Matthew 8:1-17 | Isaiah 53:1-5
New week. New chapter. New story.
Jesus has finished teaching on the mountain and we’ll read below the healing of several people. Don’t forget where the sermon ended: Jesus told us that the whole point - the wise thing - is to act upon what he has said. And here we have him acting out the heart of the law by loving others in need through healing. He healed people from all corners of life - a [presumably] poor leper, a Roman commander with power, the mother-in-law of a fisherman. Jesus acted out love to all.
Matthew 8:1-17
Now when Jesus had come down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. A man with a skin disease came, kneeled before him, and said, “Lord, if you want, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do want to. Become clean.” Instantly his skin disease was cleansed. Jesus said to him, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. This will be a testimony to them.”
When Jesus went to Capernaum, a centurion approached, pleading with him, “Lord, my servant is flat on his back at home, paralyzed, and his suffering is awful.”
Jesus responded, “I’ll come and heal him.”
But the centurion replied, “Lord, I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. I’m a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was impressed and said to the people following him, “I say to you with all seriousness that even in Israel I haven’t found faith like this. I say to you that there are many who will come from east and west and sit down to eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.” Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it will be done for you just as you have believed.” And his servant was healed that very moment.
Jesus went home with Peter and saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and served them. That evening people brought to Jesus many who were demon-possessed. He threw the spirits out with just a word. He healed everyone who was sick. This happened so that what Isaiah the prophet said would be fulfilled: He is the one who took our illnesses and carried away our diseases.
Isaiah 53:1-5
Who can believe what we have heard,
and for whose sake has the Lord’s arm been revealed?
He grew up like a young plant before us,
like a root from dry ground.
He possessed no splendid form for us to see,
no desirable appearance.
He was despised and avoided by others;
a man who suffered, who knew sickness well.
Like someone from whom people hid their faces,
he was despised, and we didn’t think about him.
It was certainly our sickness that he carried,
and our sufferings that he bore,
but we thought him afflicted,
struck down by God and tormented.
He was pierced because of our rebellions
and crushed because of our crimes.
He bore the punishment that made us whole;
by his wounds we are healed.
Prayer
God, thank you for this day. I give you myself today. For service. For loving. For listening. For being present. For giving. For forgiving. For reconciling. For doing whatever you would in my time and in my situations. Give me your grace and move me by your Spirit & in Christ, Amen.