Jesus and Imperfect Faith.
I. Notice the leper's appeal to Christ. This appeal, as every other, must have had some manner of faith to rest upon. The leper believed in a healing virtue nigh at hand. When you think of this and all it involves, you will discover this faith to be by no means ordinary. He had been sadly conscious of his leprosy; he could find neither relief from the physician nor consolation from the theologian, and was therefore fastened within his leprous self by the hand of a hard and unrelenting fate. For him, then, to believe in any healing possible to him was to exercise the faith that overcometh the world, and the world which he had to overcome was a hard unsympathetic world. In the presence of the Christ this possibility flashed on and through his spirit. He believed, and therefore spoke.
II. Christ's answer to this appeal. When the leper said, "If thou wilt," he narrowed his appeal and directed it to the will of Jesus. His faith in Christ's power was very much stronger than his faith in His goodness. It contained much that was true, but did not contain much more that was equally true. Christ answered not according to the imperfection of the appeal, but according to its possibility of being perfected. And He touched him. He might have healed him, perhaps, without that touch; but He touched him. When, we may wonder, had that man been touched before? The leper could not forget the touch of that hand. Neither can you and I forget that the Christ has touched us, and touched us in all our possibilities. There is nothing peaceful within us which He has not touched and made still by the touch; neither is there anything painful without the impress of His hand. The deepest of our wounds has been probed by Him, and He confidently assures us of being finally healed.
J. O. Davies, Sunrise on the Soul,p. 21.
References: Matthew 8:1-4. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. 1, p. 54; Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. ii., p. 2.Matthew 8:1-9. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 344.Matthew 8:1-13. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 21.Matthew 8:2. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 182.Matthew 8:2; Matthew 8:3. G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons,vol. i., p. 47.