By Pastor Greg
A man was driving along the
highway when he saw the Easter Bunny hopping across the middle of the
road. He swerved to avoid hitting him,
but unfortunately, the rabbit jumped in front of his car. He heard the sickening “thump” and saw the
basket of eggs fly all over the place.
Candy, too. The driver pulled
over to the side of the road and got out to see what had happened. Much to his dismay, the rabbit was dead. The driver began to cry. A woman driving down the same highway saw the
man crying on the side of the road and pulled over. When she asked the man what was wrong, he
sobbed, "I feel terrible. I
accidentally hit the Easter Bunny and killed it. There may not be an Easter for the children
because me. What should I do?” The woman told the man not to worry. She went to her car, pulled out a spray can,
then walked over to the limp, dead Bunny, and sprayed him with the entire
contents of the can. Miraculously the Easter
Bunny came to back life. He jumped up,
picked up the spilled eggs and candy, waved its paw and hopped on down the
road. Fifty feet away he stopped, turned
around, waved and hopped on down the road.
Then in another 50 feet, he did it again! He continued to stop and wave every 50 feet
until he was out of sight. The man was
astonished. "What in heaven's name
is in your spray can?” he asked. “What
was it that you sprayed on the Easter Bunny?”
The woman turned the can around so that the man could read the
label. It said, "Hairspray.
Restores life to dead hair. Adds
permanent wave."
Wait! Why are you laughing? Do you think this is a joke? Do you think I’m making this up? Perhaps you’d believe if you had seen it with
your own eyes. “Seeing is believing,” they say.
However, blessed are those who believe without seeing. Yet, we are rather skeptical people, are we
not? We want proof. Take, for instance, a royal official from
Capernaum. Only after he witnessed a
miracle did he finally believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
46 Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water
wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 When
he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was
imploring Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. 48 So
Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will
not believe.” 49 The royal official said to Him, “Sir, come
down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son
lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. 51 As
he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living. 52 So
he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to
him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 So
the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son
lives”; and he himself believed and his
whole household. 54 This is again a second sign that Jesus
performed when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.[1]
This royal official already had
belief and faith. First, the royal
official believed that Jesus could
heal his son. That’s why he made the 20-mile
journey to Cana (verse 47), he believed Jesus could do something to
help. Next, he believed what Jesus said (verse 50). Jesus said the boy was healed, and this man believed
it to be true. Yet his faith and belief frustrated
Jesus (verse 48). Look closely at verse
53. John says that after his son was
healed, only then did the man and his family believe. But “what” did they believe? I mean, the man already believed Jesus could
heal his son and that He would heal his son.
So the “belief” mentioned in verse 53 must mean something more. No longer did this man merely place his faith
in the fact that Jesus could perform
a miracle or that He would. Instead, his faith was placed in the Man himself; that Jesus was indeed the
Messiah. His faith in Jesus was anchored
where it needed to be, and it was this belief
that truly transformed this man’s life.
I think there are many Christians
today who have the same kind of faith this official had at the beginning. “Sure I believe in Jesus,” many will claim. “I believe
He is real, that He is the Son of God, that He
suffered and died on the cross, that He
rose again from the grave, and that He is coming back again.” However,
these “confessions of faith” only speak about who Jesus is, or what happened in
His life. They do not mention how these
things affect our own lives. His death
and resurrection are more than a historic
event for they were directed toward you and me.
You and I need to recognize the
cross for what it is. It needs to become
personal. We need to believe that the Lord died for us,
personally. He looked into your heart
and, out of love, allowed Himself to be crucified. He died in your place. You also need to keep in mind that your sin
held Him there. After all, remember what
Jesus told Nicodemus. He said that
humanity is dying (John 3:15), that because of sin, humanity does not have
eternal life. The Lord told Nicodemus
that the only way to escape death is to believe in Him. Jesus is the only one who can heal us from
sin. Knowing this, Jesus offered His
life to be a ransom, a sacrifice for you.
This is what the Messiah was sent to do, and this is what the royal
official finally believed; not that Jesus could do a miracle, but that He was
the Messiah – the giver of life.
This is where our faith and belief
need to be anchored. Although it is a
difficult concept to believe, the Messiah’s death covers our sin. His death offered eternal life for all humanity.
Oh, I know this is a difficult concept to grasp. It might even sound like a wild story, yet to receive eternal life, we must believe
this. We need to believe that Jesus is
the Messiah; that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We need to believe
that without Jesus, we will never find eternal life. We need to place our life in the hands of Jesus. This belief – this faith – is what grants us
eternal life.
I think most of us are a lot like
this royal official. It takes a crisis for our faith in Jesus to grow. Sometimes it takes a miracle for us to reach this level of faith – not a
faith that Jesus is real, that He died, and rose again – but a faith that believes His death grants us eternal
life. Often times we need to be broken
before we believe
that our sin is real and we have no other hope than the Messiah. Only once we lose all hope do we finally
realize that “All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We
have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of
us all” [2]
(Isaiah 53:6). However, I am praying
that you believe just because the Lord has made you this
promise; that you would be spared the
trial or the crisis; that you would not need to be broken but would be counted
among those who are blessed. “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed”,[3]
says the Lord.
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