July
5, 2003
Matthew 8:5-13: When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to
him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed
and in terrible suffering.” Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.” The
centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.
But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man
under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes;
and that one, ‘come,’ and he comes. I say to my
servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”/When Jesus heard this, he was astonished
and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found
anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come
from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the
kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping
and gnashing of teeth.”/Then Jesus said to the centurion. “Go!” It will
be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that
very hour.
Some of the best fantasy writing employs the idea of a parallel universe.
A parallel universe exists in close proximity to our universe but is entirely
separate. Usually, there are only certain places or times when the two worlds
touch each other. Usually there are only certain places or times when you
can get from one world into the other. In the Narnian Chronicles, the world
called Narnia exists separately from our world, but some people travel back
and forth between the two worlds.
In the popular Harry Potter books, the world of wizards and magicians exists
in the midst of England. Ordinary people are supernaturally kept from knowing
about the existence of the wizard world. However, there is considerable travel
between the two worlds, and events in one sometimes impact the events in the
other.
The movie “The Matrix’ is also another kind of parallel universe story.
Other fantasy writers employ the same idea. It usually makes fascinating
and interesting reading.
Why is this so intriguing?
It is exciting to think that there is more to our world than just what we
can see. It is exciting to think that there is more to our world than just
the physical dimensions that we see. There is mystery. There is something
beyond. There are depths to our lives, depths of reality that we will never
completely plumb.
I saw an interview this week of Marlo Thomas, the actress who is the daughter
of late actor Danny Thomas, who founded the St. Jude Children’s Hospitals.
These hospitals are dedicated to helping find cures and to help kids who are
sick with life-threatening illnesses.
Marlo said that they are only able to save about 80% of the children who
come to them.
She said that often the parents of these youngsters say that they end up
feeling as though they have traded roles with the children. The kids so often
show such courage, determination, high spirits, and especially insight into
the unseen world, that the parents learn from their kids.
Thomas told about one little girl who had fought a valiant and courageous
battle but finally died. Her mother now volunteers in the hospital on a regular
basis. It is common for parents to become volunteers.
Sometime after her daughter died, the mother was telling Marlo some of the
things the girl said before her death. The little girl said things that actually
comforted her mother. Marlo made the comment, “When you see such things, and
experience such things, you cannot help but think to yourself, ‘There better
be a heaven.’”
I think what she expressed in those words was similar to why stories about
parallel universes appeal to us. They tell us there is more to our lives than
what happens here. There are bigger and brighter and greater realities that
are out there. There is a deeper meaning, a stronger love, a greater beauty
than what we have yet experienced.
We sense this at times about our lives. I can quite well imagine that watching
a little girl fight courageously and then die would leave you with not only
a conviction that there should be more, but that there is more.
As we think about the event before us here, let me remind you yet again
of the big picture. We have worked our way through the Sermon on the Mount.
In this sermon, Jesus has declared much about the kingdom of heaven, or the
kingdom of God. He has talked about how that kingdom transforms us. He has
talked about how that kingdom gives us purpose. But more than anything else,
He has announced a new reality that exists for us because of the kingdom that
He has inaugurated.
Jesus announces to us that we live in a world that is dominated by a parallel
universe.
Jesus announces that we can, right now, enter into this parallel universe
and live in its beauty and power through our confidence in Jesus Himself.
But unlike the parallel universe of fantasy writers, this parallel universe
is not something we enter and exit only at certain times and places. It is
something we live in and partake of on a continuous basis, even while going
about our lives right here. It is a parallel reality that is unseen that seamlessly
meshes with the reality that we see.
Jesus taught us that we live in a God-bathed world. Every nook and cranny,
every up and down, every in and out, is filled with His presence, with His
rule, with His beauty and grace, and with His knowledge.
While terrible things happen for a time in our world, even those things-can
have meaning and value far beyond the bare and sometimes painful and tragic
facts. Because of the existence of this parallel universe, even the tragic
death of a brave little girl in a room of a hospital, after a long and difficult
battle, is filled with hope and beauty, because it is filled with the presence
of a God Who is inconceivably good and beautiful.
One of the privileges that Jesus announced is that we can be co-workers
with God in bringing the reality of this kingdom into the lives of those
around us. We can become light. We can become salt. Through our prayers we
can bring the will of God as it is done in heaven into our world.
Now, what follows the Sermon on the Mount, then, is a series of events and
actions and teachings of Jesus that help us to further understand how this
parallel universe flows through our world, so that we can cooperate with and
experience the reality of this universe more and more.
In this event that led to the healing of a servant of a Roman centurion,
we see a man whom Jesus claimed had more faith in Him than anyone He yet
had encountered.
That should get our attention.
If someone is commended for his faith by Jesus, then it certainly stands
to reason that we would want to emulate that faith. In fact, we are told that
Jesus was astonished by the man’s faith. Wouldn’t you like to have faith that
would astonish Jesus?
Who was this man and how did he get such faith? After all, the Bible tells
us in Romans that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
The word of God tells us about God, it tells us about His character, His
purpose, and His actions. This is what brings about faith-that is, confidence
in God. Faith is not something that just springs into our minds out of nothing.
It is created by knowing and understanding something about God. Faith in
God is created in the same way that faith in any other person is created.
This was as true of the Roman centurion as it is for us.
A Roman centurion was a fairly powerful person in Roman-occupied Galilee.
He usually had command of many more soldiers than just the 100 soldiers as
the name implies. In Luke’s account of the same event, we are told that the
Jewish elders in Capernaum came to Jesus and urged Him to help this Roman
centurion because, and I quote: “… This man deserves to have you do this,
because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.”
This tells us a couple of things about this man.
First of all, it tells us that he had considerable discretion and power,
as the people credit him for building their synagogue.
Secondly, we are told that this man loved the nation of Israel.
I take this to mean he had developed a faith in the God of Israel. This
would also be in keeping with the idea that he would build the synagogue
for them. Perhaps he was one of these men who had listened to the teaching
of the Old Testament and learned better and understood better than those
who were teaching him.
But he didn’t just know about the Old Testament; he knew about Jesus as
well. This makes sense when we consider where Jesus has been spending His
time thus far.
Capernaum was one of the places that Jesus spent most of His time, at least
in these early days of ministry.
Just a few months into the ministry of Jesus, Jesus went to His hometown
and was flatly rejected. In fact, people became so angry with Him, they tried
to kill Him by hurling Him over a cliff. In the interchange that went on in
this event, Jesus said this (in Luke 4:23): “Surely you will quote this
proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’” Do here in your hometown what
we have heard that you did in Capernaum.”
So we know that even at that early point, Jesus had spent most of His time
in Capernaum, and He had done outstanding miracles there that had captured
much attention.
And then we read this in Matthew back in chapter 4, verses 12-17: “When
Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving
Nazareth [where he was rejected], he went and lived in Capernaum, which was
by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali – to fulfill what was said
through the prophet Isaiah: ‘Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way
to the sea along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people living in
darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow
of death a light has dawned.’/From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
From this little passage, we glean some important things.
First of all, when Jesus was rejected at Nazareth, His hometown, He moved
to Capernaum, which became the closest thing He had to home.
Second, we are told that He spent a lot of time early on preaching the kingdom
of heaven and doing a lot of miracles there.
So this Roman centurion had ample opportunity to hear Jesus, to see what
Jesus did, and to think about all of this. He had mulled it over for some
time. And those observations and knowledge had caused him to come to some
conclusions about Jesus. He believed. He understood. And it created faith
and confidence in Jesus.
From the insight that the centurion expresses, something like the following
must have been his train of thought.
He watched as Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons from people. He
saw the results of the commands of Jesus.
He heard Jesus' talking about this kingdom of heaven that He was bringing
to us. It was not remote. It was right here, right now.
He thought to himself
Imagine if people could not see my soldiers, but they could see what
my soldiers did. So when I commanded them to do something, the people would
see me give the command, but they would not see the soldiers I commanded.
But when the soldiers did something, like build a synagogue, the people could
see the synagogue. They would know that my commands had a great impact because
they could see the results.
I see Jesus giving commands, but I don’t see to whom He is giving the commands.
However, I do see what is happening. People are being healed. They are being
delivered from demons.
So obviously, someone is hearing Him, even though I cannot see. He has authority over the unseen world. When He gives
a command, that unseen world obeys. And the result is just what I see before
me.
It would be like my requesting more soldiers from Rome. As soon as the emperor
grants my request, I know the soldiers will come. I don’t have to see the
order given. I don’t have to see the soldiers coming. I know if the emperor
has said he will send the soldiers, then they will be here.
What was happening here? The Spirit of God was helping this man understand
the kingdom that Jesus was talking about in terms he was familiar with. And
so he came to understand and believe.
Undoubtedly, the Roman soldier would not have called it by this name, but
his faith led him to understand in a deep way the parallel universe that Jesus
has brought into our midst that Matthew likes to call
the kingdom of heaven.
Remember, throughout the Sermon on the Mount Jesus insisted that this kingdom
was a present reality. It was not remote and far away. The centurion’s faith
embraced this. He said to Jesus, Just give the word and my servant will
be healed.
If we are going to have great faith, it is essential that we understand
that this kingdom is not far off but is right here with us right now.
In Acts 11, Peter has a vision that God shows him, which ultimately helped
Peter to understand that God wanted to bring the Gentiles into the kingdom,
too.
The vision that Peter saw was of this huge sheet on which were animals that
were unfit for Jewish consumption. In this passage, the word heaven is used
three times. In every case, the word used here is the exact same word. The
Greek is tou ouranou. In the New American Standard translation, the
same word is translated three different ways. The first occurrence of the
word tells us that the sheet came down from tou oranou. The NASV translates
it “sky.” In the second occurrence, we are told that there were birds from
the tou ouranou, and the NASV translates it “air.” In the third occurrence,
God’s voice is heard from the tou ouranou, and the NASV tranlates
it as “heaven.”
The NIV translates the word as “heaven” every time.
Now, the point I want to make is that sky, air, and heaven are three very
different things in our language. But the word is the same word.
The literal meaning of the word tou ouranou is something like our
“atmosphere” or “air.”
What is interesting to me is that these translations of the same word have
very different spatial connotations.
The sheet came from the air. In other words, it just materialized out of
thin air. In this case, a preposition indicated that it came down, so sky
is justified, because there is the sense that it was lowered from a distance
above. But the word itself does not tell us that. The idea of distance is
added by other words.
In the second case, the birds came out of the air. We could say they
materialized out of thin air. Right here. Close to us.
When God spoke, the word is translated heaven. God speaks from heaven.
But heaven has the connotation for us of being very far away. We usually picture
it in our minds as being beyond the physical cosmos. We are discovering the
physical cosmos is so vast that we can hardly comprehend it. So when we say
God speaks from heaven, it reinforces a tremendous feeling of distance. God
speaks, but He is a long, long, long way from us.
However, that is not what the word means. It means the immediate air around
us. Far from having the connotation of great distance, the word itself simply
means the air around us. So what is really being said is that God spoke right
out of the thin air. The air that is close to us. It would be like God’s speaking
to you right in your ear. Immediate proximity.
You remember the Lord’s Prayer. The opening has the exact same word. Literally,
what is said is, “Our father, the one in the heavens.”
And when we say that prayer, what do we think?
God is a long, long, long way away. He is in the heavens.
That is what we think. That is what we have learned to think. But that is
not what the word means. It means that this is the God of the air around us.
Right here by us. Right in this room. Right here
in the
car with me. Right here in the bedroom where I am praying. Right here, right
now. Close proximity.
That is what Jesus wants us to understand. When we pray, we are not talking
to a God that is far away. He is as close to us as the air. He is as close
to us as our breath.
That is why the centurion had great faith. He understood that the kingdom
of heaven was not far away. It was here. And so he understood that if Jesus
just gives the word, his servant will be healed.
As long as we think of God’s being far away, then of course we will not
have much faith. Instead, we will have an overwhelming feeling of being
very far from God. The concept of the kingdom of God will be remote, having
little to do with our world. And yet everything Jesus said and taught is
exactly the opposite of that.
Paul understood this. He wrote these words in Romans 10:6-9: But the
righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will
ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend
into the deep?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does
it say? The word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart, that
is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth,
‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
Surely part of the reason the centurion exhibited great faith is because
he understood from observing and listening to Jesus that the unseen world,
including God Himself, is not distant but in the air around us.
So some have reacted to this erroneous idea of God’s being far away by trying
to tell us that God is “in” the human heart.
This sounds good, but it actually makes matters worse. That sort of conveys
the idea that God is not real. To be in our hearts is like being in our imaginations.
It reminds me of the very lame way that movies and books try to inject a measure
of hope into death for people today. Instead of there being an actual existence
after death, where the person we lose actually remains alive and well, people
are told that they will never lose their loved ones because they will always
be with them in their hearts.
In other words, what they are really saying is that the only real contact
you will ever have with that person again is by way of imagination and memory.
The person doesn’t actually exist anymore.
So I think that’s what we too often convey to people when we talk about
God’s being “in” the human heart, this sense of unreality.
But again, the centurion understood that the unseen world that Jesus presided
over was every bit as real and present as the world of his soldiers and Rome
itself. If anything, it was more real than the seen world.
A man by the name of Gary Smith was a meteorologist, a suburbanite, and
under no religious influence of any kind. He and his wife decided to send
their kids to Sunday school because it was the “suburban thing to do.” After
hearing his kids talk, Gary became interested in what his kids were being
taught and was wondering “Who is this Jesus anyway?”
He was awakened one night by what he could only describe as a “yearning”
to go into the living room with pencil and paper. When he walked into that
room, he found himself “surrounded with love.” and he “knew” it was the presence
of Jesus Christ. Later Gary became a well-known and beloved pastor in the
California area where he lived.
His experience, and multitudes like it that people have testified to and
which are recorded in the biblical record, is that the unseen realities, including
Christ, angels, and other unusual phenomena, are encountered in the surrounding
space of our existence.
Such encounters do not create a special class of believers. As someone pointed
out, Balaam’s donkey remained a donkey after he saw the angel and discussed
the matter with his master.
Jesus said
that “Blessed are those who believe without seeing.”
This is the blessing of the centurion. He actually did see. He listened
to Jesus. He watched Jesus. And he gained understanding and insight. So he
saw that the unseen reality that Jesus was proclaiming was real. He did not
see the unseen reality, but he saw the evidence of it. And he believed the
words of Jesus.
The understanding of the centurion caused him to have such astonishing faith
because he understood that there was a seamless meshing of this unseen world
with the world we see around us.
Again, we think there is a great distance between our world and the kingdom
of God. But there is not. It is as close as our breath. It is in the air around
us.
One of the most common supernatural experiences of Christian believers near
death illustrates this closeness.
One such woman I knew of was the wife of a beloved pastor and military chaplain
and was the daughter of the founder of the seminary I attended. She battled
with cancer for several years. She had several lengthy remissions, which gave
her the opportunity to raise her kids to older teenagers and young adults.
She finally died in the hospital, surrounded by her husband and family.
One of the things that characterized her life was the study of several of
the well-known reformers from the 14th century. One in particular
was her favorite, and I regret that I cannot recall which one, but he had
the same first name as one of her teenage sons.
In the waning moments of her life, she appeared to be able to see and interact
equally with both the seen world of her hospital room, and the unseen world
that now was becoming visible to her. She began to joyfully call out the names
of family members she had known and loved, who had died before her. She called
out the name of her teenage son, expressing surprise and delight that he
was there. This son, of course, was right there with the rest of the family
surrounding the hospital bed. The family said to her, “Yes, mother, or course,
he is right here.” She then told them that it was not her son whom she was
talking about but the 14th century reformer whom she was seeing.
This kind of experience has been repeated again and again throughout the
centuries. It testifies to the closeness of this unseen world that is in our
midst.
Let us just briefly return to our text the reply of Jesus.
“I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great
faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will
take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom
of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the
darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Perhaps the most important thing Jesus was saying here is that entrance
and inclusion in the kingdom was not going to be on the basis of pedigree
or ethnic origin. Just being a Jew, just being a genetic descendant of Abraham
would not cut it.
Rather, the basis would be those who come to Jesus and those who show confidence
in Jesus, which of course is exactly what the centurion just demonstrated.
But notice that Jesus is talking about the future experience of believers
in a completely real and substantial way. Again, he shows that the kingdom
He proclaims, the unseen realities that He tells us about, are no less real
than the seen world.
The feast that we will sit down to will be a feast in which these three
people will actually be there. We will pull up our chairs by Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob and will interact with all of the other believers over the centuries.
The feast will be a real feast. Real food. Real drink. Real good.
This is further testimony to the reality of the kingdom we are invited to
participate in right now. It is real. It is close. Just as Jesus Himself
is. As close as our breath.