Matthew 8:5-13
5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him 6 and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.’ 7 And he said to him, ‘I will come and cure him.’ 8 The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ 10 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 13 And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you according to your faith.’ And the servant was healed in that hour.
When you first enter any branch of the military, you enter at the lowest rank possible. Everyone has a higher rank than you and that means that anyone can give you an order and you must follow them. Whether the drill sergeant orders you to dig a hole and then an hour later to fill it back in, you do so. The sergeant has authority over you, and you must obey without question if you want a future in the military and have a strong aversion to pounding rocks in Ft. Leavenworth.
In the same way as soldiers obeying the orders of a higher ranking officer, the centurion in Matthew’s Gospel knows all about authority, I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ As a centurion, he has a general give him orders and he obeys. As a centurion, he has officers and soldiers below him and he gives orders, and they obey. As a centurion, he recognizes the greater authority of God in Jesus Christ, and he yields.
Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. Knowing his place as a Gentile but also a soldier, he recognizes and acknowledges that Jesus has authority to heal but also a personal sense of inadequacy of having the Jewish Messiah or King in his house would be an insult to Jesus. So, a Word of authority is all that his servant and his servant’s condition needs to be healed because the Centurion obeys and the paralysis will obey also. He recognizes the greater authority of God in Jesus Christ and believes that even the paralysis will yield to this greater power.
Do we? Yield that is to the greater power of God in Jesus Christ. Faith might include having a proper understanding of God and oneself. Faith might include trusting God by placing yourself into God’s hands. But the greater part of faith is the faith of the centurion: to acknowledge the greater power of God and to submit to Christ Jesus. Do we have faith like this? Perhaps in some small ways and in some small matters we do, but we are yet to have faith like the centurion, to acknowledge Jesus by complete obedience and self-surrender. Perhaps this is why Jesus says, truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. Jesus was amazed to find one who believes so completely to acknowledge Him. We might be sorely tempted to think this is Jewish problem, after all Jesus says Israel, but one only needs to look within to see that this is a Human problem.
Because our temptation is power. We spend our entire lives trying to hoard, procure and defend whatever power we can come across, and in pride we do not and perhaps cannot admit to ourselves that anyone, including Christ is greater. Perhaps we balk at taking orders, preferring to give them. Perhaps we desire to self-rule in independence from the power of God. Perhaps we trust instead in other less greater powers in our world: money, politics, fame, and pleasure. When it comes to our faith, we do not acknowledge or submit to the highest power, the power of God in Jesus Christ, we cling to our unbelief.
This is why the Word of God became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, to be the perfect human in place of us flawed humans. To surrender and to acknowledge completely the Father’s greater power and will in his body on the cross. To forgive us our moments of falling short of the centurion’s faith, and to create a new heart within us that clearly sees the power of God greater than any other. This means hope for us friends. Hope that our guilt and failures can be taken away and we can become new. But new in the sense of acknowledging and submitting to the greater power of God in Jesus Christ. We can stop fighting against God and we can start acknowledging Jesus is Lord. Amen.
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