Matthew 8:5-13

Chapter 30

Prayer

Almighty God, our desire is that we may put our trust in thee, then shall our life be safe, and our hope shall be as a light that cannot be blown out. We have trusted ourselves, and to ourselves we have committed perjury; we have made no vow that has not been broken. Behold we stand before thee as criminals, without defence and without covering we would now say again in thy hearing and in thy strength, "Lord, increase our faith." The just shall live by faith: we walk by faith, not by sight Lord, we believe, help thou our unbelief. Let our unbelief itself be a cry unto thee for other help, let our poverty be a prayer and our want a desire and our helplessness a reason for thy speedy coming to us.

We have come with a hymn of praise, for thy mercy has prevented the rising of the sun, and has lingered with us all through the time of the shining of the stars. In our waking and in our sleeping thy benediction has stretched around our life, our uprising and our downsitting thou hast guarded, thou hast beset us behind and before, and laid thine hand upon us: thy mercies have been a multitude, and thy tender compassions beyond our power to name. We are guilty: thou didst give us a white robe, purer than the snow, we return it to thee today unfit to be looked upon by thine eyes. Yet thou art plenteous in forgiveness and thy pardons are a great multitude, yea, more than the waves of the sea, and thou dost cast our sin behind thee and make it as far from us as the east is from the west, and thy delight is to relieve from the burden and the sting of sin. Come to us through Jesus Christ, Son of Mary, Son of Man, Son of God, God the Son, the one Priest, the only Sacrifice, the infinite Mediator, and in coming through him thou wilt come with all thy mercy. Thy righteousness and thy judgment will not thunder against us, but thy gentleness will make us great.

Hear us when we cry for thy presence throughout our whole life. We would not be one day without thee, we would live and move and have our being in God, we would find thy truth and eat it, we would sit down at thy banquet and drive away the hunger of the soul by the riches of thy provision; we would study thy truth with a keen, clear eye, and receive it into an open and honest heart, and repeat it in an obedient and loyal will. Thou hast taught us these great prayers verily they are not ours, they are the Lord's prayers. Once we loved the darkness and pined for the desert and the rocks, and now we love the light and desire to live in the garden of God. Increase in us the aversion which holiness feels for sin, increase in us all sacred thirst and hunger, that our desire may be after God in great vehemence and expectation, and satisfy us early with thy lovingkindness and plentifully bless us with thy Holy Spirit. We would love the truth, we would see somewhat of its infinitude, we would see our own littleness and mark duly the boundaries by which we are imprisoned, and then with the eye of our love and hope we would look beyond into the yet unexplored and unknown universe of God. Thus would our religious ambition become sacred as a sacrifice and our desire be as a purpose that cannot be revoked.

We commend one another to thy gentle care. Leave none without a blessing. Let the old man renew his youth, and on this opening summer day recall the spring of his gladdest life. Speak to the busy man, lest he should forget eternity in consequence of his devotion to dying time on the young let the dew of thy blessing and the light of thy sanctification rest all the days of their lives. Heal the broken-hearted, dispossess those who are tormented with devils, curb the unholy passion, and finally destroy it. Hear the prayers that cannot be spoken, that are too sacred for words, that go up to Heaven in pleading, yearning sighs, and answer such according to the tenderness of thine own grace.

Re-ordain every minister of the gospel, consecrate him afresh to his holy work, bind him with sevenfold cords to the one altar that is alone worth serving. Upon all the Churches of the redeemed, by whatsoever names known and disfigured among men, let grace, mercy, and peace constantly abide. Bring in the day when we shall see that all truth ripens into love, and that in so far as we fall short of love we fall short of truth.

The Lord give us the blessing we most need; the light appropriate to the day, the music that will bring all our circumstances into happy consonance with his own purposes. Send messages from the sanctuary to the sick chambers, to the lonely room, to the dark prison, to the troubled sea, to our wanderers in foreign lands, to those further wanderers, who follow the devil's lure. Amen.

Mat 8:5-13

5. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion (captain of 100 foot-soldiers) beseeching him.

6. And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

7. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. ("He declares himself ready to come to the Centurion's servant: he does not promise that he will do so to the nobleman's son.")

8. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

9. 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.

10. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

11. And I say unto you. That many shall come from the east and west (the whole earth), and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

12. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the self-same hour.

The Human Sympathy of Christ

"And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him." Towns are differently excited by different visitors. If Beethoven were to come to London, all the music of the metropolis would vibrate with delight and expectation and hope. If some great athlete were to visit the metropolis, all persons interested in athletics would be instantly filled with a desire to see the performance. When Jesus Christ went into a town all the sick people, all the broken-hearted, the helpless, and the weary felt a thrill of expectation and hope, and they were almost bettered by the very news that he was coming. Think of a man entering a town whose very presence sends a gospel to the broken-hearted that is the man I want to see. I could listen to the musician for a while, I could applaud the acrobat for a moment or two, I would withhold the palm from no man who had won it, but when I had passed through the whole rank and file of those who had entertained, instructed, and amused me, I should want every day to have with me the man that could touch my afflictions, and bear my diseases, and heal my wounded heart. I would say to him, "Abide with me, the day is far spent, but it cannot die while the light of thine eye is in the house; abide with me."

This is how Jesus Christ endears himself so much to my heart, and how it is that my love for him is a love passing the love of women, and how it is that I cannot be torn away from his side. It is not that I am puzzled by his genius, thrilled by his mighty miracles, astounded by much that is wondrous in himself and his works; but because he himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses, and goes up into the sick-chamber though a leper be in it, and though a pestilence too foul for my mother to face be filling the chamber with its fatal contagion. This is the Christ to whom I call you. Know him by the depth and tenderness and incessancy of his sympathy and love, and fall down before him, not because forced to your knees by some grammatical and exegetical pressure, but because constrained to that worshipful act by an infinite understanding of your own heart, and an ineffable and redeeming sympathy with every emotion and passion of your life.

"There came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." A servant at home what an extraordinary and antiquated conjunction of terms, "There came a centurion, saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented." That is not a prayer there is no request in that form of words, it is a mere piece of intelligence. See the character of the man in the form of his approach. Is there no prayer in the eye, is there no agony in the look, is there no supplication in the tone? What can the printers do but catch the bare words and put them into cold black ink? This is how it is that the written page is not the spoken discourse; it lacks the fire that glowed in the face, the inquiry that sharpened the vision of the eye, the music and the eloquence that made the tone pierce the hearer's heart like a prayer. Why you, man of few words, gifted with rare silence, often complaining that you have no language, could pray like this! Prayer is the lifting of an eye, prayer is the falling of a tear, prayer is the outdarting of an arm as if it would snatch a blessing from on high. You do not need long sentences, intricate expressions, elaborate and innumerable phrases; a look may be a battle half won. "According to thy faith, so be it unto thee." You may pray now, or in the crowded street, or in the busiest scene you can always have a word with God you can always wing a whisper to the skies. Pray without ceasing. Live in the spirit of prayer, let your life be one grand desire, Godward and heavenward, then use as many words or as few as you please, your heart is itself a prayer, and your look a holy expectation.

Beautiful is it to see the Pagan come into Christian worship. He does not know what to do. A trained soldier and a man in authority, he wishes to be respectful and yet he does not know what is proper to the new situation. He therefore beseechingly states the case. It is beautiful to see one unaccustomed to the form of worship in any place, enter into the strange sanctuary and look inquiringly round to see what has to be done next. There is no wish to come into collision with the established usages of the place. There is, indeed, a lingering liking for the way at home, but a willing disposition to accept new forms and methods. There is something pathetic in such ignorance, and something instructive in such inquiry. But see the centurion, a man, a stranger, a Pagan, one far off, coming to state his servant's case, and to leave it with a beseeching look and a beseeching tone why that is to receive education in an uncertificated school, it is to receive a hint from lips uncircumcised that is to learn from those who themselves are ignorant of the subtle and peculiar methods adopted under new circumstances.

Jesus will be puzzled by this new form of approach. Having heard about the servant at home sick of the palsy, he will say, "Well, what then?" He will teach this man how to pray, he will say, "If you want any favour from me you must approach me in certain form or I cannot hear you." He understood the heart he meets the suppliant half way. Do you suppose that your ladder-prayer can reach the stars? It only touches God because God comes down to let it touch him. Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, yet he comes down to the habitations of men and listens for their prayers as if those prayers filled the universe.

How does Jesus Christ adapt himself to this man's approach? He meets the man in his own spirit. Without hearing the request he says, "I will come and heal him." That verse makes me a believer in the deity of Christ: I need no other proof. If he said that, he is God enough for me. Not "I will come and inquire into the case, I will come and see whether anything can be done to mitigate this awful mischief: I can sympathize with you, if I can go no further," but with the calmness of the fiat that arched the heavens and lit its lamps, he says, "I will come and hear him." The people were astonished at his doctrine, because he taught them as one having authority. They are astounded at his word, for he speaks of disease as one having infinite power. Last Sunday we saw him touching a leper, and heard him saying, "Be thou clean;" today our lesson brings before us a man sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus Christ says, "I will come and heal him." Then he was no specialist. Properly we have amongst ourselves now special studies of special cases. One man undertakes the brain, another the heart, another the blood, it may be, another the bones and joints. This is right, amongst ourselves; for probably hardly any one man has the time, even if he had the capacity, to master with sufficient adequateness all the details and necessities of our wondrous bodily frame. But Jesus Christ said to the leper, "Be thou clean," to the man sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, "I will come and heal him." When he went into Peter's house and saw his wife's mother laid and sick of the fever, he touched her hand and the fever left her, he put out the fire with his touch. He is no specialist, he has not a necromancer's power over any one department of human life or human suffering. His healing was fundamental and all-inclusive. He made the well-head pure, and the flowing stream was as pure as the fountain whence it flowed.

It is so in spiritual matters. There is not in the Church a doctor who cures lying, and another who makes a special study of drunkenness, and a third who is gifted with peculiar ability in dealing with persons of felonious disposition. There is one Mediator between God and man: he makes the heart right, and then all the accidental and local diseases, with all their train of ever-varying symptoms, are cleansed and utterly expelled. Thus in the Church of Christ we have no special means for special cases, as contra-distinguished from the general means at our disposal for the universal disease and apostasy. There is one word for all, one healing for all. When you talk of your follies and peculiar sins and characteristic slips and individual passions, these are but symptoms of a grand moral ailment: the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, and the remedy must be vital and fundamental, not a successful playing with accidental symptoms, but an appeal to the heart, a cleansing of the inner nature. "Ye must be born again."

Whatever your complaint is, of mind, body, or estate, you may take it to Jesus Christ. If you are not doing well in business, go and tell him about it: if you are afflicted in any bodily way, go and state the case to him and leave it in his hands; if you be possessed with devils and grievously tormented in your heart, go and state the case to the Son of God. Go and tell Jesus everything. Do not tell him what answer to give in return. I like every day to have a long talk with him in the streets, or in the house, or anywhere, just telling him what I did yesterday, and what a fool I was for doing it, and asking him to keep me this day without sin, and putting my whole broken life into his care, that he may teach me that the part is not the whole, and that there are purposes in his will and providence which I can neither comprehend nor control. He always heals me with rest and with added faith. The thorn remains, the cruel sting goes deeper, the fire licks up further blood, and yet there is an inner healing, a sacred rest, and loving trust in God.

The centurion having heard the reply of Jesus Christ, said, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; 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." He was a man under authority, and his word was law; then why did he not command his servant to be healed? It is thus we always come to our limit, it is thus that the sceptre we lift touches the end of its dominion, and shrinks back into a common walking staff. Said the centurion, "I have authority." Then why did he not use it in new directions? Within our own lines we are mighty; beyond those lines we are captured as trespassers or slain as mean spies. When men learn to keep within their own proper boundaries, intellectual and other, they will attain the fulness and the most satisfactory fruition of their power, but the meanest of us can ask questions that may vex and trouble the heart of God. Happy he who knows the length of his sceptre, and who lays it down at the right point, who says, "I am a man under authority, but there is a point at which my word has no force: I am silent at that point, and I begin to pray where I cease to rule." That is the true law of life.

Yet what wisdom the man had! He said, "But speak the word only." He little knew what he was saying. "The word" that would have been beautiful and complete "the word only," there he falls into softness and weakness; he shows the stoop which proves him to be but a man. "The word only." The word is the authority, the word is the power, the word is the soul, the word is the incarnation. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Your word is yourself: do not imagine that your speech is something independent of your individuality; your speech is your soul in utterance. When a man speaks earnestly, the word is the very fire and flame of his heart. Jesus Christ could not but speak earnestly, so his quietest word held the thunder, the lightning, as the dewdrop holds it, for there is force enough in that one dewdrop, if rightly touched, to rend the mountain and throw down the altar stair that faced heavenward. Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay let your word be your true self, and it will always be, according to the degree of your capacity and influence, with authority and power.

Now it is Jesus Christ's turn: O that we could have seen that marred and sorrow-riven face when he lifted it up and marvelled. He himself had seen a miracle: his own miracles, viewed as mere expressions of power, fell into insignificance before the miracle performed by the centurion, the miracle of all-trust, living, loving, simple, unquestioning, undisputing trust. "Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." A great wave of emotion swelled his heart; forecasting the ages, he saw the crown already rounding into shape that was to sit upon his own head, and though the cross lay between him and that crown, he endured the cross and despised the shame.

We have it in our power to gladden his heart. How pleased he always was with faith. If a man looked trustfully at him, he said he was a son of Abraham. Sinner, others called him, and publican; Jesus called him Son of Abraham. How pleased he was, let me say again and again, with faith; a woman touched the hem of his garment and he called her daughter. He had never seen the woman before, humanly, yet he called her by endearing names and sent her home with his peace. Her house was never so rich as it was in that sunset. He does not ask our intellect, our pomp, our power, our grandeur; what can these be to him, who thickly inlaid the floor of Heaven with "patines of bright gold"? What can our gilt be to him who spoke the sun into being, and rolled the stars along? But when we look up to him and say, "Lord, I believe," it fills his very soul with joy. He keeps back nothing from faith, he says if we had faith as a grain of mustard seed, the mountains would be at our bidding and the earth would be our slave.

What can we say now but "Lord, increase our faith"? We are full of questioning and speculation, and cleverness and metaphysics, and we are keen at suggesting difficulties, and clever in the creation and piling of obstacles. I would God I could say always right in the devil's very face when he is grinding at my weakness most, "Lord, I believe."