Matthew 8
When Christians find themselves among non-Christians or non-believers, they feel certain pressure that they have to prove their religious legitimacy. Christian parents also sense the same demand from their teenage or adult children. We often face expectations to prove our faith by reasonable arguments and verifiable evidence.
In Today’s gospel, a leper approaches Jesus. Jesus was coming down from the mountain after having given the well-known sermon on the mount. I don’t know if this leper was at the mountain to listen to Jesus. If he had been there, he must have been quite far away from the crowd because lepers were segregated in Jewish society. Somehow, this leper concluded that if Jesus wanted, Jesus could cure him. When he decided to come up to Jesus, he did not beg Jesus to heal him. Interestingly, he said, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.”
Is this a rhetorical statement that indirectly presses Jesus to do an action? Is this leper testing Jesus for his divine power? I don’t think so. He was a leper. I don’t think he leisurely showed up before Jesus to see if this Jesus had some divine power. Day by day, his body was being deformed. Lepers would have been living with helplessness and despair, not to mention social and religious rejection and physical pains. When this leper started having hope in Jesus, even other lepers might have ridiculed him for his faith in Jesus. How could he prove his faith while he was rotting in his flesh? People would have questioned what benefit his faith in Jesus could bring him?
The leper’s faith made him know the divine and supernatural power of Jesus. And he wanted to tell this to Jesus. He did not attempt to prove his faith. Rather, he wanted to confess his faith. He entrusted himself to Jesus. It was up to Jesus whether to exercise his divine power of healing. And Jesus replied, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
We can hear the words of Jesus and act on them. But it is not in our power to prove the divine work. If God works on our demands, can we call him a Lord? If we could prove our faith with human language and verify it with experiments and tests, our faith wouldn’t be called super-natural any more. Faith is not irrational but super-natural. Faith can be understood but cannot be proven.
