Introduction
I hope you appreciate that for the last eight weeks at King’s, you have been treated to the greatest preaching ever heard.
I’m not, I hasten to add, referring to the offerings from Michael, Phil, Paul, Chris and myself. I mean of course Jesus’ imperious Sermon on the Mount that we have been following together.
Matthew ends his report of what Jesus said in chapters 5 to 7 with this telling observation; “The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority.”
In every century of AD history, and in every culture, what strikes people (male and female, old and young alike) about Jesus’ teaching is its authority, its authority. What Jesus says has undoubted weight and gravitas.
For two millennia now, people have been impressed and impacted by the clarity, and distinctiveness, and greatness of Jesus' words. When they werew were first spoken, no one had ever heard anything like it before.
But for the next two chapters, 8 and 9, Matthew abruptly changes his focus, and what we find there is that Jesus’ authority is not just evident in the words he says; it’s demonstrated by the things he does; ten miracles in four pages of your Bible.
People sit up and take notice of his authority over disease and sickness and disability and the demonic and the elements and even over death.
In fact, Matthew explicitly makes the point in chapter 9; “when the crowds saw [these things] they were filled with awe and they praised God who had given such authority to men.
Today, we’re going to read from 8.1-17.
When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just 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 and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
Prayer…
Right, so although Matthew has already mentioned generally, as an aside, that Jesus “healed many” back in chapter 4, the three healings we have just read about are in fact the first miracles Matthew actually describes.
The Leper
The very first one is significant. A leper, in the 1st Century Middle East, was a dead man walking.
Leviticus 13 says, the leper “must live alone and outside the camp.” Lepers were totally quarantined from society and strictly forbidden from having contact with anyone else. They lived with extreme and permanent social distancing.
It was a terrifying illness. From the first ominous telltale signs, the disease gradually spread across the skin and, as it did, the sense of touch would fade and then disappear completely.
All sensation would go inch by inch, as parts of the body would become disfigured and then fall off. And there was no known cure. You braced yourself for the inevitable. You said goodbye to your family. It was only a matter of time before the grim reaper would be at the door.
This is how the scene is dramatized in The Chosen. (Season 1 Episode 6 - 16.17 – 19.17)
The leper stands for the one who is ostracised and shunned. The one nobody wants near them. The friendless. The rejected. The utterly hopeless.
“If you’re willing, you can make me clean” he says to Jesus. “I am willing.” However bad life gets, Jesus is always willing to bring restoration.
The Law of Moses stipulated that anyone cured of leprosy had to get it checked out by a priest. But nobody ever did. It never happened. Because no one ever actually got healed. No priest ever put his leprosy inspection training to use.
I would love to have seen that priest’s face when this guy turned up to get examined. Only yesterday, he was on death row with no chance of reprieve. His skin had been white and powdery and flaky and gnarled. It had the smell of decay and the colour of death.
And yet here he is; his skin is soft, its colour has returned, its youth is restored.
This man can be with people again. No longer an outcast, no longer avoided, no longer unwanted.
Leprosy is treatable now but there’s a disease in our day that is very much like it. Contagious and terrifying, the doctors can do nothing about it. It always ends in death. I’m talking about sin of course. It’s an incurable disease and we all have it. Like leprosy, sin doesn’t go away if we ignore it. In fact, it spreads and gets worse.
Those of you who are parents of schoolchildren, or who have been, this is the month when you get that annual note from school telling you to start going through your offspring’s head and check for lice.
What parent says, “Ah, take a look at that magnificent creature, pediculosis capitis, resistant to almost everything, and thriving on burrowing into my children’s scalp and drinking their blood – what a remarkable ecosystem!”?
No, we carefully comb out the headlice and their eggs and we crush them between our fingers and the comb.
We need to ask God by his Spirit to comb through our soul to show us any persistent patterns of sin so we can repent, and so receive the cleansing blood of Jesus and welcome the power of the Spirit to live a transformed life.
Only the Lord can take away our sin and restore us to real living.
And whenever we go to him in faith and say to him “I know you can do it” he removes all shame and gives us our life back.
Do you need the touch of Christ on your life today? Is there anything foul you need his cleansing power to remove?
Nicky Gumbel, of the Alpha Course, once interviewed a man called Ajay Gohil. He spoke of how he was brought up as a Hindu and worked at the family newsagent in North London. At the age of twenty-one he contracted a chronic skin disease called erythrodermic psoriasis.
His weight dropped from 73kg to 47kg, that’s a 35% decrease. The disease was all over his body from head to toe. He lost all his friends. His family rejected him. He wanted to die.
As he wasted away in hospital he cried out to God. He looked in his locker and found a Bible there. He opened it at Psalm 38.
My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear...
My wounds fester and are loathsome…
There is no health in my body…
My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes.
My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds…
I am about to fall, and my pain is ever with me…
Lord, do not forsake me; do not be far from me, my God.
Come quickly to help me, my Lord and my Saviour.
Every verse described exactly his condition and circumstances. He prayed that God would heal him and then fell into a deep sleep.
Next morning, he woke up completely healed. His skin was new like a baby’s and his pain was gone. He was reunited with his family. He said to Nicky Gumbel in that interview, “Every day now, I live for Jesus.”
The Centurion
Jesus continues on his way, and eventually enters his adopted home town of Capernaum. As he does, a Roman military officer approaches to tell him about someone who is dangerously ill.
He is lying paralysed and suffering terribly. So, whatever this condition is, he can’t move and is in a lot of pain.
We don’t know the man’s name, his age, where he’s from or how long he has been unwell.
What we do know is that he is the personal assistant for this man of military rank, stationed in that town, a commander of about 100 men, a centurion, roughly equivalent to a sergeant-major.
We don’t know the centurion’s name either but we can assume a bit more about him than we can about his assistant.
Centurions were selected for their bravery; they had to lead from the front, inspiring their troops by example, so they suffered heavy casualties in battle.
The Roman military manual De re Militari says this: “The centurion in the infantry is chosen for his size, strength and dexterity in throwing his missile weapons and for his skill in the use of his sword and shield; in short for his expertise in all the exercises. He is to be vigilant, temperate, active and readier to execute the orders he receives than he is to talk.”
This is the guy in our story. He is the Brutus Maximus type. But this particular centurion seems to be quite unusual.
Centurions, by their size and strength and fearlessness, could strike fear in their subordinates. But this one is different. He goes out of his way out of concern for his loyal servant. This is not just some minion he can dispense with and get another one. This is a warrior with a kind heart.
“Shall I come and heal him?” says Jesus (v7). And his reply is astounding. Roman soldiers could make you walk for a mile carrying their stuff. They carried lethal weapons to enforce their orders. They were in charge. They were arrogant and they held the losers they had conquered in contempt.
But this guy says, “I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof.”
This centurion will almost certainly have had experience of battle. I imagine him as strong and tall, with rough hands and scars on his face. Men in their prime put their lives on the line for him. He’s a fighter. He’s a man’s man.
But he looks at Jesus and thinks, “You’re the real leader. I’ve got 100 guys who call me boss. But you’ve got crowds of thousands following you. You’re a higher rank than me. You don’t need to lower yourself to come to my place.
That’s amazing. And then he says something else equally remarkable. Verse 9.
I’m paraphrasing now; “I’m a leader. I know how this works. I give orders every day. I don’t need to ask nicely. When I say to my guys, “jump”, they all jump without questioning.
“So Jesus, you only need to give the command to heal and it’s as good as done. You can give this sickness its marching orders, at the double, quick march, and it will have to obey you.”
The centurion knows that he has a right to give orders because he himself is under Caesar’s command. So he gets it that Jesus’ authority comes from submitting himself to his Father.
I know some Christians with a great testimony, God has done wonderful things in their lives, they are gifted communicators and natural leaders, but they are nowhere in ministry because they are accountable to no one.
God will entrust you with authority and capacity in ministry in proportion to your willingness to let godly people speak into your life and be led by them. Who needs to come under authority today in order to grow in their spiritual anointing?
Well, only twice in the Gospels does it say that Jesus marvelled. He marvelled in Nazareth, at his own people, in his home town, people brought up in church, familiar with it all; he marvelled there because of their unbelief.
But he marvels here at the incredible faith of a total outsider. He looks at the crowd with him, all observant Jews, and he says, “I’ve never seen faith like this among our people my whole life. This guy understands faith more than all of you!”
Some of us here this morning maybe have friends like that servant. Out for the count. Low on hope. Sick. Exhausted. In need of a miracle. Be like this centurion; go to Jesus in faith and expectation for your friend.
The Mother-in-Law
Our passage today has found Jesus on a typically busy day. In 13 short verses, he walks down a mountain, gets mobbed by a crowd, cleanses a leper, teaches without notes as he goes, and heals a paralysed man from a distance all the time while on the move, travelling from A to B.
Before he goes to bed that night, after darkness has fallen, v16 tells us that people bring many demon-possessed individuals to him. In each case he drives out the evil spirits and heals those who were sick with a word.
That’s what you call putting in a shift isn’t it? You can appreciate why even the Son of God might appreciate unwinding with a cold drink and something to eat at the end of a day like that.
So in v14, when he turns up at Peter’s house, you’d think his heart might sink when he arrives at his adopted home and is met with yet more need.
All eyes turn towards the room where Peter’s mother-in-law is in bed coughing, white as a sheet and suffering from a fever (Luke calls it a “high fever” and the commentaries suggest it was probably malaria).
Here’s another clip from The Chosen, how they imagined this scene… (Season 1 Episode 8 - 27.30 – 29.30).
He touched her hand… In British sign language the name ‘Jesus’ is represented by pointing to the hands. The hands that were open to bless, the hands that broke bread, the hands that touched untouchables, welcomed outcasts and healed infectious diseases.
How telling is it that the minute Peter’s poorly mother-in-law has wiped the sweat from her brow, she is up on her feet and going round with the goat’s cheese and hummus?
I want to commend this woman. Her response, her immediate, instinctive response, to Jesus’ touch on her life is to get moving, put her apron on, and bring refreshment to everyone around her.
Her response to a work of grace is to serve.
Think of all the times the Lord has blessed you, all the ways your heart has been touched by God’s love.
And think of all the ways you could express how grateful you are by serving others in love.
Ending
We’ve been reflecting these last couple of months on Jesus’ authority to teach. Today, we are confronted by his authority to heal.
The leper: he shows that Jesus is willing to meet rejected, excluded, disfigured souls and, with a touch of grace, give them beauty and community.
The centurion: he shows that Jesus hears the cries of people who speak to him with a heavy heart about their loved ones. With a word of faith, Jesus brings peace to heavy hearts and relief of suffering.
The mother-in-law: she shows that Jesus brings life to those who are out for the count; with a word of faith and a touch of grace, he sets them free to serve.
These stories are not just about them, they're about us. “Draw near to God and he’ll draw near to you.” Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Let’s stand to pray…
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 17 September 2023
