Jesus Took Our Sins Upon Himself
The power of sin can be growing in us, ruining our humanity and our conscience, making us like a spiritual monster, yet we can be pretending like everything is just fine.
This man had leprosy, yet Matthew wants us to learn from him. Read verse 2 again. The man wasn’t living in denial. He faced the fact that he was so sick and that his disease was incurable. They say that in helping people with physical diseases, the first challenge is to help them realize how sick they are, how serious their illness is, so that they really want help. If he gave any kind of order, his soldiers would immediately obey it. It seems he learned to think twice about the words he spoke and the suggestions he made. He wasn’t an overbearing and demanding commander, but a compassionate and thoughtful one, so he used his words carefully. Proverbs 12:18 also warns us about the power of words: “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”
Most of all, this man was thinking about Jesus. If his own words would be obeyed by his soldiers absolutely, how much more would the words of Jesus! He had “just say the word, and my servant will be healed” faith. Let’s skip ahead and look at verse 13. It tells us how God can use us to heal others. We can’t do it at all. We can’t force or manipulate people to be changed. But we can believe that even one word of Jesus can completely heal people from the inside out. Whatever is paralyzing people or causing them terrible suffering, we need to pray that Jesus will just say the word, and the person we love will be completely healed. This is the kind of faith that pleases Jesus.
So how does Jesus respond? Read verse 10. Usually Jesus isn’t amazed by anything. But he is truly amazed by this centurion’s great faith. Often Jesus rebuked his disciples for having so little faith. There were so many religious Jews around him, but their faith was only cultural, and they were spiritually complacent. It’s a kind of stinging rebuke that a Roman centurion had better faith than all the spiritually proud Jews in Israel. Jesus wants all his followers to learn from the great faith of the centurion.
And he doesn’t stop there; he goes on. Read verses 11,12. Jesus is warning the Jews that God’s kingdom is going to be filled with Gentiles from all around the world, whereas many Jews who feel entitled and superior are going to find themselves thrown out into the darkness. It reminds us of the Bible verse: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (Jas4:6; Pr3:34). The man with leprosy and the centurion are examples of those who are social outcasts, but humble, humble enough to come to Jesus and ask his help. Jesus is also warning complacent Christians, people who assume that they’re good with God, even though they don’t really care about others or struggle to have faith in Jesus. In the end they’ll find out too late that they’ve made the worst mistake.
The third healing Matthew records is of another kind of overlooked person. Read verses 14,15. Again, Jesus is personal and uses his touch to heal.
