NOTES for Mat 8:5-13

Today's passage is also remarkable, among other things, because it is the only event in the Gospels where it is said that "Jesus marveled" at the strength of a person's faith. Really, what can amaze God? Only perhaps, as in Nazareth, when He marveled at unbelief. He knows all our thoughts beforehand; every one of our steps is known to Him (see Ps. 138). And yet the centurion's request amazes Him. What is so unusual about this soldier's words? What did he say that Christ sets him as an example to His disciples and to all God's people, warning them against the danger of being cast into the outer darkness (see Matt. 8:12)?

This man very clearly, as is characteristic of people of his cast of mind, sees his place in relation to Christ: not only is he a Gentile, he also serves in the occupying forces. And still he comes to Jesus boldly and explains simply and directly what he wants, fully understanding that under normal circumstances he has no way to receive it. But thanks to such humility before the circumstances, something is opened to him that perhaps those around him do not see at all. The centurion, sensing that before him stands not merely a man, understands that Christ does not need to come to the sick man and touch him in the physical sense of the word. Perhaps the Lord healed people in that way because it was easier for them themselves to receive healing that way. But the centurion's faith allows him to see that Christ, the Son of God, can act outside space and time, and that one thought of His and one glance of His are enough for salvation and healing. And the depth of this man's insight proved able to amaze God...

Jesus' healing of the centurion's servant is remarkable because it happens at a distance: Jesus not only does not enter the house where the sick man lies, He does not even take a step in that direction. And He explains the healing by the faith of the Roman officer, a faith like which, in His own words, He had not found even among the people of God.

How was this faith shown? Clearly, in the fact that the centurion did not doubt for a second that the powers Jesus uses for healing are absolutely subject to Him. Of course, the Roman could have thought that Jesus commanded not simply powers but spirits capable of healing a person by driving out illness, as many pagans thought in those days. But in any case, the measure of his trust in Jesus was almost absolute: he does not doubt for a second that He needs only to command, just as the centurion himself commands his soldiers, and His command will be carried out. And, of course, he trusts the Savior in another sense too: he believes that he will not be refused, that if he asks this mysterious Wonderworker, He will help.

And this fullness of trust opens the Kingdom to the centurion. To him, a pagan with no relation to the people of God, a person who appears to know nothing either about the Messiah or about the Kingdom, who is not thinking about the Torah at all and probably has quite vague ideas even about God. But all this moves into the background before the trust that binds him to Jesus.

And then everything happens, one might say, quite naturally, at least naturally for the Kingdom, which does not know distances in our sense of the word. The centurion's desire to see his servant healthy brings the servant into the Kingdom as well. And the breath of the Kingdom heals him. The trust of one connects two with each other: Jesus and the sick man who needs healing.

Such a thing, of course, is possible only in the Kingdom. And the Kingdom is open to everyone who is ready to receive it. Even if the seeker does not have a very clear idea of what he is seeking and what it looks like.

How often we wait for God to answer our prayers with a bright miracle that turns our life upside down. We expect from a miracle for ourselves inner renewal, confirmation of our faith; sometimes we hope that the action of divine grace will make the proper impression on people who, in our opinion, are unbelievers. In essence, this is not so bad; it is a kind of initial stage, which already speaks of the presence of trust in us.

But we see how the centurion consciously refuses the opportunity to see how his servant's healing will take place; he has no doubt that it will take place. The most important thing for him is the servant's own life, the life of a person for whom he is responsible. And the Lord expects more from us: the trust and humility of the centurion, who does not seek a powerful impression from the miracle. He wants to see in us faith whose center is love for a person, for each person who in one way or another depends on us.

How strange we would look if we came to a doctor with a broken arm, asking for help but not allowing him to touch it. The same can be said of our prayer asking for help, but without faith...

In response to the centurion's request, Jesus did not say something like "let what you ask be done for you" or "your servant has recovered; go." He says: "Go; and as you have believed, let it be done for you" (Matt. 5:13). In this way He tells us the main thing: it is not enough simply to ask; faith is necessary. It is faith that fills the request with "power," makes it real and full. For if one asks someone for help without believing that it can be given, one will scarcely receive it. Besides, if we do not believe that the Lord can help us, we in effect close the road to Him, that is, we simply do not give Him the opportunity to provide that very help.

That is why Christ said: "Have faith in God. For truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mark 11:23-24).

“And Jesus says to him: foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” When we read these words from today’s Gospel reading, we are pierced by a wondrous tenderness for our Lord, by an incomparable compassion and a desire to give Him shelter... But that is impossible: He lived then and there, while we are here and now. Yet this is the divine nature of Jesus, what distinguishes Him from man: right here and now we can give Him shelter—our heart. May each person’s heart become the place where the Lord lays His head. Let us pray in such a way that the Lord comes to us not to labor, but to rest; may He find repose and peace in our heart, for He is very tired.

The evangelist Matthew leads his account very consistently. Having told us in chapter 4 what Jesus' public ministry consisted of, remember: the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom, healing, and the building of the Church, he gives an example of the preaching in chapters 5-7, and now tells about healings and other miracles.

There were many miracles, and Matthew selects for his account those that seem to him most revealing and important for a Jewish reader. In the healing of the leper, the significant moments are Jesus' touch of the sick man; one must not touch a leper!; and the command to show himself to the priest and offer the sacrifice. Jesus does not neglect the law of Moses, but surpasses it by mercy. In the case of the centurion, Jesus communicates with a Gentile; one must not associate with Gentiles!; but what, in fact, distinguishes a Gentile from a Jew? Faith. And the Lord shows that the centurion's living faith is stronger than Israel's traditional and bookish faith.

We see that the miracles are performed by Him not at random, but as a continuation of His preaching, and the apostle Matthew, as is his custom, gives an Old Testament foundation for this ministry of Jesus with a passage from the famous 53rd chapter of Isaiah.

In the Gospel we can find many stories about miraculous healings and the casting out of demons from different people. These miracles are usually called "signs," that is, they serve to show something. For example, in today's stories the miracles are meant to illustrate the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, who was to "take upon Himself our infirmities and diseases."

For the first readers of the Gospel, who knew these prophecies by heart, the allusion was completely clear: these healings are only the beginning of the work of saving the world, which Christ accomplishes in history through His voluntary suffering (Isa. 53). Thus the context of this prophecy, and Matthew's references to it, leads us beyond the bounds of a particular miracle, which in general has little to do with us personally, and brings us into the history of the world's salvation, where all the events in which the prophecy was fulfilled have their place, and into our own life, when Christ saved our life, healed our sickness, and conquered evil around us or within us.

When healing the leper, Christ touched him. He could have healed him without touching him, as He had healed many others more than once, but it was precisely the man sick with leprosy whom He allowed to feel the touch of His hands.

Such a touch was impossible according to the norms of conduct in that society, because it defiled the one who touched and made him an outcast. Therefore Christ's touch, besides healing the illness, meant a breach in the wall of loneliness and rejection; it returned the healed man to the world of people and gave him equal standing. At the same time it was Christ's testimony about Himself as the One who cannot be defiled, but who Himself cleanses from defilement and is ready to enter the company of the most rejected. True, at that moment this remained hidden from those around Him.

The healing of the Roman centurion's servant opened a breach in another wall - the wall between Jews and Gentiles. One can imagine how unusual it was for the disciples to hear Christ say that no such faith had been found in Israel as in a Roman.

But the words that many will come from east and west are addressed not only to the ancient Jews. They are spoken for everyone who would like to turn the Truth into a national attribute and who thinks it acceptable to boast and exalt himself over an ancient spiritual inheritance as though it were ancestral glory...