Obedience, Faith, Jesus And The Centurion

Saturday of the 12th Week in Course 2023

There are really three stories in today’s Gospel. The first is about the Roman centurion asking for healing for a valued servant, paralyzed by some accident or illness. It shows that the centurion had compassion. Servant in the first century almost always meant “slave.” So they had no rights, but when one provided greater than usual service, they might be treated like a member of the family. So this slave earned his special treatment, and the centurion was much better than the average Roman occupier. Jesus acknowledged both as He began to set out for the centurion’s home to touch the slave and heal him.

The second story records the centurion’s response. Now understand that centurions in first-century Judea were usually quite imperious and even cruel. They were the “cock of the walk,” and wanted everyone to treat them as the big boss of the village. This one, however, had real humility. He knows that Jesus had power no Roman possessed, with authority even over evil spirits. All he has to do to get something done in the natural world is to tell somebody to do it. He has Roman authority–worldly power. Jesus has authority beyond this world and culture. So He should be able to heal just by uttering a word.

Jesus marvels at this kind of faith. Even the Jews around Him, people who were brought up to believe the power of the True God, were reluctant to believe in Jesus. This Gentile, this goy, had faith He had never found in Israel. And Jesus makes a prediction, realized in the Church He founded before the end of the first century. “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” Faith in Jesus, lived out in charity, would save the Gentiles as well as believing Jews. That's the kind of faith that brought Abraham and Sarah the son they never thought to bear.

Finally, we get to the third story. Jesus arrives at His chief apostle’s home and finds Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever. All He does is touch her hand, and her temperature instantly goes down. Stories of the two healings spread through Capernaum and bring many to be cured through the expulsion of evil spirits. The postscripts are valuable. First, Peter’s mother-in-law, like so many moms in every age, immediately took care of the family. And she didn’t even get the recognition of having Matthew record her name in the Gospel. Like many good women in every age.

But the second postscript is most valuable to Matthew’s listeners. We see here the critical link to the prophet Isaiah’s prophecy from five hundred years earlier. Jesus was the fulfillment of the “Servant of the Lord” chapters in Isaiah’s writings. He did take our infirmities and bear our diseases. But that really looks forward to the rest of the story, where, rejected by His own people and handed over to another Roman centurion, Jesus was nailed to a cross, taking on all of our sins, and dying as the sacrifice that truly fulfilled the covenant and won for all humans true freedom from sin and death. If, that is, we believe in Him and live the obedience of faith in love.