When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him,
‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith’
Matthew 8: 10 (NIV)
Full text: Matthew 8: 5-13, 23-27
As you read the Gospels, there are many people who are surprised by Jesus’ miracles and teachings. And quite understandably so. Let’s be honest, if someone turned up at the last wedding we attended and turned bottles of water into wine, most of us would be stunned.
So, it’s a break from the norm when Jesus meets a man in Capernaum who actually surprises him. In fact, the Bible says ‘When Jesus heard this (the man’s words), he was amazed.’ (v10).
The man is a centurion (a Roman soldier), whose servant is ‘paralysed, suffering terribly’ (v7). Like many others, he comes to Jesus asking for help, but what makes him stand out is his belief that Jesus can heal his servant just by saying a word. ‘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’ (v9). As he speaks to Jesus, he demonstrates a remarkable understanding of Jesus’ power over not only sickness, but over space. He knew that Jesus had the authority to heal his servant without stepping foot in his home – ‘just say the word, and my servant will be healed’, he says (v8). Jesus was amazed – ‘I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith’ (v10).
The Bible doesn’t say how this man came to have this realization of God’s power – maybe he had heard stories about Jesus’ other miracles or heard his teachings – but he understood the truth about Jesus’ authority and he acted on it. Hopefully, we are all on a journey of discovering Jesus and his coming to earth was to remind humanity of his power and his love. Jesus revealed God when he came, and he wants us to grow in our understanding of who he is: burden- carrier, peace-giver, hope-bestower, so that we can live life in all its fulness (John 10:10). He wants us to know him so that we live free from oppression when Jesus has set us free. He wants us to understand him so that we don’t fall for the enemy’s deception and become paralysed by fear instead of stepping out into the things God has called us to.
The greater understanding of God’s power over our circumstances and the world, the greater we’ll live free from fear and deceit.
As he exercised his faith in Jesus, the centurion had grasped the truth of an aspect of Jesus, that his words indeed do have power. And Jesus’ words have power to do far more than heal, they are sustaining our world and everything in it – ‘the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word’ (Hebrews 1: 3; Italics added).
Of course, the centurion’s servant was healed.
It’s interesting that Matthew 8 begins with the story of ‘great faith’, but as you read on, you’ll find Jesus saying to a group of others, ‘You of little faith’ (v26). They were on a boat when a storm came and they thought they were going to drown. Jesus spoke to the storm and there was calm. The audience was his disciples, perhaps the people who should have known him the most. Isn’t it interesting that those who had spent the most time with Jesus still hadn’t grasped that he had limitless authority and power in his words. We too can be in situations where we feel like we’re going to drown and forget who we have in our boat.
This stories of the centurion or the disciples aren’t supposed to make us feel inadequate, but they remind us that God wants us to understand who he is and believe him, and the size of our faith doesn’t matter. Jesus says, if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move mountains (Matthew 17:20).
These stories also don’t mean that we’ll get everything we wish for – Jesus pleaded with God not to die on the cross but it was the road he was meant to take. But it does remind us that faith moves the heart of God.
The greater our realization of God’s ultimate authority and love, the greater our dependence on and expectation from him.
The disciples were wracked with fear; the centurion was full of faith. But over time the disciples did extraordinary miracles and preached the gospel to many, full of the Holy Spirit and with their faith in God soaring to new heights. They gained a greater understanding of the power of our God.
Pause: Imagine you are the centurion’s paralysed servant or the disciples in the boat in the storm. What might you feel after Jesus performed his miracles?
Reflect: Is there a situation that seems impossible or overwhelming for you? What word would you like Jesus to speak over that today?
Rise: Ask God to give you the faith to believe that he can change your situation or the grace to go through it.