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Listen to our audio version of Dennis’s essay. By Guest Writer | Dennis Gladden The leper broke the law and approached the passerby. "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean."Jesus did the unthinkable. He received him and said, "I am willing; be cleansed" (Matthew 8:1-3). This exchange opens Matthew 8 and sets the theme of the entire chapter: Jesus' willingness to restore. Perhaps the events Matthew records here were in Peter's mind when he wrote, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Peter had witnessed the Lord's compassion when Jesus encountered
Jesus tells us His perspective on these conditions when it comes time to leave that region. A disciple wants to go with Him but first has the duty of a son to bury his father. Jesus answers, "Let the dead bury their own dead" (8:22). What startling words, as though Jesus were saying, "I am the Lord of the living. Your father is dead—let the perishing bury their dead. But you, follow me, and I will give you life." After this, Jesus, who has been restoring others, saves the disciples. They are crossing Galilee and are sure they will die when a storm arises and swamps their boat. They cry out, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!" (8:25). Jesus stirs from His sleep, rebukes the wind and waves, and a calm equal to the storm (Matthew calls them both "great") ensues. The disciples experience what Peter would put into words, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish." Lest we forget, Judas was in the boat, too.In the sequence of this chapter, everyone Jesus met was perishing: the leper, the centurion's servant, the mother-in-law, the neighbors, and the disciples. Once He healed without being asked (Peter's mother-in-law); otherwise, they came to Him. His willingness continues in the next scene (8:28-34), but the response changes. Jesus enters the territory of two men who have so terrorized the neighborhood that no one goes near. But Jesus doesn't retreat. Surprisingly, the men and the demons yield to Him. As with Peter's mother-in-law, Jesus acts without being asked. The men hadn't invited Jesus for a healing service. They didn't ask Him to rout the demons. The duo apparently did nothing except emerge from the tombs—the demons did all the talking. We would say the life these men had was no life at all. They lived among the dead. They had no self-control, the demons ruled them. They were perishing—just the people Jesus was willing to save. And Jesus delivered them. He separated the men from the demons, who took their violence into a nearby herd of swine and stampeded into the sea. The pigs perished, the men lived. Such is the willingness of Jesus to save. But not everyone delights in this truth. The residents of this region, like those in Capernaum, also came to Jesus, but not to welcome Him. These refused the mercy the others received. "Go away," they said. The mercy Jesus had shown the demonized men extended to the townspeople (after all, He freed them from the terror of the demons, too), yet they wanted nothing to do with it. Jesus complied and left and, in this, He too was willing—willing to let them have their way. He had shown them mercy without being asked, then did for them what they asked, just as He had for the centurion. "As you have believed," Jesus said, "let it be done for you." How important to consider what we believe and what we ask. Here are three lessons from this passage.Recognize our condition. Until Jesus came, everyone in these events was either perishing or had already gone to the grave, prompting Jesus to say, "Let the dead bury the dead." Paul wrote, "You were dead in trespasses and sins." This is a harsh diagnosis yet, someone has observed we are all terminal. Do I recognize this, or am I living in denial? The truth is: without Christ, who alone has life in Himself, I am dead. The life I have is no life at all. Jesus came to give us life, both eternal and abundant. Rest in God's willingness. I have been in disputes about how God works and they can be dispiriting. We pray with the Psalmist, "Teach me your ways, Oh Lord" because we seek to understand, but inevitably reach the place where His ways are past finding out. We wrestle with God's ways, and each other, to our own discouragement. If the Gospels teach us anything, it is that we cannot put God in a box. Consider the variety of ways Jesus healed. On most occasions in Matthew 8, people came and Jesus was true to His word, "the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out" (John 6:39). But sometimes Jesus acted without being asked. This affirms His willingness doesn't depend on us. He is willing, regardless. Whether my asking prompts God or He acts from His own initiative, I can learn from Mary how to respond to His favor. When the angel told her she would bear the Messiah, Mary submitted (rested), saying, "Let it be to me according to your word." We can debate the ways of God but, in the end, let us rest in them.Receive God's grace. The city at the end of Matthew 8 acts in stark contrast to those in Capernaum at the beginning. One came to Jesus, begging Him to leave; the others came, begging Him to heal. He obliged both. This recalls Jesus' hometown, where Mark says Jesus couldn't do anything significant and "marveled because of their unbelief" (Mark 6:5-6). I shudder again to think how Jesus rescued Judas from perishing in Galilee's storm, yet the disciple went to perdition anyway. In a letter to the Corinthian church, Paul reviews how God has prepared us for an eternal home, how Jesus died for all that all might live for Him, and how God "was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Corinthians 5). In light of all this, Paul urges, "Do not receive the grace of God in vain" (2 Corinthians 6:1). How willing God is! Am I?-Dennis @ Dennis Gladden IM Writers Association is a collective group of Christian writers who support the advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ while sustaining an eschatological view of the Holy Scriptures of God.
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