I Am Not Worthy To Have YOU Under My Roof

"When JESUS entered Capernaum, an army captain approached HIM, to ask HIS help, 'Sir, my servant lies sick at home.  He is paralyzed and suffers terribly.'  JESUS said to him, 'I will come and heal him.'

The captain answered, 'I am not worthy to have YOU under my roof.  Just give an order and my boy will be healed.  For I myself, a junior officer, give orders to my soldiers.  And if I say to one, 'Go!' he goes; and if I say to my servant, 'Do this!' he does it.'

When JESUS heard this, HE was astonished; and said to those who were following HIM, 'I tell you, I have not found such faith in Israel.'... 

Then JESUS said to the captain, 'Go home now.  As you believed, so let it be.'  And at that moment, HIS servant was healed. - Matthew 8:5-10, 13 

(This captain of a foreign army earned the esteem of the Jews.  He must have been a good man.  He knew the Jews' prejudices too well to have dared to personally approach this JESUS of whom they spoke.  Indeed, up to what point did JESUS share HIS compatriots' pride?  Would HE respond to the petition of a Roman official?  

The man is really troubled: will JESUS consent to go to a pagan's house and "become impure"? [John 18:28].  The captain goes one step further: JESUS does not have to come to his house.

While other sick people seek to be touched by the Master thinking that JESUS possesses some healing power, this man, has instead grasped that JESUS has the very power of GOD and does not need to go to the sick servant: it would not be any more difficult to give a command from a distance to a life that was slipping away.)

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