Healing the Centurion's Servant #15

The healing of the centurion’s servant is the account of a Roman military officer in Capernaum who asks Jesus to heal his servant and trusts that a spoken word is enough, without Jesus having to enter his house. It appears in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10, and Jesus calls the centurion’s faith greater than any he has found in Israel.

The Account

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion, an officer commanding about a hundred soldiers, appealed for help because his servant was seriously ill. In Matthew the man is paralyzed and suffering terribly (Matthew 8:6), and in Luke he is about to die and is highly valued by his master (Luke 7:2). Jesus offered to come and heal him.

The centurion replied that he was not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof, and that Jesus needed only to say the word. He understood authority, he said, because he himself was under authority and had soldiers under him, and when he told one to go, he went (Matthew 8:8-9). Jesus was amazed and said he had found no one in Israel with such faith. He added that many would come from east and west to sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the “sons of the kingdom” would be cast out. Then he told the centurion to go, and that it would be done as he had believed. The servant was healed at that very moment (Matthew 8:10-13).

Setting and Context

The two Gospels tell the story differently. In Matthew the centurion comes to Jesus himself. In Luke he sends Jewish elders and then friends, and the elders say he loves the Jewish nation and built their synagogue (Luke 7:3-6). Both versions carry the same exchange about authority and faith, and many interpreters see the difference as the centurion acting through representatives, which the Gospel writers report in different ways.

The centurion was almost certainly a Gentile serving as an officer in the forces stationed in Galilee. Devout Jews generally avoided entering Gentile homes, so his consideration for Jesus’s position, in saying he was not worthy for Jesus to come, would fit with that. The story in John 4:46-54, involving a royal official whose son is healed from a distance, is similar in some respects, but most interpreters treat it as a separate event.

What It Reveals

The centurion shows faith in the power of Jesus’s word, and humility about his own standing. Matthew stresses the widening of God’s people, as those from outside Israel join the patriarchs at the banquet. Luke emphasizes the good standing of an outsider who supported Israel’s worship. Christian tradition has long echoed the centurion’s words, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof,” in the liturgy before communion in the Catholic Mass and in some Anglican and Lutheran services.