I got it. I got there and laid the weight of my heart at his feet.
“Jesus, come to my house and cure my dying son”.
His response was sort of expected. Though he didn’t spit on me he also seemed to have denied my request. But his denial was not as I anticipated. I thought the denial would be of the kind you get when you ask a wall to dinner. Your words bounce straight back and hit you in the face and then you eat alone. But Jesus hadn’t ignored my existence or even my words. He responded. And even his response was unexpected. Instead of calling me a fool or spitting the words “rich man” in my direction, he seemed to have spoken to me like I was the same as everyone in the crowd.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus said, “you will never believe.”
Yes, he denied me, but he saw me, first of all, as equal to those around me. Needless to say I was stunned. As I said I’ve been spit on and insulted, but never called poor or faithless. Jesus said this to me, to us, though I had never been led to believe there was an us.
I could hardly gather my self. All that was left standing from this peculiar push of Jesus was the cry of my heart for the life of my son. And it was with a voice betraying more of this cry than I had hoped that I spoke.
“Sir,” I replied, “come down before my child dies.”
In a flash the atmosphere shifted from confusion and dismay to ferocity. The tremor in my voice affected the crowd like a downed deer might affect a hungry lion. But it was just a flash after all. Every eye was fixed on Jesus even as he reprimanded them and these eyes had only begun to turn onto me when his countenance completely changed. It was terribly ironic, that my own life seemed so seriously imperiled as I pleaded for the saving of my son, but it really felt as if it could leave me any second due to my affliction.
The crowd, yet to fully shift their attention from Jesus, perceived the relaxing of the muscles, the softening of those ever-hardening lines and perhaps, even, the slightest shadow of a smile pass across that well of mystery that was the face of Jesus.
“Go home,” said Jesus, “your son will live.”
Never has my life hung so literally on the words of another. Never have I seen so clearly the eternity that exists in between moments of time. Having (against all odds!) made it through eternity and hearing what he said I was brought to the crossroads upon which my son hung. No Rabbi has ever thought so much in so little time as I did in those few seconds of silence. “Go home,” he said to me. Go home? Was he yanking my yamaka? Were those stories racing across Judaea and Galilee stories of Jesus telling people to leave? No they weren’t! He touched people with his hands, he spoke to them, he prayed over them, and they were changed, delivered, healed. Was I asking something new or different or that he hadn’t heard? Was I a type of person he had yet to come across? That’s quite unlikely for someone like him whose been hanging around Jerusalem during the Passover and traveling the countryside. So what was it? Really, I have yet to know. Perhaps it was my desperation, my vulnerability, or my request that provoked such an unusual response from Jesus. But he had responded. And I will never forget the look on his face when he did.
Suddenly it became clear that there was no better thing to do in that moment than to take Jesus at his word. Indeed, to this day I have yet to come across a word so worthy of my life, even the life of my son.
The ride home was agonizing. Not fearfully agonizing. No, my son would live. That much was true. But I could hardly wait to see him! I had all but given up hope of ever seeing his life restored, and now it was. And then I saw dust approaching from the distance. As it grew closer I realized it was my servants. As they grew closer I could see the urgency of their riding. And then they met me, telling me of the recovery of my son. Of course he was recovered. That much was expected, but I hadn’t thought of the effect it would have on my entire household. I asked them when the fever left him, they said yesterday at the seventh hour, the exact time Jesus had said it would. I told them and my household the story of my encounter, much to the dismay of my servants, and my conviction became theirs. This Jesus, the center of swirling mystery, who was coming to be known as the leader of the weak, the Rabbi to the poor, transcended all the stories and sayings. He was the leader of the weak and poor but my experience told of a man doing more than gathering an army or winning the masses. Jesus was starting his own movement directed not exclusively toward the poor, but toward anyone who would trust his word, his very person. Jesus is the Chosen One of God, and as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
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