Jesus performed miracles to confirm what he was saying was true. Only by doing the works that only God could do could Jesus show that he was speaking the words that only God could speak. The people were amazed at Jesus’s teaching because he spoke as one who had authority. Why? Because he did have authority. He is God. He is the Creator himself who had come in human form to make himself known to us.

As Jesus finished his sermon on the mount, he began to climb down, but as he did, Matthew records that he began to perform several miracles. He healed a man with leprosy, Peter’s mother-in-law from a fever, and several others showing his power over disease. He healed demon-possessed people showing his power over evil. And he even calmed the wind and the waves showing his power over creation.

Jesus was performing miracles, doing things that only God could do, so that people would see and believe. They would believe what he taught them. They would believe that he truly was God. And they would not only believe, but they would give their lives to him… completely.

One of Jesus’s greatest challenges, however, was to get his own people to accept him. Even seeing the miracles that he performed, the Jews were rarely able to accept and believe that Jesus was the Christ, nor the son of God.

There was one man, though, that demonstrated that he truly knew who Jesus was. Except he wasn’t a Jew. In fact, he was a Roman. He came from among those that the Jews believed needed to be overthrown, to be conquered by the Messiah, for whom they were waiting. This man knew that Jesus could heal others, not because of some magical power that he seemed to possess, but because Jesus truly had authority. In fact, he knew Jesus’s authority spanned space and time. He could give a command in one place and in one time and it would be carried out in another place at that same time, or in a different time, or in whatever way he chose.

Why? Because Jesus is God. This Roman centurion understood, based on his own tiny experience, relatively speaking, with 100 soldiers, that when he gave a command, that command would be carried out just as he had said that it should be done.

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

Matthew 8:8-9

It is an amazing thing to try to understand what this man understood. As a centurion, even he was used to giving orders to his soldiers. He gave orders to specific, physical people. They then went and carried out those orders. In other words, there was someone that was responsible. Someone that he could see. If that order wasn’t carried out, the centurion would know who it was that he should hold responsible.

But the centurion is saying that he knows that Jesus can simply say that word and that his servant would be healed. That is a different type of authority! That is an authority that goes well beyond the authority of the centurion. Who would Jesus be telling to go? Who would he be holding responsible if the order wasn’t carried out?

Those were unnecessary questions because this centurion knew something incredibly important: Jesus’s authority was absolute. Jesus is God. He is the creator over all things. What he says is to be done is what will be done, whether Jesus tells someone else to do it, or he simply says the word, what he says is what will be done. Period. No questions. He has the authority to express his will, and the authority that gives him the assurance that his will is carried out when he declares something to be done, whether he is there or not, just because he says the word.