How many of you remember the old Bell Telephone commercials with the jingle about reaching out and touching someone via long distance? Could be they got the idea from this story about Jesus and the Centurion.
Here’s Jesus, again traveling from one place to another, when an opportunity for ministry in the interruption happens. A Centurion, a Roman soldier, comes to Jesus, asking for help. Now we’re somewhat accustomed to this story, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal to us. Christianity cuts across all lines of politics and jobs and power, so it does not surprise us that a Roman soldier would believe in Jesus’ power. But looking at the story from the time and place in which it happened – its original setting, we might get a quite different understanding.
Jesus wasn’t a powerful man, in cultural terms. He wasn’t a high priest. He wasn’t a political leader, he wasn’t a Roman citizen, in fact, Jesus was from an area that would equate to a modern idea of being the wrong side of the tracks. John’s Gospel even includes in the story of Jesus calling Philip and Nathanael the quote by Nathanael, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” So Jesus wasn’t someone with the pedigree to be highly regarded by even His own people, much less by a Roman soldier. Roman soldiers were people of power. They had Roman citizenship and the full backing of the greatest earthly power known to man at the time. And this was no low-level grunt. He was a Centurion, a Roman military officer in charge of one hundred other soldiers – at least in theory. (Many times it was more like 60-80, but it was still a position of command.) The Centurion was an important guy who would command or at least demand respect of the people. In the time and place where the story happens, Jesus would be the one without status and the Centurion would be lowering himself to even speak to a lowly Jew, much less ask help of such a man.
Even so, the Centurion comes to Jesus and asked for help. And here’s another amazing thing about this Roman soldier. He was asking for help not for himself, but for his servant. Unlike other soldiers, Centurions were not allowed to marry and were moved about more frequently, so they often formed close relationships with their servants. Even so, it would not have been the normal practice for this military officer to seek help on behalf of his servant.
But seek help, he does. And Jesus, being the very embodiment of compassion and love, responds without hesitation, “Shall I come and heal him?” This was no small offer. The Lord was offering to take time away from His ministry to the Jews – God’s chosen people – to go to a Roman officer’s house, an act that would be considered highly inappropriate by the Jewish community. Roman soldiers were, after all, Gentiles, who practiced idolatry. As the Bible Background Commentary notes, “Devout Jews would not enter into idolaters’ homes lest they unwittingly participate in idolatry; they apparently extended this custom to not entering any Gentile’s home.” It would not be a lot different in terms of unacceptable behavior from eating with sinners and tax collectors or touching a leper. But Jesus offers to go.
The Centurion refuses. He says, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.” This man of authority, this man of status, this man of power humbles himself completely before the Lord. Then he goes on to say something even more amazing, “Just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.” The Centurion is identifying himself with this lowly Jew, acknowledging that Jesus had some kind of authority, which even the Jews who had been waiting for this Messiah for centuries largely refused to recognize. The Centurion also demonstrates tremendous trust in the Lord’s power – even long distance power. This was an especially faithful act “for among all the stories (both true and spurious) of healing miracles in antiquity, long-distance healings were rare and considered especially extraordinary.”1 The Centurion does not ask for signs and wonders, does not ask for healing potions or a healing touch. He recognizes that a mere word from Jesus will be enough to heal his servant completely.
The soldier goes on to explain he understands how real authority works – with a word. The centurion points out that if he tells a soldier to go, he can expect the soldier will go because following orders is a soldier’s job. He says that if he tells his servant to do something, it gets done because doing his master’s bidding is a servant’s job. In saying these things to Jesus, the centurion is recognizing and calling out Jesus’ authority to command things to happen. This is even greater authority than the centurion claims for himself – he points out that he is under authority as well as having it. But the centurion recognizes the authority of Jesus to the point that Jesus need not go to the centurion’s house nor even send someone in His stead. The centurion believes so strongly that he asks merely for a word.
As strong a faith as we recognize this to be, it is even stronger still than we tend to think about at length. The centurion is acknowledging that Jesus’ power is beyond that of worldly authorities – beyond that even of this centurion himself or his leaders who must send someone to get things done. The centurion is acknowledging the power of the mere words of Jesus. In this there is a connection to the creation story as God spoke the world into existence. So there is recognition of the divinity of Jesus in stating that a mere word from Jesus will make it be so. This is a big leap for just about anyone at this point in Jesus’ ministry, much less for a supposed non-believer like a gentile Roman soldier. But it is precisely this outsider to the established faith that demonstrates the greatest faith and who recognizes, at least to some extent, that Jesus is much greater than a mere human.
The faith of this gentile, this supposed heathen, moves Jesus to amazement –the literal translation of the Greek word used here έθαύμασε is marveled. Can you imagine a faith so strong it would amaze or marvel God? That’s a seriously strong faith, and this centurion has exhibited it. This outsider, this one not of the chosen race. And Jesus not only appreciates this, He points out to His followers how great the centurion’s faith is. “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” While we are able to rejoice in the beauty of those words, in the amazing faith of the centurion, the followers of Jesus would have been largely scandalized. Remember, it is mostly still Jews – the chosen of God – who follow Jesus at this point. And saying that no one in Israel displays faith as strong as the centurion’s is pretty much a slap in the face to any Jews who were present. It is stating that gentile, an outcast from the chosen ones, displays greater faith than even the high priests of Israel. Pretty big statement.
As if that slap in the face is not enough, Jesus goes on to say, “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. 12But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Wow. Jesus is saying God will let in all the many of the Gentile riff-raff from the east and the west – unthinkable to a faithful Jew, but it gets worse. The chosen ones, those who claim to be followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, do not have a lock on entry into heaven. Those who have counted on their breeding and upbringing and good works to get them an in may be not only sidelined, but kicked out of the game completely. Jesus is saying that some of the Jews will not get to stay in heaven but will be, in what may be the most vivid translation of this text, the New American Standard Version, they “will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Let’s just add insult to injury on that one. Not only is Jesus claiming that the centurion had greater faith than any religious leader of Israel, He is claiming exclusion – expulsion, even – from the Kingdom of Heaven for some who are part of the line of David. For the day, time, and culture, this would be heresy. It goes against everything the “church,” in this case the synagogue or Temple, has taught for centuries. And He says it in such vivid language – the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Scary stuff even to our ears, but for those who lived at the time, it would have been even scarier. “The image expresses the fact, that the wicked who are lost will be shut out from the light of heaven, and from peace, and joy; and hope; [they] will be confined in gloomy darkness; will weep in hopeless grief; and gnash their teeth in indignation against God, and murmur against his justice. What a striking image of future woe! Go to a damp, dark, solitary, and squalid dungeon; see a miserable and enraged victim; add to his sufferings the idea of eternity, and then remember that this after all is but an image, a faint image, of hell!”2 If you didn’t already want to be among the saved, that would certainly be a frightening enough prospect to make you straighten up and fly right, as my dad used to say when he wanted us to change our behavior. Jesus has just leveled a tremendous insult and threat against the ones who had believed themselves to be the chosen ones, who had focused on following the letter of the laws of God but ignoring the Spirit. Wow.
After these incredible words, Jesus wraps up the exchange by telling the centurions, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” That’s pretty brave, too. That’s claiming the ability to heal long-distance without making any big production out of it or following any ancient or complicated ritual. That’s claiming the very divinity hinted at by the centurion who trusted the Lord Jesus to heal across the miles with just a word. So added to the potentially heretical words, Jesus is now treading on the edge of what would have been considered blasphemy. And in a world where church and state were not so very separate, it would have edged toward treason, as well.
But here’s the coolest part of the whole thing: it worked. Scripture tells us, “And his servant was healed at that moment.” The centurion’s servant, who never actually appears in this story, who has not seen Jesus and requested His healing, whose own faith has not been examined or revealed in this passage (only the faith of his master), he gets healed. Not in time. Not after months of treatment. Not with the right prescriptions and physical therapy and diet and exercise. Not with a change in habit or lifestyle. Right then. Long distance. Without any mention of his particular ailment or his location or even his own request. How cool is that? The request of a man who was, according to custom and culture, a gentile and therefore unsaved, but whose faith was strong, that request was granted, regardless of any other influence. It wasn’t about what the one in need of healing did. It was about what was done for him by the faith of another.
And that’s the lesson we need to carry away from this story. Our faith affects far more than our own lives. What we know about and see as a result of our faith is a great blessing, but how much more is hidden from us until God chooses to reveal it. It’s not about requiring proof that what we do and say and believe makes a difference. It’s about believing without proof. After all, that’s what faith is – it’s “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”3 Seeing is not believing. Believing is seeing. The centurion believed and he saw, and because of his faith, others saw, as well. Do we see? And amen.