Faith, healing, and hope

Welcome back to those of you who are joining us in person and are feeling well enough to come back to Church. This morning we will be looking at Luke 7. The story of the centurions faith and the raising of a young boy back to life.

How many of us are worthy of salvation? We are good people, we live a good life, we don’t do all the bad things that those sinners around us do right? but does that make us worthy of heaven? What is it that makes us worthy?

We have been closed for the last two weeks because there were many of us sick with covid or other illness. During this time and over the last year we have lost friends and family members in the church and in the community. So why does a good God allow pain, heart ache and sadness to exist in our world? Why do bad things happen to good people? These are questions that have been asked for thousands of years, and I’m sure some of the people in the stories this morning were asking just these questions.

Luke 7:1–17 NIV

When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. 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.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.” Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

Healing

Here we are back in Capernaum, we have seen Jesus do many miraculous signs and wonders so far in Capernaum and and most likely this centurion has heard of this Jesus fellow that is traveling around and healing people. In the past few months we have talked about loving those that are “other”, that are outside of our friend group, we have even talked recently about loving our enemies. For Jews in this time the Romans were seen as occupiers and they didn’t really have any love for them, however this centurion was an exception we see. He could have been a true roman from Italy but was most likely he was another nationality that the Romans had stationed in Capernaum. These centurions were stationed around the empire and had 70 to 100 soldiers under them. They were there to keep the peace in the occupied lands and at times served as local magistrates or rulers, and sometimes might even act as judges. During his time there in Capernaum he learned that there was this God of Israel, the one true God. While all the other nations had various other gods for each city and region, and they worshiped them in various different ways. This God was different, so he even built the town a place to worship this God of the Jews. Needless to say he was a man of wealth, power and prestige, and yet we see here that he also has a certain level of humility.

Having heard of this Jesus, he knows that he as power and authority for healing. So he sends the town elders to go and ask Jesus to heal his servant, a highly valued servant who was so ill he was on the verge of death. Some of us know this kind of illness first hand, either in our own lives or those of friends and family members this past year. After some pleading and convincing Jesus decides to go with these town elders to see and heal the servant. As Jesus enters the town and nears the house the centurion send his friends to Jesus to tell him “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 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.”

Jesus is in the business of amazing people wherever he goes, this is one of the few stories where we see Jesus amazed by someone, specifically he is amazed by his faith, and he exclaims that he hasn’t even found faith this great in all of Israel.

Are you worthy of Jesus to come into your home? We might lead a small group or a bible study, we might serve in different capacities in the Church or the community and we may think that we do deserve for God to come into our home. Yet Isiah 64:6 tells us “6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

and Romans 3:10 Paul tells us that “there is no one righteous, not even one.”

The Centurion understands this in the same way that he understands the chain of command. Some of you who have served in the military understand this idea of chain of command much better than the rest of us. The centurion knows that the one with the highest authority simply has to say the word and the command will be carried out. He recognizes that Jesus is the highest authority and humbly submits to that authority this request for Jesus to simply give the order and the healing will take place. Do we have the faith of this gentile? How often do we approach the thrown of God and timidly ask, well if maybe you could possibly if it fits into your plan… As parents when our children ask things of us in this way it is heart breaking because it shows they are in fear of us saying no. Sometimes the answer to prayer might by no, sometimes it might be yes, and other times wait. This Centurion had the faith to boldly yet humbly ask please heal my servant, and Christ was moved by his faith.

From there Jesus travels on to this small town called Nain which was about 25 miles to the south of Capernaum or about a days walk. Lets take a moment and imagine the scene here. Jesus and his disciples come walking into town as a funeral procession is walking from the house to the town gate. From there they will take the body of the boy to the family tomb, possibly a cave cut into a rock face. In the tomb there will be boxes of carefully and lovingly stacked bones of previous family members including this boys father. The procession includes the bier, which would be like a stretcher or an open coffin that the boy is laying on. Musicians and professional mourners would also be accompanying this procession. This is not really something we think much of in western culture, but in the culture of the ancient middle east they would hire mourners to follow the procession to weep and wail so that the family wouldn’t be the only one weeping and wailing. In this case the family is a widow with one son, who would have been the one to care for his mother after his father passed because there wasn’t really a welfare system like we have today.

So this large group of mourners is walking out the town gate as this other large crowd with Jesus and his followers is entering the town gate. It is a slow solemn procession with music and people wailing and crying for the death of this young man. Jesus sees this and it says his heart went out to her, this leads him to walk over to this mourning weeping mother and say “don’t cry.” Certainly a shock to anyone who is mourning. Jesus then does the unthinkable walking over and touching the bier. This would have been unthinkable as it would have made him ceremonially unclean for seven days. As he touches the coffin the whole procession stops. Imagine what they are thinking and talking about. What is this traveling rabbi doing. We have heard the stories that he has healed the sick, but what will he do now? Then he tells the boy to get up, and to everyone's astonishment and wonder not only does he sit up but he also begins to speak and talk to them. The whole crowd is filled with awe and amazement.

This echoes back to the story of Elijah who also raised a widows son back to life and is a foreshadow of what will happen when Jesus himself dies as the oldest son. The word awe that we see here in the NIV doesn’t give us a full picture of the people reaction to these events though. The Greek word here is phobos, which means fear. This is a reverent type of fear of the Lord, it’s greater than the wonder and amazement that the term awe gives us.

We all will face death at some point in our lives, for some this comes sooner than later and nobody is really happy at a memorial service. We had a service here yesterday and there may have been some moments of laughter but over all there was a deep sense of loss. This mother would be feeling the same way as the friends and family yesterday were. Remember though a few verses back Jesus said blessed are those who mourn for you will laugh and rejoice. That is what Jesus brings immediately to this sad funeral procession, that is the joy that Jesus brings to a mourning widow who has just lost her only son.

Are we worthy of God’s love and salvation? are we worthy of God to enter our hearts and our lives? Is there any good work that we can do to earn or justify God’s love? No

We don't always understand why people are called from this life when they are, we don’t understand why there is pain and heart ache, but Christ came so that we can have life. So that we can trust in him the author and perfecter of our faith. It is only through Christ sacrifice and love that we can truly be comforted from this pain and affliction resulting in a fallen world.