Matthew 8
CHAPTER 8
Jesus heals a leper
And when he had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. 2 And a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying: Lord, if you desire, you can make me clean. 3 And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying: I do desire. Be made clean! And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus said to him: See you tell no one, but go show yourself to the priests and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.
Jesus commends a Roman soldier
5 And when he was entering into Capernaum, there came to him a centurion, begging him, 6 saying: Lord, my servant lies in the house paralysed, grievously tormented. 7 And he said to him: I will come and heal him. 8 And the centurion answered and said: Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, having under myself soldiers and I say to one: Go! And he goes. And to another: Come! And he comes. And to my servant: Do this! And he does it. 10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him: Truly I say to you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
11 And I say to you, that many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast into the outer darkness. There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
13 And Jesus said to the centurion: Go your way. As you have believed, so it is done for you. And the servant was healed in that hour.
Jesus heals many sick people
14 And when Jesus had entered Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother lying sick with a fever. 15 And he touched her hand and the fever left her, and she arose and ministered to him.
16 And when evening had come, they brought to him many possessed with demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all that were sick, 17 so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying: He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.
Jesus calms a great storm at sea
18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds about him, he gave commandment to depart to the other side. 19 And there came a scribe and said to him: Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. 20 And Jesus said to him: The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. 21 And another of the disciples said to him: Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father. 22 But Jesus said to him: Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.
23 And when he had boarded a boat, his disciples followed him. 24 And without warning, a furious storm arose on the sea, so much so that the boat was covered with the waves; but he slept. 25 And they came to him and awoke him, saying: Save us Lord! We perish! 26 And he said to them: Why are you fearful? O you of little faith! Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 And the men marvelled, saying: What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?
Jesus heals a mad man
28 And when he had arrived on the other side, in the country of the Gadarenes, there met him two possessed with demons, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could go that way. 29 And they cried out, saying: What have we to do with you, you Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? 30 Now there was afar off from them a herd of many pigs feeding. 31 And the demons begged him, saying: If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs. 32 And he said to them: Go. And they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the hill into the sea and perished in the waters.
33 And they that fed them fled, and went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to them that had been possessed with demons. 34 And all in the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him they begged him to depart from their borders.
Commentary
8:3 Touched him- All would’ve been shocked. Touching a leper made a person ritually unclean, and risked contracting the illness. Jesus did this to show the extent to which He did not believe in “guilt by association”.
8:16,17 ‘Demon possession’ was the language used in the first century to describe mental illness. Note the parallel between ‘casting out demons’ and being cured of disease. ‘Demons’ don’t in fact exist.
8:22 Jesus, the Lord of all grace, can at times be very demanding. He wants our immediate response. Likewise He exaggerated the situation in v. 21- He did often have somewhere to sleep, e.g. the home of Martha and Mary, but that night perhaps He had nowhere.
8:23 His disciples followed him- The impression is given of them walking behind Him. They are symbols of us all.
8:25 Awoke Him- Jesus surely only appeared to be sleeping, in a small boat about to sink. But as in our lives, He appears silent only to bring us to the point of realizing our desperation for Him.
8:25 O you of little faith! – Remember the Gospel records were written by the disciples. They are transcripts of their preaching to others. They appealed for others to believe in Christ by pointing out how they had themselves been of such weak belief in Christ. Such humility, recounting our failures to others, is what makes our witness powerful rather than pretending we are perfect. Self-righteousness turns people off.
8:32 Jesus agreed to the mad man’s request in order to provide him with a visual aide memoire for the rest of his life. Mental illness is usually intermittent, and the man needed assurance that this time the cure was total. His illness may have been caused from eating pig meat.
