Vol. 2, Issue 1

Winter 2008

by Paul Lytle

And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented."

Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him."

But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it."

Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel." And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very moment.

-Matthew 8:5-10, 13

he story of the Roman Centurion, for a long time, had remained a mystery to me. I read it several times, but the reactions of the characters did not seem right. As a child I disliked the story for that reason, and always felt something was amiss here.

My confusion became worse because this is not a story that we can avoid. Jesus here is very impressed with the faith of the Centurion, and by that fact alone we should be examining it. Well, we should be examining by the very fact that it is in the Bible, but the words of our Lord reinforces that conviction. Yet still I had difficulty.

Let me see if I can explain my reaction, and perhaps you had a reaction similar to my own. Jesus says that He will come to the Centurion's home to heal the slave. That seems normal enough, since Jesus is summoned several times in Scripture for healing and does go to the homes of people for this purpose.

But then the Centurion stops Him. No, he says. You do not need to come, but merely say the word. That seemed a little strange to me, but Jesus' reaction is stranger still. Based on this short dialogue, Jesus declares the faith of the Centurion to be greater than any Jew he had met so far.

Do you share my old confusion? What was so faithful about the Centurion's response? Certainly Jesus is capable of healing from any distance at all, so it is not so unlikely that the Centurion would want to inconvenience someone who is doing him such a great favor! If he knows that Jesus can heal with only a word, then there is no reason to ask for more than a word.

But there is a reason to ask for more than a word, and it is in that fact that we find the great faith of the Centurion.

It was, at long last, that I had to ask myself what I would have done in a similar circumstance. I must confess that my reaction would not be the same as the Centurion. It was only then that I at last began to understand the passage here.

To understand what Jesus is saying, we must first understand that there is plenty of reason to want Jesus to come to your house when He offers. Jesus was not normally hanging around at the watering hole, waiting for someone to drop by (He does do this, of course, as in John 4, but this is not normally what happens). Normally, He is surrounded by followers, the ill, Pharisees, and those who just want to know what the fuss is about. Sometimes, this crowd could be in the thousands. He was often on the move, going from one area to another. Sometimes He would just wander off to be alone. You never did know exactly what was going to happen next with Him. That is part of the reason, I believe, that people were so anxious and hurried when they wanted Him to heal someone. Certainly they were anxious to be healed or have a loved one healed, but some of it was that they didn't want to miss the opportunity. If you saw Jesus, you wanted to approach Him right away, because you didn't know whether He would be in the area tomorrow.

Jesus was living in Capernaum at the time (Matthew 4:13), the same town as this episode, but that is rather misleading. Jesus was traveling a lot. He never went very far in one direction or another, but He probably spent much time away from Capernaum. In other words, the Centurion sees Jesus, but does not know when he would next see Jesus. Perhaps it would be in a week or a month, but would that be too late?

That lack of certainty is exactly why most people would want Jesus there when the healing comes. If something goes wrong, you're not sure if He'll be around later.

You see, the first measure of the faith of the centurion is that he does not need confirmation. If we are honest with ourselves, most of us would say that we would want confirmation. We would want to check that servant out, examine him. Maybe get the family doctor to give his opinion. We would watch that servant carefully for a few days, just to be sure.

And we would want Jesus right there during the healing, because if the servant isn't healed correctly, we would want to turn to Jesus and say, "Okay, what next? Do you want to have another go at it?" We would want Him there to try again if He failed the first time. That sounds silly, because He is God, and we know that, but it is also true. We would perhaps have faith that the servant would be healed, but not that much faith.

This is a hard truth to accept, but examine yourself in this. Have you been witness to a miracle of God? Even if it was to see someone accept Christ, which is a wonderful miracle, have you witnessed one? It does not have to be a miraculous healing or prophecy or something of that nature. When you witnessed this miracle, did you doubt in your heart? If you witnessed someone accepting Christ, did you watch that person for a while, to be sure? Did you question him to see if he truly understood what he was doing?

What great faith the Centurion does to not "want a receipt" from Jesus. What wonderful faith he had that he does not ask about the return policy, that when Jesus offered him that reassurance, volunteered it freely, he refused.

Surely we begin to see how faithful this Centurion is, do we not? And yet his response also gives us another hint as to his great faith. We must take note now of who he was. A Gentile and Roman, a soldier. This is significant, because the Romans really had no reason to believe Jesus. They did not know the prophesies, the promise of the Messiah. They are looking for something else.

When Paul talks about preaching Christ in 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, he speaks of how the Jews want signs and the Greeks wisdom. Why is this? It is because the Jews believe that the Messiah will come. They are praying for it, looking for it, begging for it so that their King can save them from Roman control and restore them. And so when someone claims that the Messiah has come, they want proof that the Messiah has come. A crucified Christ is a stumbling block, because they were saying, "Wait, wait, He's dead now? He can't be the Messiah then!"

But the Gentiles were looking for something else. The Jews understood the miraculous workings of God, but the Gentiles concentrated on wisdom, on order, on practical things. Their gods did not intervene in their lives, and they were not expecting those gods to do anything.

So the Gentiles in the area at the time seem to just stay out of the debate completely. To them, this is foolishness. To them, it's just the superstitious Jews getting all worked up again.

To come back to our story — this Centurion, a Gentile, is not the stereotypical follower of Christ. In fact, when Gentiles do respond to Jesus, it's usually a big deal (see also Matthew 15:22-28). They are not yet His target audience. They will be within a generation, but not yet.

So more than likely, this Centurion's Roman friends were rather disinterested in all this Messiah talk. It is extremely unlikely that the Centurion himself had much experience with the Word of God, and probably didn't know prophecies, Jewish history, or any of that. He had no reason to believe Jesus except for what he had seen and heard in Jesus' words and actions.

Consider this. The Pharisees knew the Messianic prophecies. They had them memorized. Many of them probably memorized whole books of the Torah, which is hugely long, if you didn't know. The first five books of the Bible take up a massive chunk of the book as a whole. They had them memorized. They lived this stuff, and yet they could not see how Jesus was fulfilling the Word.

Now here is a Centurion, who probably only knew rumors about Jesus and the few things he saw with his own eyes. But to him it is clear who Jesus is. He doesn't need prophecies or understanding. He has seen Jesus do miracles, and he has heard Jesus speak. That is all he needs. He is convinced; so convinced, in fact, that his faith is greater than any Jew Jesus has met.

But it gets even better. Yes, because the Centurion has refused something that few of us would even think about refusing.

Think about this. Consider, for a moment, if you are before Jesus, and He has agreed to come to your house. Basically, He has said this to you: "I will heal your servant. And more than that, I will come to your house Myself, stand under your roof, and perform a miracle for you. I will prove who I am in your house, and you will never be able to doubt because of what you will see."

Who amongst us would say no? Who amongst us would think this is a bad thing? Truly, it is not a bad thing, but you must understand something about great faith — it doesn't need that.

The Centurion could not have believed more. Seeing a sign would not have increased his faith, because his faith was already beyond signs. His reply said this, "Lord Jesus, I do not need Your proof. You are all the proof I need. I have not come to You for that, for You to show me You are the Messiah. I know that already. I have only come for a word."

I am astounded by this response. Do you understand what the Centurion has done here? He has put Christ before the gifts of Christ. He has put God above anything that God could do for Him. Jesus literally offered to give the Centurion one of those signs that the Jews were after so persistently, to show him personally what the Son of God could do, and the Centurion didn't want that. He only wanted his servant to be healed. We are looking at a great level of love and faith toward which we should all strive.

The Centurion has learned the lesson of faith that Jesus would later give to Thomas: "Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed" (John 20:29).

You will notice in the Gospels that Jesus often says that someone's faith has made him well. In this, He is telling us about Himself, and He is also telling us about what is to come. He offers healing for all, and gives it freely, but it must be with our belief. We cannot be healed unless we accept His offer.

That healing is a healing from death itself. We have brought death upon ourselves with sin. We have caked ourselves in it, wallowed in it. We have separated ourselves from God because of it. Do not be fooled: there is no way for us to earn our way into heaven. There is no way for us to cheat death on our own. But God has provided a path for us to reach Him. In the perfect sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross, we can be forgiven. The demands of death have been paid by Him. And now we can be forgiven. Now we can be healed.

Jesus Himself tells us about His purpose upon this earth:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." (John 5:24)

Just as the Centurion's faith healed his servant, so it would eventually heal him. Upon his death, the Centurion did not "come into judgment," but passed into life. So to does our faith save us. So too are we saved by laying our old ways and old selves before Christ and asking for His change in us.

If you have not accepted Christ as your savior, I encourage you to turn to the source: the story of His life in the Gospels. I recommend that you begin in the Gospel of John. It is not very long, but continue to read until you understand who Christ is and why He came. We would be happy to help you in that search. Feel free to write us with any questions or concerns. There are also some Christians in your area who want to help you. Seek them out and tell them your story.

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