Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Matthew 7-9
Key Verse
Matthew 8:22 — “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”
Devotional Thought
The Sermon on the Mount ends, and immediately the crowds are on the move. Jesus comes down from the mountain with His authority still ringing in their ears—”He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes”—and no sooner does He descend than a leper kneels before Him. Think of it: this man has not felt a human touch in years. The law kept him outside the camp, crying “Unclean, unclean.” Yet Jesus puts forth His hand and touches him. “I will; be thou clean.” In that single gesture, the King of kings reaches past every barrier of disease and defilement. Then a centurion, a Gentile commander accustomed to giving orders, astonishes Jesus with his faith: “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” And Jesus marvels—He, who calmed the sea with a word, marvels at the faith of a soldier.
The healings multiply—Peter’s mother-in-law, the demon-possessed, a paralytic let down through the roof, a woman who had bled for twelve years, a ruler’s dead daughter, two blind men, a man who could not speak. Each one is a portrait of need meeting mercy. Notice how often Jesus ties the healing to faith: “According to your faith be it unto you.” Notice too how He refuses to be a mere wonder-worker. When the scribe offers to follow Him anywhere, Jesus answers with the cost: “The foxes have holes… but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” When the Pharisees grumble that He eats with publicans and sinners, He answers, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
And when He sees the multitudes, weary and scattered “as sheep having no shepherd,” He is moved with compassion. He tells His disciples the harvest is plenteous but the labourers are few, and He bids them pray. That is where this reading leaves us—not merely admiring miracles, but standing in a field white unto harvest, asking the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers. In this Advent season, when the world around us hurries toward Christmas without pausing to ask who this Child is, the fields look much the same. People faint and scatter for want of a Shepherd. The question is whether we who know His voice will ask, and go, and touch the unclean with His compassion.
Reflection
- The centurion believed that a single word from Jesus, spoken at a distance, was enough to heal his servant. Where in your own life are you tempted to think that Jesus must act in a particular way, or through particular means, before you will trust Him?
- Jesus said the harvest is plenteous but the labourers are few, and He told His disciples to pray for labourers. When you look at the people around you this Christmas season—family, neighbours, co-workers—do you see them as a harvest, and do you actually pray for them?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, we bow before You as the leper did, unworthy yet daring to ask. You said, “I will; be thou clean,” and You touched the untouchable. Touch us. Forgive our little faith, and increase it, as You did for the blind men and the woman with the issue of blood. Give us the centurion’s confidence that Your word alone is enough. Open our eyes to the multitudes around us who faint and are scattered as sheep without a shepherd, and move us with Your compassion. Send forth labourers into Your harvest, and make us willing to be sent. We ask it in Your name, and for Your glory. Amen.