Matthew 8:1-17
Jesus came down the mountain with the cheers of the crowd still ringing in his ears. Then a leper appeared and went to his knees before Jesus, praying, “Master, if you want to, you can heal my body.”
Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, “I want to. Be clean.” Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, “Don’t talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done.”
As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic and said, “Master, my servant is sick. He can’t walk. He’s in terrible pain.”
Jesus said, “I’ll come and heal him.”
“Oh, no,” said the captain. “I don’t want to put you to all that trouble. Just give the order and my servant will be fine. I’m a man who takes orders and gives orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Taken aback, Jesus said, “I’ve yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works. This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions—streaming in from the east, pouring in from the west, sitting down at God’s kingdom banquet alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then those who grew up ‘in the faith’ but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.”
Then Jesus turned to the captain and said, “Go. What you believed could happen has happened.” At that moment his servant became well.
By this time they were in front of Peter’s house. On entering, Jesus found Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed, burning up with fever. He touched her hand and the fever was gone. No sooner was she up on her feet than she was fixing dinner for him.
That evening a lot of demon-afflicted people were brought to him. He relieved the inwardly tormented. He cured the bodily ill. He fulfilled Isaiah’s well-known sermon:
He took our illnesses,
He carried our diseases.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
A couple of things stand out for me in this passage. The first thing is that when Jesus healed he did so with a word or a touch - without gimmicks, formulas or fanfare.
Another thing that leaps out to me is that Jesus reaches out to the marginalised (a leper, a representative of a hated regime and a woman) - not the super spiritual / religious people.
January 17th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
“I want to. Be clean.”
Those five words, two phrases capture so much of Jesus, and contrast deeply with the image of God I sometimes revert to.
Jesus wants to touch me, heal me, restore me and cleanse me. Of course I know that, but time and time again I relate to God emotionally as if that weren’t the case. As if I needed to do the pursuading, begging and bargaining with a reluctant God.
January 17th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
“Go. What you believed could happen has happened.”
Do I believe enough?
Do I come to God enough?
Do I recognise God’s healing and restoration in me enough?
Would I have bothered to walk a great distance to seek Jesus’ healing on behalf of somebody else?
The truthful answer is……
……somedays my answer is a resounding “YES”……
……and on others it’s a “can’t be bothered, westernised christian NO”. My journey is becoming more ‘yes’ than ‘no’ but it certainly isn’t there yet(!) and realistically I know that, short of eternity, I won’t make it all ‘yes’ but I am wanting to continue to grow and deepen my relationship with a God who is prepared to come down the mountain to meet me and heal me and make me whole.
It’s just great that I have a God who is all ‘YES’ every day with his grace,…….