To understand how amazing this is, you’d have to understand the history of Rome. Rome was a power house. Caesars pretty much wanted to be worshipped, and if you weren’t for Rome, well, good luck. So for this to be a well-known Roman officer is huge. For him to ask Jesus for help is big, because during this time your faith really was expected to be in the Roman government and its leaders. So the fact that he knows and respects the Jewish people says a lot. But even more so interesting is the fact that he knows that Jesus can do what needs to be done from anywhere. Here, you have this Roman soldier, who a lot of Jews might fear for that reason, acknowledging Jesus has a power sufficient enough to heal his slave. Wow. The truly astounding piece of this is what Jesus says to him in response. “I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!” What Jesus? You mean the Jews, those who are supposed to know and recognize you, those who should have crazy faith in You, haven’t expressed faith like this Roman? Before we point fingers, let’s ask that same question. Has Jesus seen crazy faith from you? Has He seen crazy trust in Him no matter what? There’s a lot of context in this passage, and rightly so. But when we attempt to boil it down a little bit, what’s truly astounding is that of all the people to exhibit faith in Jesus in an extraordinary way, it happened to be a Roman soldier, not a Jew, not a priest, not a Pharisee. This was no coincidence. This reminds us that God wants all who will believe in Him to come to Him. Black, white, female, male, whatever, He wants you to come. And He is pleased whenever anyone displays faith in Him that shows others your belief in Him as the one and only God. Are you the one?
Luke 7:1-10 1 When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people, he returned to Capernaum. 2 At that time the highly valued slave of a Roman officer was sick and near death. 3 When the officer heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish elders to ask him to come and heal his slave. 4 So they earnestly begged Jesus to help the man. “If anyone deserves your help, he does,” they said, 5 “for he loves the Jewish people and even built a synagogue for us.”6 So Jesus went with them. But just before they arrived at the house, the officer sent some friends to say, “Lord, don’t trouble yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of such an honor. 7 I am not even worthy to come and meet you. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 8 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, “I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!” 10 And when the officer’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed.