Faith of the Centurion

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. There is a story in the New Testament that I have really gravitated to recently. It is about a Centurion, which is an officer in the Roman military, and his abounding faith. He finds Jesus and tells him that one of his servants was paralyzed and was suffering. He asked Jesus to heal him, which Jesus agrees to and tells the Centurion he will go to his home and heal him. That all sounds like many stories in the New Testament but here is where this one goes radically differently, the Centurion tells him he is unworthy of having Jesus in his home but he knows that if Jesus just speaks healing for the servant than he will be healed. The Centurion explains that he is a man that gives orders to others and that things happen because he speaks the orders and that he is sure that Jesus can do the same. Jesus speaks and the servant is healed. End of story.

The really awesome part, the part that keeps sticking in my head, is that the Bible says Jesus was astonished by the Centurion’s faith. This Centurion had so much faith that it shocked Jesus. Wow. That is beyond the scope of my comprehension but it is awesome that this guy, who is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, loved and trusted Jesus so much that it astonished him. Jesus, who knows our hearts and our thoughts, was caught off guard, was surprised, was taken aback. This is nuts. And this is the challenge for me. I want to do something that leaves Jesus astonished [in a good way of course]. After my final breath, I want to see Jesus and him say that I astonished him with my faith, love, compassion, etc. Could there be anything better than that?

 

Agápē!

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