Oct 4, 2009
Today's Gospel reading from "The Treasury of Daily Prayer" (CPH 2008) is Matthew 8:1-17.
The first four verses recount Jesus' healing of the leper. Leprosy was a disease that resulted in someone being driven out of the society. A leper had to live alone removed from his family and friends. It was a death sentence. The fact that this leper approaches Jesus shows that he is convinced that Jesus will help him. For a leper to approach another person was against the law. Moreover Jesus shows His incredible love and compassion by touching the leper. This would have made Him unclean and exposed Him to the disease itself. But for this Jesus came. He came to take upon Himself man's sin and uncleanness. He would go to the cross to defeat it.
In the following verses (5-13) we find another example of Jesus' healing compassion. This time it is a centurion whose servant was suffering from some unnamed malady. Jesus says that He will come and help but the centurion says that he is not worthy to have Jesus come to his house. At this Jesus is astonished for this man shows great faith that Jesus is able to heal his servant with just a word.
In the remaining verses (14-17) we get one more healing story. Peter's mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. Jesus goes in and touches her and she is healed. After that people bring many who were oppressed by demons and Jesus casts them out and heals all those who were sick.
In this pericope we clearly see that Jesus has power over demons and illnesses of various kinds. Moreover He has no need to touch a person with His hand to heal them. He can simply do it by speeking a word and yet many times He chooses to touch them with the same hands that He will allow to be nailed to the cross in order to set us free from sickness and death.
Yet if Jesus is Lord of life and died to set us free from sickness and death why do we continue to get sick and die? You can find Christians in hospitals all over the world. Why is this if Jesus is what the Christian Church says He is? Such a notion assumes that Jesus promised that He would do this for everyone in this life, but where does He ever promise such a gift? What Jesus does promise is that by His death and resurrection He has paid the penalty for all of the sins which we do commit and in the world to come we will be raised with a body that is no longer succeptible to the diseases which causes so many people to suffer and die in this life.
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