Context No. 3708 of 4322 · Matthew

Matthew 8:14-18: in context

14When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15He touched her hand, and the fever left her. So she got up and served him. 16When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” 18Now when Jesus saw great multitudes around him, he gave the order to depart to the other side.

Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law of a fever with a touch, and she rises and begins to serve him, a small picture of the right response to being healed, to get up and serve. And that evening, they bring him many who are sick and oppressed, and he heals them all with a word.

Matthew sees in this a fulfillment of Isaiah: he took our illnesses and bore our diseases. There is something profound here. Jesus does not heal from a cold distance; he takes our infirmities and bears our diseases, entering right into our suffering. His healing flows from a compassion that carries the burden of human pain as if it were his own. And it points ahead to the cross, where he would bear not only our diseases but our sins. The Jesus who healed the sick with a word is the same Jesus who bears what weighs us down. He came not to stand apart from human suffering but to take it upon himself and lift it from us.

Do I bring my burdens and infirmities to Jesus, who does not stand apart from suffering but takes it upon himself, and do I, like Peter's mother-in-law, rise to serve him in gratitude for his healing?

Sources

Matthew 8:16: "He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick."
Matthew 8:17: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, He took our infirmities and bore our diseases."
Matthew 8:15: "He touched her hand, and the fever left her. So she got up and served him."