Grace to you and
peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for
this meditation is written in the 7th Chapter of the Gospel
according to St Like: Verses 1 - 10
When Jesus
had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered
Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick
and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders
of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When
they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” So Jesus went with them. He
was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him:
“Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my
roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say
the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under
authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that
one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following
him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great
faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent returned to the
house and found the servant well.
Things that are
unlikely and are uncommon are often of great interest to people. There are
people who are really interested in rare coins. Certain gemstones are valuable
and desirable because they are uncommon. It is likely that when walking through
and art gallery we are in awe of the rare works of the Master Painters! Football,
the sport of summer, is full of uncommon feats. Commentators will express
things like how uncommon it is for a first grader to drop a high ball. People
love that kind of stuff! And people tend to like what is not common and what is
not likely.
Jesus liked it
when he saw something truly uncommon. What was that thing? Great faith. In
fact, we know of only two times that Jesus ever saw and remarked about the
great faith of someone. One was the Canaanite woman whose daughter was demon
possessed. The other we hear about in our Gospel reading. As we look more
closely at the Centurion, perhaps we see a bit of ourselves…and something we
aspire to. In this meditation can we give some thought to unlikely and uncommon faith?
Capernaum was a
city on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. A particular Roman centurion
was stationed there. He was a Roman soldier who had charge over 100 men. When
you hear that, you would imagine him to be a hard man, authoritative, not a man
to be trifled with. To the Jews, the Romans were the oppressive enemy and a
commander like this was one to be feared. This
centurion, however, was different…really different!
Everything about
this man was unlikely. He loved the Jewish people. He had a synagogue built so
that the Lord’s people could worship. He was humble. He sought help from Jesus
but didn’t try to pull the “Do you know
who I am” with Jesus in order to impress him or convince him to act on his
behalf. He didn’t even go to Jesus, but instead sent Jewish elders.
It was the
Jewish elders who spoke so highly of him and felt that he deserved the Savior’s
help. But the most unlikely thing about this man was his faith in Jesus! You
wouldn’t think that a Roman soldier would put his faith in Jesus. To the
Romans, Caesar was god. He was the one to be honored and worshiped. Later on
the Romans would kill Christians for professing faith in Jesus and for not
worshiping Caesar. But there he was—as unlikely as it was—putting his trust
in Jesus!
This man’s faith was of the UNCOMMON variety! He knew,
for instance that if Jesus just spoke, what he was asking for would be done.
Listen to this: the centurion sent friends to say to (Jesus): “Lord, don’t
trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is
why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and
my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers
under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he
comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
His problem was
that his invaluable servant was at death’s door. This servant was so important
and the situation so serious that he sent to Jesus for help. He wasn’t bragging
when he spoke of his authority and his ability to tell people things and they
would do it. He was explaining that his power made that possible. In the same
way, he knew and trusted that Jesus’ great power worked similarly. All Jesus
had to do was say the word and his servant would be healed. He absolutely
believed that.
Friends, Jesus
was amazed! He told those who were there that he had never seen such great
faith! You would think that the person Jesus said that about would have been a
little Jewish grandma who clung to the promises of the Messiah…or one of the
Pharisees…or a synagogue leader…or at the very least, some Jewish person! But no! This UNCOMMON FAITH for anyone to have,
belonged to a Roman centurion! And we don’t even know his name.
His name is not
important, but his faith certainly is. If Jesus points to his as the greatest
faith, perhaps we should consider it for a moment to see if we might learn from
this centurion. So what was his faith like? His faith led him to love God’s
people (the Jews) and others (his servant) and to love God’s house (he built a
synagogue). He didn’t make a show of his authority or abuse it. He showed
humility and reverence as he did not want to put Jesus out in any way. He
simply believed that Jesus had the power to give life to a dying man—something
only God could do. He was certainly right about that.
Jesus is true
God. He showed that in his preaching, his teaching and the miracles he
performed. He had not only the power to give life to a dying man, but power to
earn eternal life for every person!
You and I have
something in common with this centurion. Our faith is just as unlikely as his.
Even if we aren’t Italian and we’re not a Army Officer, we are still similar to
this Roman centurion when it comes to faith because our faith is unlikely too!
In one respect, our faith is an impossibility because left to ourselves, we
could never believe; we would never believe. By nature every person is blind to
God’s ways and can’t understand them. By nature every person is spiritually
dead because of sin.
By nature every
person is an enemy of the holy God. The sinful nature in each of us corrupts us
so completely that we don’t even have the desire to look God’s way, much less
believe in him.
If we think that
the centurion’s faith is unlikely simply because he was a Roman, a
soldier—that’s only the half of it! Like us, he was also a sinner by nature.
Left to themselves, no one wants to hear about this Jesus who never did
anything wrong in God’s eyes and died on a cross to pay for all the things we
do that God calls sin. On their own, no one wants to hear anything about there
being the only one way to heaven and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. If we
combine these facts with some of our backgrounds, we might say that it seemed
VERY unlikely that we would have the faith we have today!
God the Holy
Spirit deserves the credit for the faith we have because without him working
through God’s Word and through baptism, not only is our faith in Jesus as our
Savior UNLIKELY, it is impossible.
I doubt that there
are very few of us, who would step forward and say “That’s me! It’s like he’s talking about me!” A humble and deep
faith like that centurion’s wouldn’t do that. Friends, we know our weaknesses
of faith well enough to understand our need to repent to Jesus for our lack of
faith sometimes and our weakness of faith and the doubt we harbor in our hearts,
even while we’re requesting something from God. Jesus lived and died and rose
again to forgive those sins too…and he does.
What do we do if
we admire this centurion and, because of Jesus’ love for us, want to please
Jesus with our faith as that centurion did? He had perhaps seen Jesus and listened
to him. He had absolutely heard about him—and probably a lot since much of
Jesus’ ministry took place in and around the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum in
particular. Great for him, but what about us? How do we get that strong faith
today? – Jesus still speaks to us today through the power of God’s Word in the
Holy Scriptures.
It’s so easy
these days to hear of Jesus and have him speak to us because his Word is so
accessible. There are Bible apps for your phone and tablet. We can get daily
devotions automatically delivered to our email. We’ve got a Bible or two at
home. We may even have one in our car and at work.
The Holy Spirit
works through the Word to create a greater trust in Jesus our Savior and to
help each day with our concerns—whether they be a sick and dying friend like
the centurion or other challenges like aging parents, children to raise, bills
to pay, never- ending health concerns, relationships. For all of us, finally,
it is this faith in Jesus that will be the only important thing when on the
Last Day we will stand before the holy God.
Faith in Jesus
as our Saviour is the only thing that matters that day and on into eternity.
The faith we have today is a testimony to God’s grace because it was not just
UNLIKELY, but impossible without him. The UNCOMMON faith of centurion is
uplifting to see and provides us with a reminder to keep our faith strong so
that on that Last Day we will stand with Jesus in heaven. Amen.
The love and
peace of God, which is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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