Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text (Matthew 8:1-13):
Go, let it be done for you as you have believed.
Wër, ba jɛ lät kä ji̱ ce̱tkɛ min ci ŋäth.
Prayer: O Lord, open my lips, that our mouths may tell of your praise. Amen.
Do you believe in miracles?
Do you believe that a miracle has ever happened to you?
Many people don’t believe in miracles, until they really want one. They don’t believe that there’s anything else that can be done, so they pray for a miracle. It’s their last resort, if you like!
It’s a bit like people who are atheists, who when a situation becomes really bad, and they become really desperate, then they pray to God!
But believing in miracles is not the same thing as believing the Christian faith. There are many people who are saved, and have the saving faith which God requires, who don’t necessarily believe in miracles, or all miracles.
Sometimes you hear people say, “I suppose all we can do now is pray for a miracle.” When someone says this, often this means that they don’t believe that a miracle will happen. This is what people say when they mean, “I’ve given up. There’s no more hope.”
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In our reading today, we hear about two miracles. One where a leper comes to Jesus to be made clean. And the other is a centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant, who is paralysed.
One man says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
The centurion says, “Lord, I am not worthy to have come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.
Let’s have a look at the first man.
He says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
What do you notice when you hear this little prayer? What strikes you as the most important thing?
Perhaps the words “if you will” stand out.
Maybe you have said at one point in your life, or someone has said to you, that something is “the Lord’s will.”
What do people mean when they say this?
What does it mean if someone who is very sick says, “It’s God’s will whether I live or die”? What does this mean?
Saying that something is God’s will does not mean we are leaving something to chance! We’re not leaving something to fate!
Often if something bad happens to a you, you might say, “It’s God’s will.” But always ask yourself then, what sort of a god do you have? A god that is angry with you and wants to punish you? A god that enjoys making people suffer? A god that thinks its fun to leave people in pain?
If this is the god you worship, then saying something is “God’s will” always means that he wants to make you suffer.
But of course, God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit have no desire to make people suffer. If God enjoyed seeing people suffer, he would be a tyrant, a monster. He would be evil.
But in Hebrews we read: “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.”
Just like parents have to tell off their children sometimes so that they don’t hurt themselves or do the wrong thing, in the same way, our heavenly Father sends us some suffering to make us more like himself.
Hebrews also says: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Now have a look at our two sick people in our reading today: one is a leper, he is suffering from a terrible skin disease, he is cut off from his friends and family and from the whole community. And also we have a servant who can’t walk.
Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.
What a prayer! The man doesn’t treat Jesus as a stingy old man. He doesn’t say, “If you want to, but you probably won’t.”
Jesus isn’t stingy – and he’s happy to give his gifts. He says, “I will. Be clean.”
If you will, you can make me clean. You can make! You can make all things new, in the same way that you made the whole world!
And Jesus also invites you to ask the same thing. If you are sick, he wants you to ask for healing. If you are unclean, he wants you to ask to be cleaned up. If you have been abused, he wants you to ask him for peace. If you are caught in sin, he wants you to ask him to remove it. If you find yourself sinning continuously, and doing the same thing over and over again, and making you hate yourself, he wants you to ask him to bring it to an end.
And if he did heal you of your sickness, or if he did give to you what you needed and what you asked for, it would be a great miracle!
Jesus has the power to make you clean. And he will. And he wants you to ask him.
And listen to the second prayer:
“Lord, I am not worthy to have come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.
Listen to what this centurion says: “Only say the word.” Give the command! Just speak! – and my servant will be healed.
You are the boss, Jesus! Says the centurion. I know what it’s like to be bossed around, and I know what it’s like to boss people around. So if you tell the paralysis to tick off, if you boss around the paralysis, it will do what you say.
The centurion knows that Jesus is in charge of all sickness and disability. He knows that if Jesus tells the sickness and the disability what to do, it will do it.
Now sometimes we know that Jesus doesn’t always give us what we want. That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t heard you. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you. It just might mean that it’s not what you need, and what he believes you need.
But it’s not your business for you to decide what you need. If you are sick, ask for healing. If you are suffering, ask for relief. If you are unclean, ask for a clean up. Because a miracle might be given to you.
It’s not your business for you to decide what you need. It’s your business to ask for it. And if you need it, it will be given. And God is a “God of encouragement” as St Paul says. He wants to encourage you, and he doesn’t give you so much temptation that you can’t bear it, but he always provides a way of escape, so that you can keep on going.
Your heart is full of sin. In fact, your heart is so full of sin, that everything you ask for in prayer will be tainted. Everything you ask for will be asked for with the wrong motive. Don’t let that put you off! Let God test your motives, and let him decide what is right for you.
But you should ask, “Lord Jesus, if you will, you can make me clean.”
“Lord, I am not worthy that you come into my house, but only say the word and my servant will be healed.”
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It’s one thing to believe in miracles, but there is something even greater than that.
We read in later in the same chapter in Matthew that Jesus did all these things to fulfil the words of the prophet, “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
The greatest miracle that can happen to you is that you realise that you are sinner. The greatest miracle that can happen to you is that you realise what the root is which grows into the tree of suffering. The greatest miracle that can happen to you is that you find the place where the river begins that flows downstream into sickness, sadness and hurt. We can only grasp the tiniest bit of what it means that Christ actually had to die for us – we can only comprehend a tiny bit of what it means to be a sinner.
And when we realise this, we are called to ask for a miracle. We are called to say, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” We are called to say, “I am not worthy. Only say the word and your servant will be healed.”
And he says, “I will, be clean!”
He says, “Let it be done for you as you have believed.”
But this is not a miracle that he performs in your own flesh in such a way that you will see yourself being cleaned up, and in such a way that you will be proud of how far you have come.
Jesus does this when he takes our illnesses and bears our diseases on the cross. All of our diseases and illnesses are weighing upon his shoulders, and are being held in his hands, nailed to the wood. And then when he rose from the dead, he did this so that you all things would be made new, so that forgiveness of sins could be preached to all nations.
Then Jesus brings these gifts to you into the church – in baptism, in the absolution (the forgiveness of sins publically spoken upon you in the church), and in the Lord’s Supper.
And he wants you to trust in his death and resurrection as the medicine for your sickness. He wants you to trust that baptism actually saves you, and that when you hear the words of forgiveness spoken by the pastor that this is just as valid and certain as if our dear Lord Jesus Christ dealt with us himself. And he wants you to trust that when you receive the body and blood of Christ, that same body and blood of Christ that carries your sicknesses and diseases, that it is given for you and for the forgiveness of your sins.
And Jesus says, just like he did to the centurion, “Let it be done for you as you have believed.”
You have done nothing! Jesus has done everything!
You have worked nothing! Jesus has worked everything!
You have given to Jesus nothing! Jesus has given to you himself!
Let it be done for you as you have believed.
Because there is one thing for you that is greater than the belief in miracles, and that is the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, including you. There is one thing that is more important than being healed in this life, and that is making sure you will be healed in the next!
Because you know, that you cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ your Lord, or even come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel.
And it is this Gospel which says to you: Yes! Be clean! Be forgiven! Go! Let it be done for you as you have believed!
And we read that the servant was healed at that very moment.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we place before you this day all our sicknesses, all our problems, our temptations, our faults, our sins, our frustrations, our failures. Lord, if you will, you can make us clean. We are not worthy that you should come under our roof, but only speak your word and your servant will be healed. We trust in your cross and your resurrection, and we know that your gospel is powerful. We trust in your power to forgive us, and we ask that you would send us the Holy Spirit that we may remain strong in this faith. Amen.
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