On Up the Road—Far in the Distance

Studies in the Gospel of John #11; John 4:46-54
September 29, 2013

Isaiah 42:16
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do. I will not forsake them.

Ephesians 1:11
In him we were also chosen (made heirs of God), having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.

On up the road, far in the distance
We can see the light, shining in the night
It’s penetrating, life’s heavy fog
Oh, it’s Jesus, He conquers all
His light shineth brightly, as we move close to Him
Yes in Him the light shall never grow dim
For there’s a brighter day, brighter day, brighter day ahead, A brighter day ahead.
(by the late Margaret Aikens-Jenkins,
“Brighter Day Ahead” 1958)

Keep your finger on these verses for a moment. Jesus had arrived in Cana of Galilee. He was in a safe place. Now he could rest. But, of course, Jesus had not come to rest, he came to save. Jesus did not come to hide. He came to give light. Jesus did not come to be searched for, he came to search us out, and guide us on the way to life. So before he could get comfortable in a chair, a nobleman from Jesus hometown, Capernaum, a Jew connected with one of the royal households came knocking. "Come back with me now to Capernaum and heal my son. He is about to die." The air of authority in the demand was obvious. This man spoke with a false consciousness, which he nevertheless believed, about his power and authority to get Jesus to do what he wanted him to do. But Jesus did not jump at the chance to please the royal or the crowd.

The distance by foot between the two towns is about 15 miles. This would mean that Jesus who had already traveled a distance of some 80 miles from Jerusalem over several days, would have to get up and go another 15 miles northeast with the royal. Jesus addressed him with another kind of authority--that of the Son of Man, the New Human Being, the Christ of God. In verse 50 we read that Jesus said to him, “Go, your son lives.”

“That’s it?” Is that all Jesus was going to do or say? He didn’t wave his arms. He didn’t cry out to God. He didn’t fall on his knees and call everyone in the room to an immediate intercession. All he said was “Go, your son lives?”

The NIV tries to soften it with the paraphrase, “Go, your son will live.” But that is not what Jesus said in the actual Greek. He just said, “Go! Your son, he lives.” We know that Jesus was tired but how could he be so insensitive? How could he not take this man’s need—to save his son’s life with the utmost urgency? How could Jesus ignore the authority and social station that this man had in Jesus' own home town, Capernaum? Why would Jesus not do what he wanted him to do--go back to Capernaum with him. No. Jesus looked at him and said, “Go—Your son lives.” Really?

As the crowd around him listened, Jesus seemed to respond with irritation, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” And then instead of doing what the man wanted him to do, Jesus did what God wanted him to do. Claiming his own authority and power from God, far beyond that of the royal official, Jesus sent him home in faith. "Go on home, God has acted already, God is way ahead of our needs, our desires, our situations."

What does God want us to do? God wants us to exercise and live in our power. God wants us to send people in faith. Let them know that God has made a river for us in the deserts of life. Let them know that God has turned the rough wildernesses of our lives into highways of blessing. Let the world know that—
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn
the darkness into light before them and make the
rough places smooth. These are the things I will do.
I will not forsake them.

I believe Jesus sent him home to Capernaum with the truth. Jesus said literally, “Go, your son, he lives.” When did the fever leave his son? The servant said “at one in the afternoon.” He remarked, that was the exact hour that Jesus said, “Go, your son lives.” We too easily conclude that John is trying to get us to believe that when Jesus spoke these words the boy was healed. I do not believe that to be the case.

Jesus did not say, “right now, I will heal him.” Jesus did not say, “Right now I will save his life.” Jesus said, “Go! Your son, he lives.” There is a double meaning here as in all prophetic utterance in God’s word. I believe John was affirming the resurrection of life that would be experienced in God’s raising Jesus from the dead. At the same time, John let’s us know that the man’s son was healed as the man traveled to Cana of Galilee to find Jesus to heal his son.

It was the royal official’s faith that God could heal his son that removed the fatal illness and restored his son to life. It was in the exercise of his own faith in the power of God that saved his son. Jesus was proclaiming the fact that his son had already recovered, and the fact that God is the God of the resurrection. God’s son lives. God’s children live. The children of life cannot die, will not see corruption, because through the Christ, God has decreed everlasting life, life eternal upon all who believe.

When Margaret Aikens wrote this song in 1958 she was a young woman. She had cut her musical teeth in the blues and jazz world of that time, so her lyrics and rhythm were crude and unacceptable for much of the Black American African churches. Many Black American African churches at the time were trying to have worship music that reflected our assimilation into white America. But I believe that God raised her up, and Sally Martin, and Albert Tindley and Charles Price Jones and Prof. Thomas Dorsey (“Precious Lord”) and hundreds of other musicians in the Spirit to give us the “songs of Zion,” the music of worship in our own cultural context.

I believe that God raised these musicians and this music up so that we would understand that if you come to God in truth, you don’t have to sing like the oppressor, those who think and that we in our former idolatry thought, were to be emulated and worshiped). Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby and Charles Wesley and countless other poets and musucians did the same thing in the 18th and 19th Centuries, putting the words of the Gospel and their experiences in Christ in the music of English taverns, pubs and American folk songs like Azmon and Duke Street. We still have these songs in our hymnals, but God has raised up musicians in our own culture to give these words new life through our own Black American African cultural forms and expressions.

We discovered through songs like “A Brighter Day Ahead” and “Walk in the Light” and “The Only Hope we have is in Christ Jesus” and “Beams of Heaven,” and the works Magnolia Lewis-Butts, Lucie Campbell, Kenneth Morris, Roberta Martin, M. C. Hammer, Walter and Edmond Hawkins and Andre Crouch and many others, that we do not need to copy the culture, the expression and the witness of another culture, another people, just because they happen to have the natural power in this world.

Through this new breed of Gospel musicians and those who were to follow, God proved that the words of Jesus to the woman at the well were true—“The time is coming when those who worship God will not have to copy the worship of the Jews, or the worship of the Samaritans, or the worship of the majority culture, but those who truly worship God will worship God IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.”

Her words are simple but powerful:
There’s a brighter day ahead, for Jesus has said,
if by him we will be led, There’s a brighter day ahead.
There’s a brighter day ahead, in God’s word we read,
if we trust him he said, there’s a brighter day ahead.
There’s a brighter day ahead, on the cross he bled,
and his blood for us he shed., there’ll be a brighter day
ahead. (And then the chorus): “On up the road . . . .”

Margaret Aikens-Jenkins went to glory in 2009, but her words inspired Dottie Peeples and Kiera Sheard as they have rewritten her song for new generations to come.

On up the road, far in the distance
We can see the light, shining in the night
It’s penetrating, life’s heavy fog
Oh, it’s Jesus, He conquers all
His light shineth brightly, as we move close to Him
Yes in Him the light shall never grow dim
For there’s a brighter day, brighter day,
brighter day ahead A brighter day ahead.

The royal returned home to find his son had recovered. He asked, when did he begin to recover? When did the fever leave him. His servant replied, “Yesterday, the seventh hour.” The royal remembered that it was exact time Jesus had said, “Go! Your son, he lives.” At that moment, he believed. His household believed. God was glorified. God had gone ahead of him. While he was on his way to Jesus, God had already accomplished the healing in his son. God went ahead of Israel, preparing manna in the wilderness, water from the rock, long before they felt hungry and thirsty, long before they had started to complain, long before they realized that they had needs that seemed to be unmet, God had supplied all their needs according to His riches in glory.

God has gone ahead of us. He has prepared the road we are yet to travel. He is doing a “new thing” in our lives and he is just getting started. Today we celebrate our past, with faith that the God who brought us this far on the way, is waiting for us “on up the road, far in the distance” with an eternal weight of glory.

We need do nothing more than get on the road of life, live in his power and will through faith, and in faith our travels on the road of blessing and power and honor and wisdom, in will begin anew even as they continue.