NOTES for Joh 4:43-54
Jesus' words that a prophet is without recognition only in his own home have become a commonplace today. And it is by no means only prophets who recall them. Yet Jesus Himself is not complaining about anything; He is simply stating a very obvious fact: anyone exercising a spiritual ministry has the hardest time among those who consider him one of their own. Here a peculiar kind of false recognition naturally arises: a person seems thoroughly familiar simply because people there have known him since childhood.
Few stop to consider that he may now be quite a different person. Fewer still wonder whether they ever really knew the one who lived beside them from childhood, in the same town, on the same street. They apply old stereotypes to their old acquaintance—the very stereotypes that prevented them from seeing him before and still prevent them from seeing him now. Yet Jesus performs a miracle in Galilee at the request of just one unnamed 'royal official.'
Most likely this was someone close to Herod the Tetrarch, who then ruled Galilee—the grandson of Herod the Great, also known as Herod the Builder, whom the Gospel presents as the Herod who massacred the children of Bethlehem. This man can hardly have heard about Jesus during His childhood, which, as we know, was spent in Nazareth: Nazareth was too obscure a place for Herod's courtier to take an interest in its life.
To him, Jesus was a mysterious stranger whom rumors circulating through Galilee described as a miracle-worker. And he decided to trust Him. Then the miracle took place. The inhabitants of Nazareth, however, had no intention of trusting Him: they 'knew Him too well.' Yet their knowledge was merely external; instead of helping them, it hindered them from seeing the Jesus who had now come to Nazareth. They had to choose between their knowledge and a reality that proved quite different. And, as happens all too often, alas, the inhabitants of Nazareth chose their knowledge. That is simpler and more familiar, of course. But neither the Messiah nor the Kingdom can be seen that way.