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Chapter 32
The Centurion
CHRIST had said to the nobleman whose son He healed, "Except ye see signs and
wonders, ye will not believe." John 4:48. He was grieved that His own nation should
require these outward signs of His Messiahship. Again and again He had marveled at their
unbelief. But He marveled at the faith of the centurion who came to Him. The centurion did
not question the Saviour's power. He did not even ask Him to come in person to perform the
miracle. "Speak the word only," he said, "and my servant shall be
healed."
The centurion's servant had been stricken with palsy, and lay at the point of death. Among
the Romans the servants were slaves, bought and sold in the market places, and treated
with abuse and cruelty; but the centurion was tenderly attached to his servant, and
greatly desired his recovery. He believed that Jesus could heal him. He had not seen the
Saviour, but the reports he heard had inspired him with faith. Notwithstanding the
formalism of the Jews, this Roman was convinced that their religion was superior to his
own. Already he had broken through the barriers of national prejudice and hatred that
separated the conquerors from the conquered people. He had manifested respect for the
service of God, and had shown kindness to the Jews as His worshipers. In the teaching of
Christ, as it had been reported to him, he found that which met the need of the soul. All
that was spiritual within him responded to the Saviour's words. But he felt unworthy to
come into the presence of Jesus, and he appealed to the Jewish elders to make request for
the healing of his servant. They were acquainted with the
Great Teacher, and would, he thought, know how to approach Him so as to win His favor.
As Jesus entered Capernaum, He was met by a delegation of the elders, who told Him of the
centurion's desire. They urged "that he was worthy for whom He should do this: for he
loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue."
Jesus immediately set out for the officer's home; but, pressed by the multitude, He
advanced slowly. The news of His coming preceded Him, and the centurion, in his
self-distrust, sent Him the message, "Lord, trouble not Thyself: for I am not worthy
that Thou shouldest enter under my roof." But the Saviour kept on His way, and the
centurion, venturing at last to approach Him, completed the message, saying, "Neither
thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee;" "but speak the word only, and my
servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I
say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant,
Do this, and he doeth it." As I represent the power of Rome, and my soldiers
recognize my authority as supreme, so dost Thou represent the power of the Infinite God,
and all created things obey Thy word. Thou canst command the disease to depart, and it
shall obey Thee. Thou canst summon Thy heavenly messengers, and they shall impart healing
virtue. Speak but the word, and my servant shall be healed.
"When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned Him about, and said
unto the people that followed Him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no,
not in Israel." And to the centurion He said, "As thou hast believed, so be it
done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour."
The Jewish elders who recommended the centurion to Christ had
shown how far they were from possessing the spirit of the gospel. They did not recognize
that our great need is our only claim on God's mercy. In their self-righteousness they
commended the centurion because of the favor he had shown to "our nation." But
the centurion said of himself, "I am not worthy." His heart had been touched by
the grace of Christ. He saw his own unworthiness; yet he feared not to ask help. He
trusted not to his own goodness; his argument was his great need. His faith took hold upon
Christ in His true character. He did not believe in Him merely as a worker of miracles,
but as the friend and Saviour of mankind.
It is thus that every sinner may come to Christ. "Not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." Titus 3:5. When Satan tells
you that you are a sinner, and cannot hope to receive blessing from God, tell him that
Christ came into the world to save sinners. We have nothing to recommend us to God; but
the plea that we may urge now and ever is our utterly helpless condition that makes His
redeeming power a necessity. Renouncing all self-dependence, we may look to the cross of
Calvary and say,--
"In my hand no price I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling."
The Jews had been instructed from childhood concerning the work of the Messiah. The
inspired utterances of patriarchs and prophets and the symbolic teaching of the
sacrificial service had been theirs. But they had disregarded the light; and now they saw
in Jesus nothing to be desired. But the centurion, born in heathenism, educated in the
idolatry of imperial Rome, trained as a soldier, seemingly cut off from spiritual life by
his education and surroundings, and still further shut out by the bigotry of the Jews, and
by the contempt of his own countrymen for the people of Israel,--this man perceived the
truth to which the children of Abraham were blinded. He did not wait to see whether the
Jews themselves would receive the One who claimed to be their Messiah. As the "light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9) had shone upon him,
he had, though afar off, discerned the glory of the Son of God.
To Jesus this was an earnest of the work which the gospel was to accomplish among the
Gentiles. With joy He looked forward to the gathering of souls from all nations to His
kingdom. With deep sadness He pictured to the Jews the result of their rejection of His
grace: "I
say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Alas, how many are still preparing for the same fatal disappointment! While souls in
heathen darkness accept His grace, how many there are in Christian lands upon whom the
light shines only to be disregarded.
More than twenty miles from Capernaum, on a tableland overlooking the wide, beautiful
plain of Esdraelon, lay the village of Nain, and thither Jesus next bent His steps. Many
of His disciples and others were with Him, and all along the way the people came, longing
for His words of love and pity, bringing their sick for His healing, and ever with the
hope that He who wielded such wondrous power would make Himself known as the King of
Israel. A multitude thronged His steps, and it was a glad, expectant company that followed
Him up the rocky path toward the gate of the mountain village.
As they draw near, a funeral train is seen coming from the gates. With slow, sad steps it
is proceeding to the place of burial. On an open bier carried in front is the body of the
dead, and about it are the mourners, filling the air with their wailing cries. All the
people of the town seem to have gathered to show their respect for the dead and their
sympathy with the bereaved.
It was a sight to awaken sympathy. The deceased was the only son of his mother, and she a
widow. The lonely mourner was following to the grave her sole earthly support and comfort.
"When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her." As she moved on blindly,
weeping, noting not His presence, He came close beside her, and gently said, "Weep
not." Jesus was about to change her grief to joy, yet He could not forbear this
expression of tender sympathy.
"He came and touched the bier;" to Him even contact with death could impart no
defilement. The bearers stood still, and the lamentations of the mourners ceased. The two
companies gathered about the bier, hoping against hope. One was present who had banished
disease and vanquished demons; was death also subject to His power?
In clear, authoritative voice the words are spoken, "Young man, I say unto thee,
Arise." That voice pierces the ears of the dead. The young man opens his eyes. Jesus
takes him by the hand, and lifts him up. His gaze falls upon her who has been weeping
beside him, and mother and son unite in a long, clinging, joyous embrace. The multitude
look on in silence, as if spellbound. "There came a fear on all." Hushed and
reverent they stood for a little time, as if in the very presence of God. Then they
"glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath
visited His people." The funeral train returned to Nain as a triumphal procession.
"And this rumor of Him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region
round about."
He who stood beside the sorrowing mother at the gate of Nain, watches with every mourning
one beside the bier. He is touched with sympathy for our grief. His heart, that loved and
pitied, is a heart of unchangeable tenderness. His word, that called the dead to life, is
no less efficacious now than when spoken to the young man of Nain. He says, "All
power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." Matt. 28:18. That power is not
diminished by the lapse of years, nor exhausted by the ceaseless activity of His
overflowing grace. To all who believe on Him He is still a living Saviour.
Jesus changed the mother's grief to joy when He gave back her son; yet the youth was but
called forth to this earthly life, to endure its sorrows, its toils, and its perils, and
to pass again under the power of death. But Jesus comforts our sorrow for the dead with a
message of infinite hope: "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive
forevermore, . . . and have the keys of hell and of death." "Forasmuch then as
the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the
same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the
devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage." Rev. 1:18; Heb. 2:14, 15.
Satan cannot hold the dead in his grasp when the Son of God bids them live. He cannot hold
in spiritual death one soul who in faith receives Christ's word of power. God is saying to
all who are dead in sin, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead."
Eph. 5:14. That word is eternal life. As the word of God which bade the first man live,
still gives us life; as Christ's word, "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise," gave
life to the youth of Nain, so that word, "Arise from the dead," is life to the
soul that receives it. God "hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath
translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Col. 1:13. It is all offered us in
His word. If we receive the word, we have the deliverance.
And "if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that
dwelleth in you." "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Rom.
8:11; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. This is the word of comfort wherewith He bids us comfort one
another.
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