Romans 6.18 – 23

Matthew 8.5 – 13

The last couple of weeks or so, our assigned daily Scripture readings have been in St Paul’s letter to the Romans. St Paul has been teaching us about faith.

The backdrop of St Paul’s teaching on faith is the Feast of Pentecost, the joy of the Holy Spirit descending on those who were lovers of Jesus Christ, and raising them up out of darkness and into the Savior’s ‘Kingdom of marvelous Light and Life.’  (1 Pt 2.9) Against this backdrop, faith comes into view as the inner principle, the ‘living energy’ or ‘life-force’ that unites our soul in love to the Heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, and enlivens us in the hidden man of the heart, and energizes us with the fullness of joy in the sure hope that is ours in the life-giving communion of the Holy Trinity in Christ’s Holy Church (1 Jn 1.3).

This morning’s Gospel, contemplated in the uncreated and divine Light of Pentecost, comes into view as a concrete illustration of what this faith looks like that energizes our soul, and that unites us in love to our Blessed Savior, and that buoys us with the sure hope of the unconquerable joy in the inextinguishable Light of Christ who shines in the darkness of this world that neither the world nor the gates of hell can overcome.

A centurion was a Roman military officer who had power over a troop of 100 soldiers. We are each one like a centurion who has power and authority over our thoughts and desires. The centurion submits in obedience to the orders of his general in order to fight against the enemies of the state.

But our fight is not against flesh and blood. It is against spiritual powers seeking to conquer us and make us their slaves. They are ‘powers’, but their power does not create life; it only destroys. Neither does it heal anyone; it only makes them sick until it kills them. These are the spiritual powers that attack us in order to make us spiritual paralytics as was the centurion’s servant this morning. By our own power, we fall to them so very easily because they seduce us by appearing to us as angels of light, in outward forms that are beautiful to the eye, and that arouse our desire for them, so that we of our own desire give ourselves to them – without a fight! But, once we have become their slaves, try freeing yourself from them! We discover that we are not free anymore. We have fallen under their power. We have become spiritual paralytics. We have become their puppets. We lose control over our thoughts and our desires, even our actions. They ‘yank our chain,’ they pull the strings, and we do their bidding.

And yet, the faith that we see illustrated in this morning’s Gospel of the centurion is a divine ‘power’ that God implanted in our soul from the beginning. In this power of faith, we are still free, like the Gadarene demoniacs, and like the centurion this morning, to run to meet the LORD coming to meet us on the shore of the sea of life, and to enlist in His army. We are free, even if a ‘legion’ of devils has taken possession of us, to place ourselves under the authority and power of Jesus Christ, as the centurion did this morning. He is now our General. We swear an oath to unite ourselves to Him. Now, we submit to Him and to His Holy Spirit, not to the spiritual powers of the prince of the air, the devil. But now we are in a spiritual warfare, fighting now against our former overlords, ‘the principalities, the powers, the world rulers of this present darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. [Eph 6.12]

The orders of our General, Jesus Christ, are delivered to us in the form of His commandments. ‘If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.’ We submit to Him by following His orders, His commandments. We take up our bed, we take up our Cross – to whatever degree we are able – and we follow Him. And when we do, the eye of our body begins to grow light, for it is being illumined with His Light the darkness cannot overcome, and we are being filled with the Power of that Light. It is the Power of God that raises the dead to life; it is a power that heals. And in that power, we destroy the powers of darkness that had taken possession of our souls like a foreign army taking possession of a city.

So, let’s study this centurion as an image of biblical faith that saves us and makes us righteous, aligned with God.

See how his faith is manifested as an action, a doing. He heard that Jesus was coming to Capernaum where he lived. But he didn’t rest in the hearing; he gets up and comes out to meet Jesus.

Jesus is the True Light coming into the world where we live. More than that, however; He comes to us from the Woman. He was conceived in Her womb and from Her pure blood He spun for Himself a human body, and He became man, bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh. He shared in our flesh and blood (Heb 2.14) even to the point of death on the cross. He comes to us where we are, in our spiritual darkness where we are spiritually paralyzed, enslaved to the devil by the power of death.

If, then, we are to come to Jesus in a faith like the centurion’s, to meet Him where He is coming to us, we must turn inward, into our soul, into our darkness. For that’s where the Light of Christ is shining. In the tomb of our heart, where we are dead in our sins and trespasses, is where His Body, the Fountain of Immortality, was placed.

But, how do we come to Him in faith to where He has come to us in the tomb of our heart? We must repent. We are not our own masters. Either we serve God or the prince of the power of the air in the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Like the centurion, we must submit ourselves to the authority and power of the LORD. We do so by acknowledging our unworthiness because of our sins. We draw near the LORD in the fear of God, with faith and love. We draw near the LORD in humility and in the contrition of a broken heart. Fear of God is born out of humility; and humility is conceived when we see our unworthiness, and when we acknowledge and confess our sins.

I wonder if it was seeing that he was unworthy that the LORD Jesus should come under the roof of his house that distinguished the centurion’s faith from all of Israel. For Israel, the LORD says repeatedly through His prophets, was a proud and provoking people. And St Paul says: ‘I bear witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, because they are ignorant of God's righteousness, and seek to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God.’ [Rom 10.2-3]

In the fear of God, in the humility of our unworthiness, with faith and love, let us draw near to the Fountain of Immortality that we may taste and see how good the LORD is and receive the healing of our souls unto life everlasting. Amen!