Under My Roof

Jesus has just come into Capernaum, a town on the Sea of Galilee. An officer of the occupying army, a centurion, comes out to meet Him there.

Listen to their conversation. It is short, and each man answers the other plainly.

"Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented."

"I will come and heal him."

"Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed."

So the officer turns down the visit and asks for something harder. His reason comes from his own job: "For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth." He knows how orders work. He stands under someone else's authority, and that is why his own word is obeyed. He sees the same thing in Jesus, and he understands that a word from Jesus can travel the rest of the way to his house on its own.

Luke tells the same story with more voices in it. The Jewish elders go to Jesus first to plead for the officer, and they call him worthy: "That he was worthy for whom he should do this." Then, when Jesus is not far from the house, the officer sends friends to say the opposite about himself. So one story holds two verdicts on one man, and Jesus marvelled at the faith of the man who said he was not worthy.

His sentence has become part of the church's prayers, and words we say often can go stale in the mouth. "Lord, I am not worthy" is first of all a statement about who Jesus is. If you turn it around, it becomes a statement only about you, and then it turns into a reason to stop asking Him for anything. Whatever this man thought of himself, it did not stop him from asking, and Jesus answered him: "his servant was healed in the selfsame hour."

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 47 is Unpluckable (John 10:29).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two