Epiphany
3 – January 26th, 2014 – Matthew 8:1-13
In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +
In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +
Last week in our Gospel lesson, we had
one miracle, the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana. This week,
we get two, two miracles in our Gospel lesson.
Now, we could spend all our time focusing on the healing of the man with
leprosy, or we could look at the faith of the Centurion, but instead, let’s
just look at both, because they dovetail together, like a nicely joined piece
of furniture, and looking at both of these together, we shall see clearly who
Jesus our Lord is. Let us dive in then.
A man with
leprosy came and knelt before Him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can
make me clean. Audicity! What audacity! Here we have a Leper approaching Jesus and
asking for healing, kneeling before Jesus even, and we can miss the audacity of
this. You guys remember the 10 Lepers,
right, all healed, only one comes back to thank Jesus. Do you remember how those Lepers approach Jesus? They shout from a long distance. Why? A
Leper wasn’t supposed to approach anyone who was healthy, rather, he was to
shout “Unclean, unclean” at the top of his lungs to make sure everyone stayed
away. And yet, here we have this Leper,
coming before Jesus, kneeling before Him.
And there are great crowds around, you didn’t come around people if you
were a leper. If we were in that crowd,
we most likely would be expecting Jesus to give him a stern rebuke. Get back, you mangy dog, and take your illness
with you!
Jesus
reached out His hand and touched the man.
“I am willing,” He said. “Be
clean!” Immediately, he was cured of his
leprosy. No squeamish
Jesus here. No, our Lord doesn’t back
away, He doesn’t shy away, but rather Jesus gets down and physical here. He touches the man. Did you note that? Does Jesus need to touch the man to heal
him? I highly doubt it. And yet, Jesus touches the man, Jesus gives
that physical contact to this man who has been cut off from human contact for
so long. That Leper, who had been cast
out of his community, cut off from family and friends, is touched, and not by
just a man, but by Jesus the Christ, True God and True Man, Lord of all
creation. And holding this Leper, Jesus
speaks, Jesus says, “Be clean,” and the man is clean. He’s clean, the spots and sores are gone,
immediately. The man is restored to
health. Jesus touches the Leper, speaks a Word, and the Leper is Leper no
more. So why touch the man? Was it simply an act of compassion? If that’s all it was, it would be a mighty
act of compassion. It would show us that
Jesus indeed understands us humans, what it means to have a body, what it is to
need physical contact. This in and of
itself is a great comfort. There is no
burden, no pain that we bear that is beyond Jesus ability to understand, for He
bore our sickness and infirmities, as Isaiah puts it. But Jesus touches the Leper, and speaks. This reminds us of something else.
The
Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life. With the
rest of creation, we have God simply saying, “Let the earth bring forth”
whatever God is making. But with man, we
see this, we see God taking the dust itself, and fashioning by hand, Adam. Paul was most truly right when he said that
we are God’s workmanship, for in the creation of man, we see God crafting His
greatest creation. And Jesus touches the
Leper. We see in this miracle creation
restored, we see God once again taking dust, taking the dead flesh, the dead
ash and dust of this Leper into His hands, and making him anew. Who is this Jesus who heals this Leper? He is no simple man, no mere healer or
conjuror of tricks, but this is God Almighty Himself, the Maker of Heaven and
Earth, come into His creation to restore it.
If you had any doubts that God holds human life to be sacred, that all
people are to be cared for and protected, the old, the infirm, the young, the
unborn, behold God preserving His creation, even a Leper whom the world had
scorned.
And of course, seeing God heal the
physical, seeing Jesus restore this man’s broken skin, we are of course pointed
to the greater healing that God gives, the healing of our sin stained
souls. Where God’s Word is, where it is
spoken and proclaimed, there is healing.
Now, by our sin we are nasty, filthy beings, a fact we will often try to
overlook or skirt on by. We can complain about our neighbor and how messed up
they are, but we often fail to comprehend just how deeply corrupted we
are. But what happens when that sin is
brought to light, when we see it, when we feel it, when its burden weighs heavy
on us and we know that we are unclean?
Because that’s what God’s Law does – it lays us open, it shows us our
sin. So what do we do then? Like this Leper, we fall before God and ask
for healing, ask for His forgiveness.
Why?
How can we be so bold? Have you
thought about it that way? Every Sunday
we start this service by asking God for forgiveness, declaring that we are
poor, miserable sinners. Is that not bold?
But in this we are right to be bold, we are right to come before our
Lord and ask for forgiveness, for by faith we know that He is always willing to
forgive, to cleanse us. He calls out “Be
Clean!” That’s a forgiveness word, that
points us to how Jesus handles sin, He washes it away. . . does that remind
anyone of Baptism? We are bold because
our boldness is not based on who we are, of our worthiness to be forgiven. Far from it!
We are bold in confessing our sins because we by the gift of the Spirit
working through the Gospel we know who Christ Jesus is. In Him we trust, in Him we have confidence,
and that is confidence indeed. Or, as
Paul puts it, if we are to boast, let us boast in the Lord. Indeed, we boast and celebrate His
forgiveness every week here in this place as Jesus speaks to us again His
cleansing Word of forgiveness.
And then we have the Centurion. We have this Gentile, this foreigner, one of
those hated Romans who holds the people of Israel in vile oppression, a leader
of their’s who commands 80 soldiers, and he comes to Jesus, and he asks healing
for his servant. And Jesus offers to
go. Now, this in and of itself would be
shocking! Why should Jesus heal this
Centurion’s servant? Why heal the
miserable lapdog of this Roman dog? The
thought of healing a gentile would have been disgusting to people in Jesus’ day
– but before we get too proud that we are so much better than them, and know
that Jesus loves all people, let’s ask the question. What of the people you don’t like? The people who anger you, who disgust
you? The people you gossip about and
slander, the people you glare at? The
ones who if they walked through those doors would make you in your sinfulness grit
your teeth. This isn’t an abstract
“Jesus loves everyone” we see in this text – this is up and in your face, see,
Jesus loves even that person you hate and vilify. Christ Jesus does not think
with a sinful heart, He seeks to bring comfort and healing even to the people
we hate. Thanks be to God that our Lord
is willing to go, for He is willing to come even to such miserable sinners as
us.
The
Centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have You come under my roof. But 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.” Isn’t this just
fascinating? Even Jesus is astonished at
this. . . but in a good way. A few weeks
ago we had John the Baptist trying to hinder the will of Jesus, trying to tell
Jesus what to do. . . but do you see the difference between what John did and
what the Centurion does here? The
Centurion says, “Lord, thank you for offering to heal my servant, but you don’t
need to spend the time to come to my house.
Simply speak, and it will be done.
You have this authority and command, and what you say will happen.” I mean, this is just great stuff. There is a reason why Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, I have not found
anyone in Israel
with such great faith.” So what
makes the Centurion’s faith. . . great?
What makes it greater than, that of the Leper, who we just saw, who was
certainly bold in His faith?
The strength of the Centurion’s faith
isn’t that He believes more. . . it isn’t that while other people believe he
really, really, really believes. That’s
how we tend to view the strength of faith, like some sort of anything you can
do I can do better contest. But that’s
not it. What shows the Centurion’s faith
to be strong is his understanding. The
Centurion sees the consequences of things.
This Man is God, all He has to do is say the Word. This is His authority, this is what He
possesses because of who He is. The
Centurion knows, and he sees the ramifications.
There are many things that could have distracted the
Centurion. He could have noticed all the
disdain that the Jewish folks there listening to Jesus had for him – I’m sure
there were plenty of dirty looks. He
could have been thinking about how far away his home was, or how dire and close
to death his servant is. There could
have been so many other thoughts and concerns rattling around. But that’s not where He looks. He looks, he sees Christ. Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author
and perfector of our faith, the Alpha and Omega of our faith, the beginning and
end of our faith, the end-all be-all of our faith. He sees Christ, not any the problems, not the
distractions. Because this is what Satan
loves to do. He loves to show you troubles
and hardships and all sorts of direness.
Satan is called the Accuser for good reason – Satan has no problem with
you seeing the Law, but then he wants things to stop right there. But God with His Word, but the Holy Spirit
does something beyond that. Are you a
sinner – yes… but Christ Jesus comes for sinners to forgive and restore
them. Are you going to die – yes… but in
Baptism you have already been joined to Christ Jesus in His death and are you
most certainly united to Christ Jesus in His resurrection. Do you see the world around you falling
apart? Sure, but Christ Jesus will come
again, and He will bring with Him new heavens and a new earth, where you will
reign with Him. Jesus wins. Jesus trumps all. Even though our thoughts, or deeds, our flesh,
our hatreds, our lusts, our angers, the world around us and even Satan himself
strive to distract us – the truth remains.
Christ Jesus has said, “All authority on Heaven and Earth has been given
to me – go. Baptize. Teach.
Forgive. And I will come
again.” It’s all about Christ – and
Christ Jesus has died and risen all so that He can say you are cleansed of all
your sins, you will be raised from your death bed to everlasting life, you are
forgiven. Oh depths and the riches of
the wisdom of God!
Dear friends, we are God’s cleansed
and healed people, washed clean in the Blood of Christ shed upon the
Cross. We are His people who receive His
forgiveness over and over again, who continue to marvel and wonder at His
goodness to us. We behold His Glory, and
see ever more that it is greater and deeper and wider than we had imagined
before. Thanks be to God for His great mercy to us who deserve it not. In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the
World. Amen.