Day 10: Matthew 8

Jesus is the suffering rejected servant who is also the glorious Son of Man/God

Into less familiar territory for me. Jesus now demonstrates his ability to make the unclean clean. The sacrifice he tells the man to offer would never have been made as leprosy at the time was incurable- what a surprise the priest would have had! Next we see more hints that Jesus mission is broader than just the Jews. He heals the centurion's servant with a word and we also see the desired response of faith, but not from the Jews, but from a gentile.

Jesus heals many others and we are told this is in fulfilment of Isa 53. The passage about the suffering servant who dies for his people's sin- here applied to Jesus. In the next section we continue to see the suffering nature of Jesus as he has to move from place to place. He calls others to do the same. His name for himself however is not 'the servant', but the Son of Man- an ambigious title (eg Ezekiel's called it), but a messianic title from Daniel 7, the one who is given all rule, power and authority. This fits nicely with the calming of the storm and the casting out of evil spirits where the disciples mouth our question well- 'who is this?' The demons know, he's the son of God (see chapters 1-5) but in the end he is rejected again, even from non-jewish territories.