Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Luke 7:1-17 (The Message)
A Place of Holy Mystery
1-5When he finished speaking to the people, he entered Capernaum. A Roman captain there had a servant who was on his deathbed. He prized him highly and didn't want to lose him. When he heard Jesus was back, he sent leaders from the Jewish community asking him to come and heal his servant. They came to Jesus and urged him to do it, saying, "He deserves this. He loves our people. He even built our meeting place."
6-8Jesus went with them. When he was still quite far from the house, the captain sent friends to tell him, "Master, you don't have to go to all this trouble. I'm not that good a person, you know. I'd be embarrassed for you to come to my house, even embarrassed to come to you in person. Just give the order and my servant will get well. I'm a man under orders; I also give orders. I tell one soldier, 'Go,' and he goes; another, 'Come,' and he comes; my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it."
9-10Taken aback, Jesus addressed the accompanying crowd: "I've yet to come across this kind of simple trust anywhere in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know about God and how he works." When the messengers got back home, they found the servant up and well.
11-15Not long after that, Jesus went to the village Nain. His disciples were with him, along with quite a large crowd. As they approached the village gate, they met a funeral procession—a woman's only son was being carried out for burial. And the mother was a widow. When Jesus saw her, his heart broke. He said to her, "Don't cry." Then he went over and touched the coffin. The pallbearers stopped. He said, "Young man, I tell you: Get up." The dead son sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother.
16-17They all realized they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them. They were quietly worshipful—and then noisily grateful, calling out among themselves, "God is back, looking to the needs of his people!" The news of Jesus spread all through the country.

We read in this passage that Jesus does two miracles. In the first part, a Roman soldier sends a request to Jesus, that Jesus would heal his servant. This is incredible because the Roman people did not usually get along with Jewish people and Jesus was Jewish. The Roman soldier not only believed Jesus could heal his servant but that Jesus could heal the servant by just giving the order, without coming all the way to his house. Jesus is amazed by the Roman soldier’s faith. The Roman soldier believes Jesus has authority even when the Jewish people are not yet sure.

In the second part of the passage Jesus meets a funeral procession. A widow’s only son had died. This was a big deal because a woman with no husband and no son had no social standing. She would probably have to become a beggar in order to survive. How does Jesus feel about this? The scripture tells us his heart broke. And so Jesus did something he should never have done. He touched to coffin. In his day, touching anything near a dead person would make you unclean and mean that you could not be around other people for several days. Even more shocking than touching the coffin, Jesus tells the dead son to get up, and he does.

Jesus was indeed doing things no one else could do. He healed people by speaking the words from across town, and he raised people from the dead. Though the people knew God was at work and worshiped him for it, they did not yet understand that Jesus was God on earth.