"43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in his own home town.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.
46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servantsmet him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee."
John 4:43-54
It would have been easy for Jesus to have said to the nobleman, 'Yes, I will come down and heal your son'. But if He had done so, the man's faith would have remained faith in a miracle-worker, and nothing more, and Jesus was not content that this should be so. His words to the nobleman were a summons to him to believe in the reliability of His word, and 53 tells us the result of this gracious and faithful dealing with him, because he came to faith as committal and trust. Faith for healing passed into faith as real committal, the kind of faith the Samaritans came to in 42. And Christ is prepared to delay the answers to our prayers and cries if by so doing He can make something of our faith, as He did of this man's, summoning us out of the little shell in which we either demand tokens or signs or invent them for our spiritual comfort, or weaning us from adolescent attitudes in which feeling plays far more part than true faith. The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him (50), and there is one sense in which we may truly say from this verse: Jesus' word is as good as His presence. His presence was not needed in Capernaum, all that was required was His word. And that word is not bound by space or time; Capernaum could be ten miles away, it could be on the other side of the world, but it would make no difference if the man believed the word Jesus spoke to him. This is the great lesson of the story for us - to rest on the bare word of the Lord and to know that heaven and earth will pass away before that word is ever broken.