‘Go thy way; as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.’  He heals at a distance, and shapes His gift by the man’s desire.  The form of the vase that is dipped into the sea settles the quantity and the shape of the water that is taken out.  There is a wide truth in that, on which I do not now enlarge.  The measure of my faith is the measure of my possession of Christ.  He puts the key of the treasure-house into our hands and says, ‘Go in, and take as much as you like’; and some of us come out with a halfpenny as all that we care to bring away.  You are starving, some of you, whilst you are sitting in a granary bursting with plenty.  Suppose a proclamation were made, ’There will be given away gold to anybody that likes to come.  Let them bring a purse, and it will be filled.’  How large a purse do you think you would like to take?  A sack, I should think.  Christ says that to you; and you bring a tiny thing like what they keep sovereigns in, that will scarcely hold a farthing, with such a narrow throat is it provided, and so small its interior accommodation.  ‘Ye have not because ye ask not.’  ’Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.’

SWIFT HEALING AND IMMEDIATE SERVICE

’And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. 15.  And He touched her hand, and the fever left her:  and she arose and ministered unto them.’—­MATT. viii. 14-15.

Other accounts give a few additional points.

Mark:—­

That the house was that of Peter and Andrew.

That Christ went with James and John.

That He was told of the sickness.

That He lifted her up.

Luke, physician-like, diagnoses the fever as ‘great.’  He also tells us that the sick woman’s friends besought Jesus and did not merely ‘tell’ Him of her.  May we infer that to His ear the telling of His servants’ woes is a prayer for His help?  He does not mention Christ’s touch, which Mark here and elsewhere delights to record, and which Matthew also specifies.  He fixes attention on the all-powerful word which was the vehicle of Christ’s healing might.

Both evangelists put this miracle in its chronological order, from which it appears that it was done on the Sabbath day, which explains our verse 16, ‘when the even was come.’

I. The scene of the miracle.

The domestic privacy of the great event seems to have struck the evangelists.  It stands between the narrative of Christ’s public work in the synagogue, and the story of the eager crowds who came round the doors.  So it gives us a glimpse of the uniformity of that life of blessing as being the same in public and in private.

Again, it suggests the characteristic absence of all ostentation in His works.  We can scarcely suppose this miracle done for the sake of showing His divinity.  It was pure goodness and sympathy which moved Him.