Lent Day 3 Capernaum

Reading

“When he had entered Capernaum a centurion came up to ask his help. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘a boy of mine lies at home paralysed and racked with pain.’ Jesus said, ‘I will come and cure him.’ But the centurion replied, ‘Sir, who am I to have you under my roof? You need only say the word and the boy will be cured. I know, for I am myself under orders, with soldiers under me. I say to one, “Go”, and he goes; to another, “Come here”, and he comes; and to my servant, “Do this”, and he does it.’ Jesus heard him with astonishment, and said to the people who were following him, ‘I tell you this: nowhere, even in Israel, have I found such faith.”
(Matthew 8:5-10)

Reflection

The centurion’s servant is ‘sick of the palsy’. When we were little, and read these words for the first time, we didn’t really know what was wrong with the poor chap. But it was clearly serious. A bit like today’s Covid plague. Certainly at the beginning, Covid was a mysterious illness. Mysterious, and certainly very serious. People were – and sadly, still are – indeed ‘sick of the palsy’. And this Roman centurion – a middle-ranking army officer, like a captain or possibly a major today – was ‘a man under authority’. It means he gave orders – and he obeyed them. He was in a power structure. In his position he could recognise that Jesus was similarly placed, albeit in a much greater – the greatest – power structure. The centurion trusted the set-up. He knew that in his sphere he could get things done simply by giving the order. So he trusted that Jesus, in the context of his divine power of healing, could work in the same way.

Spiritual Exercise

“Your to-do for today: St Paul said that we are ‘saved by faith’. Faith is what the centurion had, trust in Jesus. What do we trust Jesus to do? We must remember that in our prayers we can’t give orders to God: he has the highest authority. We are under that authority – so let us think about Jesus’ great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves, and, in following them, become ‘men (and women) under authority’, like the centurion.

Music

Have a listen to this great song as you think about today’s reflection:

One Classic: Soldiers of Christ Arise

Digging Deeper

“Want to spend a little time digging into this series? Here is an article you may enjoy from Christianity Today, all about “God’s generous return policy”.