High Expectations

When the centurion asked Jesus through other people to heal his servant, he did not expect him to come. He simply believed that if Jesus would only will it, it would happen. He asked great things from a great God. Yet what he asked was not for himself but for someone who worked for him.

Being a Gentile, the centurion probably felt that Jesus, who was already quite famous at that time, would think of him as an outsider. It was, however, his great desire to see his servant healed that he made the effort to ask people for help. Knowing that powerful people could do many things, he believed that Jesus need not come to his house, for he only had to will it and his servant would be healed.

The believing centurion is the opposite of Thomas who needed physical proof before believing that Jesus did rise from the dead. Time and again, Jesus would remind us of our need to believe in what we could not see. Proof of Jesus’ existence is often debated upon. Also our own notion of God is different from who God really is. After asking too many questions about God, we come up with one inevitable answer: God is a mystery. And when we come to this conclusion, what would assure us that He is there and He is in charge would not be news reports of sightings, pictures on the internet, ads on TV, detailed miracles on video but our own faith experiences which make us sure that HE IS HE.

Faith focuses on God as its proper object. It does not require visible audience. Most of all faith, like the faith of the centurion, is a blessing for others. Have we taken a leap of faith?