Matthew 8:14-22
14 Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15 So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.
16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
“He Himself took our infirmities
And bore our sicknesses.”
18 And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. 19 Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”
20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Jesus spent a whole Sabbath day in Capernaum manifesting who He was: the Conqueror of demons, the Healer of the sick, the One who is kind and good and ready to help, at no charge, for no reward. Matthew is the Evangelist who ties Jesus’ goodness and His healing miracles to Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant. We often think of Jesus “bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows” (Is. 53:4) with reference to what He suffered for us on the cross and throughout Holy Week, and rightly so. But as Matthew explains, it also refers to the fact that the Christ would actually take away the pains of His people while He was with them on earth.
No longer is Christ with us so that we can go to see Him to have our every illness healed. But we do well to go to where He still makes Himself available to us, to the ministry of the Word, not for the healing of earthly illnesses, but for the healing of our souls in the forgiveness of sins, in the strengthening of our faith, and in the protection He provides against the demons’ power.
As the rest of today’s reading teaches, following Jesus in this world will not be easy; He offers no earthly amenities. But following Him should be the most important thing in the world to us whose very life depends on the refuge He alone provides against sin, death, and the devil. And if we remain with Him to the end, He’ll take away all our pains and provide the perfect healing of our bodies and our souls in the resurrection.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, have mercy on us in the midst of all our afflictions and make us ready to follow Jesus at all times. Amen.
