Jesus went to Galilee to avoid any further confrontation with the religious authorities, and thereby evaded a premature crisis. By entering into Galilee, Jesus’ ministry would be less successful, since “a prophet has not honor in his home country” (John 4:44).
As Jesus expected, he was not well received in Galilee. The faith of the people there was weak. They believed that Jesus could do spectacular signs, but were reluctant to really trust Jesus as they should. Nonetheless, Jesus fans weak faith into flame when he heals the son of a royal official. The boy was about to die, but Jesus healed him without even seeing him. When the official found out that his son had been healed at the very moment that Jesus said he was to be healed, the man gained real faith in Jesus.
Jesus’ second miracle is Cana is greater than the first, where he changed water into wine. The first is a transformation of things, the second a transformation of a human life. The first takes place where Jesus was, the second at a great distance. Jesus is the Lord of all that is, living or non-living, and the Lord of the whole universe, able to control all events.
Some time later, Jesus healed a man who was lame. He had been waiting by a pool of water that allegedly had healing power. Jesus healed him and instructed him to pick up the mat that he had been lying on and walk away.
The man did as Jesus had commanded him, and made the Pharisees very upset in the process. In order to avoid breaking the fourth commandment, they had made strict laws that were designed to ensure that people would not even come close to working on the Sabbath. Carrying a very lightweight mat was clearly working, according to the Pharisees. Of course, this sort of an act was not really working on the Sabbath, but the Pharisees were so obsessed with making sure that their man-made regulations were fulfilled that they were unable to see that the one who was able to perform such a glorious miracle was surely the Lord of the Sabbath.
