The Centurion's Faith and more...Matthew 8:5-17

 


Which way to go?  On that day I headed to Watanga Lake.  Next year I plan on continuing up the Roaring Forks trail to a couple alpine lakes over the pass.  The lake was beautiful and the effort was worth it to have lunch in such a beautiful setting.  It was a good choice.  Here is what I think is my best picture of the lake and also another picture of Twin Peaks, a majestic mountain viewed on this trail.



In our passage we see someone, a centurion, take a different path than previously with the leper.  The leper was cleansed but he did not follow Jesus' instructions to go show himself to the priest and be a witness that Someone great has come.  The centurion does go at Jesus' command and heads home to find his servant healed just as Jesus said.  One went one way and one went the other.  We don't want to be too hard on the leper but it does show that the healings and miracles given to us in the word of God always have another truth that we are to see and learn.

The physical healings and miracles did happen and they benefited those who received them but they should point back to something we need to know about Jesus.  In the leper situation, Jesus was not made unclean by serving someone who was deemed unclean.  In the centurion case, the faith of the centurion rises to the top to accept Jesus' authority or His word over all other words.  With Peter's mother-in-law, the focus is on her reaction to immediately start serving the One who healed her.  With the demon-possessed and all who were sick who came to the door at evening, the focus is not only Jesus ability and authority but the fulfillment of Scripture of the coming Messiah.  What is buried underneath that Jesus wants us to know?

Jesus statement that there will be people from the east and west sitting down together in the kingdom of heaven with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is huge.  Also His statement that there are those of this kingdom who will not, actually they will be in outer darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth is embedded in this miracle.  Who sits at that table in the kingdom of heaven?  Those who, like the Gentile Roman centurion, accept Jesus as Lord and give Him superior authority over their lives.  

One last observation is that Matthew goes back to Isaiah 53:4 to give Biblical evidence that Jesus is the Messiah because He is healing and restoring people but he only quotes the first part of the verse.  "Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried;" (LSB). Matthew doesn't give the second half of the verse at this time.  The second half deals with how they would respond to the one who was bearing the griefs and the sorrows.  It says, "Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." (LSB).  As much as it was prophesied that the Messiah would heal and restore, it was also prophesied that they would say "Crucify Him" (esteemed Him stricken) "Hang Him cursed on a tree"(smitten of God) and "Scourge, mock, and spit on Him." (afflicted)

Adam


A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 39th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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