Good morning. I hope you are all enjoying this long weekend. Memorial Day is such a sacred time. It began as “Decoration Day” in the 19th Century, when various communities set aside time to decorate and maintain the graves of their loved ones. Even today, several towns compete for the right to say they were the first to celebrate Decoration Day. In fact, it began with one town commemorating their Union dead, killed in the Civil War. Another town, on a slightly different date, commemorated their Confederate dead. Over the years that followed the two dates merged so that the entire nation honored their fallen at the same time. In this way, Memorial Day came to signify the healing of the divisions that nearly tore our nation apart.
On this Memorial Day weekend we will look at one of the few times in Scripture when God says, “Wow” about something that a soldier does. True, that’s not literally what Jesus says, but it is a pretty good paraphrase. Every sermon needs a “so what”: a way you can apply it to your life. I want you to leave today asking how you can have the kind of faith that impresses God. Perhaps a faith that even makes the Lord say, “Wow.”
We are now, officially, in the summer season. If you’re looking for vacation ideas, forget Disney World. Go to Washington, DC. Our nation’s capitol is loaded with ‘Wow’ moments. In a relatively small geographic area, the high watermarks of our nation’s story stand chiseled in stone. I had the honor of serving with the Old Guard, and later in Arlington National Cemetery, for a combined 3 ½ years. For PT, I ran down the hill of Fort Myer to the Lincoln Memorial, where I would take a moment to read those immortal words Lincoln penned in November, 1863. It followed the battle of Gettysburg, where over a three day period, 40,515 soldiers were either killed, wounded, or went missing. In the shadow of that battle, President Lincoln wrote these words.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Memorial Day is a sacred time, especially for those who have lost a loved one in service to our nation. Today we will look at a Soldier whose very presence in the Bible stems from a single act that made God say, “Wow.” On the one hand, it seems trivial. He did not stand with the Spartans against the Persians at Thermopylae; he was not a part of any courageous attack or defense that we know of. Rather, he simply believed that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and did what he claimed to do. This Centurion understood with the wisdom of a soldier that Jesus was sent from God. Therefore, he has something very import to request of him. This Centurion has a crisis. He is a man of character, and he has confidence that Jesus, if willing, is able to do something he desperately needs. In the end, God says, “Wow.”
What are your ‘wow’ experiences? I’ve mentioned some of mine that I had while running around DC. Those were very positive ‘wow’ moments. I’ve had some negative ones, too – times when you watch somebody doing something unbelievably foolish, and you just say, ‘wow.’ I once had a Private in my unit in Iraq, for example, who stood far above his peers when it came to making mistakes. He was a good kid, just seemed to trip over everything, and make remarkably poor choices. Once, he was having trouble getting a .50 caliber round into its link. So he decided to bang it against a rock. It exploded and took off his thumb. Wow.
They sent him home, where he recovered quickly, and they returned him to duty. On his return, he drove a 10’ tall Truck under an 8’ bridge, neatly slicing off the top of the truck. Wow.
On one mission, an insurgent placed an IED on the back of one of our trucks. It was a milk jug-like container, filled with explosives, wires coming out of the top, and a cell phone taped to the side as a detonator. My Soldier picks it up, assumes it is trash, and tosses it into our trailer. Fortunately, the battery on the phone had died, so no one else did. Wow.
And then there are moral failures. We see the big ones in the news. Senior leaders who have everything ahead of them, and have fought so hard to get to where they are, completely lose their mind and get into a relationship that brings them crashing down. Wow.
That flirting that was cute in high school becomes a deadly liability for your marriage. Wow.
A soldier gets away with stealing a little, and soon they are embezzling thousands. Wow. But enough of the bad ‘wow’ moments – let’s look at this man who made Jesus say, “Wow.”
He was a Roman Centurion stationed in a backwater called Capernaum, which is on the sea of Galilee. He would have commanded something between 100 to 1,000 soldiers. He was a Gentile, which meant it would have been frowned upon for a Jew to enter his home. He had slaves, and one of them was very sick. You could become a slave in many ways in Rome. You might be captured in a war. You may be sold into slavery because of financial problems. You may be born a slave. It was not racial slavery, but equal opportunity slavery. Some slaves could win their freedom, and others were more of what we would call house servants. The owner was expected to look after his slaves as he would his family. This Roman cared deeply for the welfare of his servant, which we can read in Luke 7:1-3:
After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.
Technically, Jesus, a Jew, should never enter the house of a Gentile. The Centurion must have known this, so he was going out on a limb, breaching some serious social protocol, by asking Jesus to come. It must have been quite a crisis – the servant was close to death.
But he did ask Jesus to come. He could do it because he was a man of character. How do I know? Look at verses 4-5:
When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, "He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us."
Your character is always being evaluated, always being judged. For those of you well-versed in Counter-Insurgency doctrine, this may look familiar. Here we have the elders of the town approaching the authority (Jesus, in this case), to vouch for the Centurion. He dared not go himself. But because he had won the favor of the local populace, they were willing to act on his behalf. I don’t think this guy just built a synagogue to win the people over. The elders said something amazing: “he loves our people.” What must that have looked like? If you’ve spent any time in Iraq or Afghanistan over the last couple of decades, you know that it’s one thing to build a school, quite another to love the people. Building the synagogue was a symptom of his love for the Jews, not just an attempt to win their support. In only the previous chapter, Luke records Jesus saying, “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.” This Centurion genuinely loved the people, and demonstrated it through building a synagogue. Your character is always being evaluated by those around you, whether you notice it or not.
Your character is a combat multiplier. Jesus does not suggest we love our enemies, he commands it. He ends the previous chapter with this: “Why do you call me Lord, and do not do the things I say? He who does what I say is like a man who builds a house, digs deep and lays the foundation on a rock. When the flood arose, the stream beat against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did not do what I say, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” Do you see how loving others, loving your neighbors as well as your enemies, is not just a sweet thing that church people do, but an integral part of individual, group, and national security? We will always have enemies. The stream will always beat against the house. But in the case of the Centurion, his character, his genuine love for the people, became a combat multiplier. Suddenly he had the elders not only doing him a favor, but genuinely on his side, looking out for his welfare. Your character is a combat multiplier.
Your character has a life-changing impact on others. It strikes me as odd that the Jews are saying that he, the Centurion, is worthy of this favor. Hold on – who exactly is sick? The Centurion or the slave? The slave is the one who is about to die. Because of the character of the Roman, the Jewish elders act on his behalf, saving the life of the servant. Your character impacts others, usually those closest to you.
We live in the day of the strategic corporal. The lowest ranking soldier on the battlefield can take a picture or video of people in uniform violating our ethical code, upload it to Instagram, and suddenly the President of the United States knows that soldier’s name. Your character is always being evaluated. Your character is a combat-multiplier. Your character has an immediate and significant impact on others. You literally define our nation by what you think, say, and post online.
Our Centurion has a crisis. Our Centurion has remarkable character. And now we see that our Centurion has amazing confidence, not in himself, but in Jesus. Verses 6-10:
And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, "Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this,' and the slave does it." When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.
To be frank, I struggled to understand what the big deal was. Jesus hears what the Centurion says, and responds, “Wow.” Wow – I’ve never seen this kind of faith in Israel. Hold on – Moses had faith. He grabbed the staff that became a snake, and then the snake that became a staff. He led Israel through the wilderness. He parted the Red Sea. Then there are all the prophets of old. So perhaps Jesus referred only to this generation. Still, what’s the big deal? What did this guy do?
Essentially, the Centurion repeated the faith of Abraham. And Abraham believed God, and he counted it unto him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:6) If you don’t know that story, Abraham was old and childless, and God promised to make him the father of many nations. Or, as the writer of Hebrews says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Or, as Jesus says to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
Jesus was not impressed with his Evaluation Report, his Physical Fitness Test, his appearance, his wealth, or even his generosity. The one thing above everything else that impressed Jesus was that he believed. He believed Jesus was who he claimed to be. He believed Jesus could do what he claimed he could do. He was not star-struck, not even wanting Jesus in his house because he understood who Jesus was, and he didn’t feel worthy to have him under his roof. As a commander, he understood Jesus’ authority over all of nature, even death itself, in a way that no one else seemed to understand.
Every Memorial Day I like to share this story about my great grandfather. He had just returned from serving in World War I. Like so many others, he married his sweetheart and made plans to start their lives together. The coalmines of Tennessee had played out, and he prepared to strike off on his own and start a business in another part of the state. His father gave him this piece of advice. When you get to a town where you think you might want to settle down, ask the first person you meet where the town cemetery is. Go there. If it is well cared for, the grass is mowed, the stones maintained, the trees trimmed, then go on to the bank and start your business. But if you get to the cemetery, and the weeds are tall, the stones broken or knocked over, then go find another town. People who don’t care for their dead are unlikely to care for their living.
The Centurion had a crisis, but he was a man of character who feared God, with confidence that God’s grace would be sufficient. Perhaps this Memorial Day you will visit a cemetery to decorate the grave of a loved one. Many of those graves represented a crisis for someone. The way the cemetery is cared for speaks volumes of the character of our nation. But most of all, as you reflect on the brevity of this life, (and it does pass so quickly), remember the confidence that we have through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. May you, too, walk in the kind of faith that gets God’s attention, that makes God say, “Wow.”
Benediction
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen. (II Corinthians 13:14)
