The faith of the centurion

In Matthew 8:5-13, we find the story of a roman centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant. We find this story among many stories of Jesus healing people, yet Jesus commends the centurion for his request. There's a lot to say about this story, there's the part about the relationship of the Jews with the roman occupiers. There's the relationship of the Jews with the gentiles. There's the dilemma of being a solider occupying a foreign country, not wanted, but desiring to do good. All of these points are worthy of study, but also lie outside of my point tonight. I want to highlight something that the centurion says.

"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 too 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.'" Matthew 8:8-9.

Jesus commends the centurion for his faith. Reading this in the past, I always saw this as Jesus being impressed that the guy got that Jesus doesn't have to be in the room to have power. That Jesus doesn't have a magic wand, that he has real power, and can affect the world from wherever he sits. I always saw that the centurion got that Jesus literally doesn't have to get out of bed in the morning, and can still perform miracles across town, or across the nation. This time reading through, I saw something different.

Look at what the centurion says, "I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me." He acknowledges that Jesus is humble. He acknowledges that Jesus is also under God's authority. The centurion gets that while Jesus is God, he is also working under the guidance of God the Father, giving glory to God throughout his ministry. The centurion says that he is part of a chain of command, he understands taking orders, and he understands giving them. He asks Jesus, who he knows is used to taking orders from God, and giving orders to creation, to please give the order to have his servant healed. I never noticed that before. This is one of the reasons that I think we have to study scripture. As I mature, I find new insights every day in scripture that I've read over a hundred times before.