Jesus Befriends a Roman Soldier
After Jesus had entered Capernaum a captain of the Roman army came up to him, entreating his help.
“Sir,” he said, “my manservant is lying ill at my house with a stroke of paralysis, and is suffering terribly.”
“I will come and cure him,” answered Jesus.
“Sir,” the captain went on, “I am unworthy to receive you under my roof; but only speak, and my manservant will be cured. For I myself am a man under the orders of others, with soldiers under me; and, if I say to one of them ‘Go,’ he goes, and to another ‘Come,’ he comes, and to my slave ‘Do this,’ he does it.”
Jesus was surprised to hear this, and said to those who were following him:
“Never, I tell you, in any Israelite have I met with such faith as this! Yes, and many will come in from East and West and take their places beside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven; while the heirs to the Kingdom will be ‘banished into the darkness’ outside; there, there, will be weeping and grinding of teeth.”
Then Jesus said to the captain:
“Go now, and it shall be according to your faith.” And the man was cured that very hour.
—Matthew.
Skill of Christlike Touch
Ask God to give thee skull
In comfort’s art,
That thou may’st consecrated be
And set apart,
Unto a life of sympathy;
For heavy is the weight of ill
In every heart;
And comforters are needed much
Of Christlike touch.
—Alexander Hamilton.