New Page 0

Do You Ever Surprise Jesus?

Last week we looked at the “ever-surprising” Jesus, noticing how he constantly surprised and amazed the people. I stated then that when God comes into the world, expect the unexpected. But let’s now consider the reverse: While Jesus was and is “ever-surprising”, is Jesus ever surprised? If by “surprise” we mean to catch off guard or unaware, then I don’t think we would ever find Jesus surprised. Though it is true that as a man he was limited in some ways, even in his knowledge (Mt 24.36), he also knew what was in man (Jn 2.25). He could even read men’s thoughts (Mt 9.4; 12.25; Lk 6.8; 9.47). So it seems that man could never catch Jesus by surprise. But let me qualify. The word “surprise” carries with it the idea of the unexpected, but it is also synonymous with words like “astonish”, “marvel”, “wonder” and “amaze”. If the unexpected is not inherent in these words, at least the unusual is. When something is unusual and out of the ordinary, it astonishes us. We marvel at it. But is there ever anything so unusual and extraordinary as to cause Jesus to be astonished, to marvel, to almost be surprised even? As a matter of fact, there were two things.

First, Jesus was “surprised” at an amazing faith expressed by a person from whom he (or at least we) might least expect it. I’m referring to the Roman centurion officer who came to Jesus to ask him to heal his servant (Mt 8.5-13). Several things about this centurion’s request surprise us. The first is that a Roman soldier would care so much about his servant. The second is that this soldier would humble himself enough to ask help from a Jewish peasant-rabbi. The third surprising thing is that this Gentile centurion – conqueror of the Jews -- did not consider himself worthy enough for the Jewish Teacher to come under his roof. Normally such a one would be too proud to have a Jew come under his roof. But the fourth and most surprising thing of all seemed to even surprise Jesus, i.e. the faith this foreigner had in the Jewish miracle-working Messiah. Matthew records: “Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, ‘Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.’” Think about that. Jesus, who knows what is in man, who created all men, marveled at this man’s faith. If not surprised, at least he was astonished to see such faith in such an unexpected place. He had not seen such faith expressed from a single Israelite! Which now brings me to the second thing that surprised Jesus.

If such amazing faith as the centurion’s was surprising, more surprising yet was the utter lack of faith in those whom one would most expect to find faith. When Jesus came to his hometown, to the people who knew him best, he could hardly do a miracle there because of their sheer unbelief (Mk 6.1-6). It was not that he was literally unable to perform miracles, but that to do so was a waste of time, for the miracles had no lasting effect on the people. Though they were initially astonished at Jesus’ wisdom and miracles, they would not believe. They even took offense at him. And so Jesus “wondered (marveled) at their unbelief”. In our modern colloquial speech we would say that he was “blown away”. I wonder if at this time he was thinking about the centurion. How could it be that a foreigner like the centurion could show such surprising faith in Jesus while Jesus’ own fellow-Israelites – his lifelong neighbors and kinsmen -- could be so skeptical and unbelieving, so indifferent?

And so we see two things that “surprised” Jesus: (1) Faith in unexpected places, and (2) faithlessness in unexpected places. I wonder if we ourselves ever cause Jesus to be surprised by either of these two things. Or at least to marvel.