“Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my little boy dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.” The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.” John 4:46-54

“Driving along a country road, I ignored a Bridge Out sign and continued on. But in a few miles I came to a stop: The road was completely barricaded. So I turned around and retraced my route. That’s when I saw this sign on the back of the first: “It was, wasn’t it?”

“The word out of the play strips them for a moment naked and strips their teacher with them and to that extent Shakespeare turns preacher because stripping us naked is part of what preaching is all about, the tragic part.” (Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

Every once in a while I get myself in a position where I end up in a traffic jam because I have not paid attention to the warning signs. And by signs I am talking about actual physical signs. Signs are funny things — especially road signs. Since my wife works for PennDot, I must support the signage rules they utilize — realizing it is our fault that we are not paying attention.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus demonstrated signs of his divinity — turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana, and in the above-mentioned text where he healed the son of the royal official — to name two. My question to you is this: how many signs of Jesus’ presence in your life do you miss? How many signs of your guardian angel’s presence in your life do you miss?

Sometimes the signs are right there in front of us – and like road signs, they strip us bare to the reality that we are not paying attention. We can be too distracted to see them, or too stubborn to believe them. The Kingdom of G-d, the presence of Jesus is all around us each and every day. Are we too busy to see them?

Pastor Dave