The Prayer Of Faith
Matthew 8:1-13
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 8:2, 8 “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word…”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… On this third Sunday after the Epiphany, we consider how our Lord’s divinity is revealed in the healings He performed. And today’s Gospel has not one, but two healings: the healing of the leper and the healing of the centurion’s servant. To be sure, all of Jesus’ miracles revealed His divinity, but these two reveal His response to what can be called the “prayer of faith.”
What is the prayer of faith? How does it go? Well, it most certainly is NOT what many today call the “Sinner’s Prayer.” That prayer usually ends like this: “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and be my Savior.”
On the contrary, the prayer of faith has no exact formula, but it goes something like this: “Lord Jesus, my need before You is desperate and I am powerless to help myself. But I know that You can help me. And even though I am not worthy of Your help, I dare to ask for it, because I trust in Your compassion for the unworthy.” Both the leper and the centurion essentially prayed this prayer to Jesus in the Gospel, and both received a response that we, too, can learn from.
The leper approached Jesus and prayed, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” What a beautiful, simple little prayer. It makes no demands. And it does not say, “if You can,” but, “if You are willing,” You can.” It’s basically a version of words we know so well, “Thy will be done.”
What led this leper to pray to Jesus this way? Where did the faith that was behind it come from? First, we note that he knew very well his own uncleanness. It was undeniable. Leprosy did that to a person. As horrible a disease as it was, the one benefit of leprosy was that it prevented a person from pretending to be clean. That means even more when you realize that leprosy was used by God to show all the non-lepers what they all looked like, too, on the inside. All were unclean; all are unclean, because all are sick and completely infected with the disease of sin. No one lives up to God’s righteous standards. No one can earn a passing grade in God’s classroom. No one can earn an innocent verdict in God’s courtroom. So, the leper had been brought to know his own unworthiness. Faith in Jesus cannot coexist with faith in oneself.
But the unclean leper also knew this: he knew that Jesus could help him in his uncleanness. And he also expected that Jesus would help him. What else does that say but that he had faith. So he approached Jesus with a prayer of faith, not because he was worthy, but because he trusted in Jesus’ compassion. That faith came not from human reason or from a decision on the leper’s part; it came simply from the Word of God, the word about Jesus that had reached his ears.
What was Jesus’ response to the prayer of faith? In Mark’s version of this story Jesus was “moved with compassion,” and “stretched out His hand and touched”the leper. The Clean One touched the unclean one and said, “I am willing. Be clean.” And so Jesus reveals to us His compassion for the wretched, the disgusting, the helpless, the needy, the downtrodden, and the outcast. He reveals His compassion and His willingness to help.
That compassion is always there, because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever”(Heb 13:8). With regard to sin, the willingness to cleanse is also always there, as John writes (1 Jn 1:9): “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” With regard to physical maladies in this life, Jesus isn’t always willing to remove them, but He is always willing to help us bear them.
You remember St. Paul’s famous “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7), whatever that thing was; Scripture doesn’t reveal what it was. But remember how he pleaded with Jesus to remove it, and remember what the Lord told him? “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). The Lord didn’t remove it, but He most certainly gave Paul the strength to bear it. But at the end of this age, the Lord will cleanse us completely, both our sinful flesh and all the maladies that go along with it. Then we will hear Him say, “Be clean.” And we will be clean forever.
After Jesus cleansed the leper, He wasn’t quite done with him just yet. He told him, “See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
So, with cleanness comes a command: Go, do as the Law requires. We note that the cleansing happened first, and then came the command. So also, when Jesus absolves you of your sins, He doesn’t absolve you after you’ve obeyed His commands, after you’ve done your works of penance or satisfaction. No, He absolves first, and then He gives you to love God and to love your neighbor. “You are clean,” He says. “Now you get to live as a clean person, as a testimony to those around you.” It is as Paul wrote in today’s Epistle: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21).
So much for the leper’s prayer of faith and Jesus’ response to it. Now let’s take a look at the centurion’s prayer. This man came to Jesus and prayed, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” Did he perhaps think he was worthy of Jesus’ help? He was a commander in the Roman army, after all. And we learn from Luke’s Gospel that he had done much to help the Jews and to promote their religion, even building a synagogue for them. Perhaps he thought he deserved Jesus’ help. Perhaps he thought he could even command Jesus as he commanded his soldiers.
But no, none of that is true. In fact, Luke informs us that the centurion didn’t even come to Jesus in person, but sent some Jewish friends to plead his case for him. And as Jesus drew near the house where the servant was, the centurion sent messengers out to Jesus, explaining that the centurion didn’t want to come in person because he didn’t think himself worthy to come to Jesus himself. And yet, though unworthy, he trusted that Jesus would not turn him away. He had such faith in Jesus’ power and authority that he compared Jesus’ command over sickness to his own command over his soldiers: “Only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.”
Matthew writes that Jesus marveled at this saying: “Truly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” What was it that impressed Jesus? Not the centurion’s status. Not his race. What impressed Jesus was this man’s word-based faith, his humble faith in Jesus as the good and compassionate Commander of…what? Of sickness and health, of nature itself, of the fate of mankind. To believe that Jesus could simply speak a word from somewhere in the world and whatever He spoke had to happen, THAT is the kind of faith Jesus praised. It was a faith that didn’t need to see anything. It was a faith that Jesus could do anything with just a word, because He is the God and Master of all things. It was a faith that Jesus was the kind of God who cared deeply and compassionately about unworthy sinners.
The centurion was an anomaly, something unheard of even in Israel where they had all the benefits of the people of God, all the evidence in the world for God’s power and goodness, everything needed to convince human reason. They had the Law of God, but most of them reinterpreted the Law to make themselves look and feel good about themselves. Very few trusted in the true God; and of those who did, practically none at the time of Jesus displayed the kind of faith that this centurion did.
Ah, but the centurion would not be alone in praying with this kind of faith. For, Jesus also said, “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” There will be many more who look to Jesus with this kind of humble faith; there will be many more who trust wholly in the power of His Word. And they will come from all over the world, from the East and the West.
People will hear and be convinced, but not by the power of the arguments for Jesus, and not by the power of their own reason. They will hear the simple word about the goodness and power of Jesus – they will hear of His goodness displayed first and foremost in His death on the cross in our place and for our sins, His power displayed first and foremost in His resurrection from the dead – and they will receive the gift of faith. They will repent of their sins, and they will believe and pray in faith to Jesus in spite of their human reason tell them otherwise.
At the same time, though, Jesus also spoke of a sad future: “But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The physical sons of Abraham will be cast out into outer darkness. Why? Because they didn’t want the free salvation Jesus was bringing. They didn’t want to listen to His Word. They wanted to think of God in their own terms; they wanted to create their own religion, and woe to anyone who disagrees! They actually thought of themselves as “good people,” people who were themselves worthy of God’s help, worthy of a place at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. How terribly wrong they were.
It is wrong for anyone who dares to think that way. Sadly, it is a very common way for people to think. Even Christians must beware, because as the evil in the world around us increases, our sinful flesh would have us put ourselves up on a pedestal and believe ourselves to be more worthy of God’s forgiveness and help than others. But that is not so. May God give us and keep in us that humble faith of the centurion.
So, what can you as a believer expect from Jesus when you approach Him with a prayer of faith? You can expect nothing but good. You can expect that Jesus’ response to you will be like His response to the centurion: “As you have believed, so let it be done.”
Do those words ring a bell? Do you remember where else these words of Jesus are used? Martin Luther included them in his brief form of private confession. After a Christian confesses his sins to the pastor, the pastor is asks, “Do you believe that my forgiveness is God’s forgiveness? And the penitent answers, “Yes, dear pastor, I believe it.” Then the pastor says: “As you believe, so may it be done to you. And I, by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! Amen. Go in peace!”
God has also given you the answer to the prayer of faith as He has given you His faith to believe that these simple elements of bread and wine are also His body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. And as you receive them in faith, they do for you what you believe; they give you what you believe: they give you Christ’s very own and very real body and blood, and along with those, you receive His forgiveness…and along with that, life and salvation.
Such is the power of the prayer of faith: it results in the forgiveness of sins and peace with God. It results in a favorable answer from God every single time. And it does so not because the prayer is so good, and not because the faith makes you worthy. It does so because, by approaching Jesus in faith, you are approaching the very One who makes you worthy of God’s help; you are approaching the very One who came into the world to save and to help sinners like yourself.
And because that is most certainly true, you can also be sure that you will never be disappointed.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
