The significant element in this story is the fact that the person asking for help is a centurion, a soldier and presumably not a Jew. Yet he has this great faith in Jesus. He asks Jesus to cure a sick servant. Jesus immediately responds that He will go. "No, no," replies the centurion, using words familiar to us at Communion time. According to rabbinical law, a Jew ceremonially defiled himself by entering the house of a Gentile something the centurion would have been well aware of. And he goes on to say that, as an army officer, he just has to give commands and they are carried out on the spot. When it comes to healing, he knows that Jesus can do the same. Jesus is astonished at the faith of this pagan: "Nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this!" Then, turning to the centurion he says, "Go back home; you have believed, so let this be done for you." The servant was cured at that very moment.