If You are willing You can - I am under authority - He healed all

Matthew 8:1-17 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. ² And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” ³ Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. ⁴ And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

⁵ And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, ⁶ and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” ⁷ Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” ⁸ But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” ¹⁰ Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; ¹² but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ¹³ And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.

¹⁴ When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. ¹⁵ He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him. ¹⁶ When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. ¹⁷ This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”

Often when we are faced with difficult situations regarding our health or the health of someone we love, we pray and we declare God’s word regarding the situation, and then we say, if it is Your will. So is it a matter of semantics or a matter of faith that the leper in today’s text says: “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”   Do we perhaps use if it is Your will as a way of accepting that we don’t fully believe that God can or will heal us or others? The leper makes it clear that it is not a matter of faith. It’s not a question of if He can, but that it truly rests in the will of God.  Jesus response to the man with leprosy was:   Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing, be cleansed.”    In Luke 4:18-21 we see an account of the beginning of Jesus public ministry.     And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district. And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”   Jesus is willing, that’s why He was sent. I think it is important that in the case of the leper and in many other accounts of healing, there is a focus not on the disease or the infirmity, but on being cleansed and being forgiven. It is not necessarily that those who are sick are suffering because of their sin, but rather that sickness and disease is a result of the fall. It is a consequence of living in this fallen world. Jesus taught us that we should pray: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Jesus came to redeem us from sin and to restore both people and all of creation to the way God intended from the beginning, before the fall. It is His will that we be forgiven. It is His will that we be set free from anything that holds us captive to the consequences of sin. On the cross Jesus said:  “It is finished.” (John 19:30) Everything He came to do was completed, finished through His sacrifice on the cross. All that is left is for the realities of the finished work of the cross to be fully manifested here on earth.  

In today’s text, we see another account of healing.   When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.    We need to understand and believe, as the centurion did, in the authority of Christ over everything even sickness and disease. Philippians 2:9-11 says:  …God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,  and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.    If we fully know and believe in the absolute authority of Christ, we will be able to call upon that authority over the things which come against us. If we fully know and believe in the absolute authority of Christ, we also must recognize that we ourselves are fully subject to His authority. It is important to note that the centurion said that he was a man under authority, not a man in authority. How can we say He is Lord over sickness, if He is not Lord of our lives? As it has been said; If the Lord is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.  

Today’s text closes saying:  When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him. ¹⁶ When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”      He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. Many will point to this and other references to say that Jesus will always heal all who are ill. Yet even when Jesus was here on earth, just as now, there are many who are sick and many who die. In John 5:1-9 there is another account of healing.   After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.    It would seem that surely there were others there that day, who were not healed. Do we conclude from that, that there is a question of Jesus willingness to heal? Surely it is not a question of His ability or His authority. I believe, for us, the best thing we can do is not to look for the reasons that there might not be healing, but rather to know that He is willing, that He can, that He has authority and that it is finished. We should pray that we would see His kingdom come and His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven and we should know and be thankful, that if there is some reason we don’t see the full manifestation here on earth, that it is finished and complete in heaven.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ; precious Holy Spirit I pray Your kingdom come and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. I thank You that it is finished regardless of what I see. Amen.