see before he believes. Jesus could have said, “Ok, I’ll come down with you and heal the boy.” Instead he says, “Go, your son will live.” He’s sending the man back home with nothing but his word.
And if the man objects, and says, “Well, I’d really like for you to come in person so I can see you heal him” then that just proves what Jesus was saying: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”
The nobleman takes this to heart. “He believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went his way.” He makes the journey from Cana to Capernaum, about forty miles, so at least a day and a half journey on foot, maybe two. And when he’s making that journey, it could be that doubts begin to creep in. “Is my son actually going to be healed? Am I going all the way back home with nothing but this man’s assurance, and then finally arrive, just to find that he’s died? Is this real?” He could have had the whole drama of faith on that long journey: belief, doubt, uncertainty, reassurance, doubt again.
But finally he arrives home and finds that his son is alive and his condition is improving. He asks the hour he began to mend, and he’s told, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” That is, at 1 pm yesterday. And the father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, Your son will live. And so the nobleman believed, along with his household.
We see in this story how faith begins, how it grows, and how it reaches maturity. St. Bede, that great historian of the English Church, writes in his commentary on this passage: “The nobleman’s faith had its beginning, when he asked for his son’s recovery; its growth, when he believed our Lord’s words, Thy son liveth; its maturity, after the announcement of the fact by his servants.”
Faith had its beginning when he sought out the Lord— if he didn’t believe Jesus could heal his son, he wouldn’t have sought him out. His faith grew after the Lord challenged him to have faith without seeing, and he believed Jesus’ word. And his faith was brought to maturity after he finally saw what he had believed in, when the servants told him the boy was healed. And he came to believe, not just in the miracle, but in the person who worked the miracle— in Jesus.
So even though faith is a mystery, we can see something of how it begins, how it grows, and how it reaches maturity. And we can follow the same course as the nobleman.
First, faith begins in us when we have a desire for the Lord. When we seek out the Lord Jesus. And this desire is given to us by God; it is a gift of his grace. But without the desire, without the seeking, faith can’t begin in the heart. We have to seek out the Lord like the nobleman.
Secondly, we must believe in the Lord’s word. When he makes a promise, we must believe it. And to believe in his Word is not always an easy thing. Jesus may send us on our way with no more than a promise. “Go.” And then we have to make a long journey before what we’ve asked him for is ours. And during that long journey, there might be doubts, questionings, feeling certain and then not certain and then coming back around and feeling confident again— the whole inner drama of faith. But we have to be persistent. The Lord lets us make that journey so that we can learn to grow in our faith, without seeing anything tangible for a long time. This is how faith can grow, how we can retain a firm hope even in long seasons when heaven seems to be silent.
And finally, our faith reaches maturity when we finally have what we have asked of the Lord. We will see the Lord’s promises to us come to pass, but it may not be for a while. And it is faith that sustains us on the way, until it finally gives way to sight, and hope gives way to possession.
So whatever it is you’re facing in your life, continue to seek the Lord. Ask. Seek. Knock. Be persistent. Be importunate. And if the Lord doesn’t answer immediately or in the way you’d prefer, continue in the faith. Persist.
The Lord’s promises will be fulfilled, and the journey toward the fulfillment is a time when our faith can grow, when our trust can grow. Then our faith can come to maturity— we will come to believe not in signs and wonders, but in Jesus himself: the true Sign of the purposes of God— the true Wonder before whom all creation bends its knee. Amen.
The Pulpit and the Altar 