INTRODUCTION
I used to teach school, and
I enjoyed my work, but there was one part of working with children that was
especially hard for me. That was the cruelty of so many children to those who
they considered undesirable in some way. The child that was too fat or too
skinny, or too short, or had bad skin, or was poor, or lacked social skills, or
was in some way “different” was often picked on, or—almost as bad—ignored. We
teachers called these children “isolates.” The plight of these isolated,
friendless children was heartbreaking.
And it was often impossible
to convince the “normal,” happy children to behave considerately. Once I was
talking to a girl named Beverly about her unkindness to a classmate who had
some handicap (I can’t now remember what). I said to Beverly, “Beverly, suppose
you had her problem. How would you feel if someone treated you the way you
treat her?”
Beverly said, “But Mr.
Sommerville, I don’t have that problem.”
In this story we will watch Jesus in an encounter with an “outcast” of
his day.
Read: Mark 1:40-45
I. To have leprosy in Jesus’s day was a terrible
fate.
A. “Leprosy” was the name
given to several ugly and disfiguring skin diseases, not only to the disease we
now call “leprosy,” or “Hansen’s disease.”
One of the jobs I held in
time past was that of a medical librarian at one of our state hospitals.
We had a book in our library
with color photos of dozens of different kinds of skin diseases.
Some of those skin diseases
were truly horrible to look at. I hated that book.
B. But it was even worse in
Bible times. In Bible times people thought that anyone who had such an ugly
disfiguring disease meant that the sufferer had done something evil and was
being punished by God. “God hates lepers,” so people thought.
The Old Testament book of
Leviticus instructs the Israelites how they were to treat the lepers in their
midst.
In Leviticus 13 we read that
whenever anyone had some sort of abnormal eruption or growth or spot on his
skin that persisted, he was to be brought to the priest for an examination.
If the priest determined
that the person had leprosy, the priest would pronounce him “unclean.”
They believed that these
diseases were very, very contagious. Perhaps many of them were.
Here are the instructions
for the victim of what they called “leprosy” in Leviticus 13:45-46:
“The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair
of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean,
unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean;
he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp.”
He must remain outside all
towns or villages.
This meant that he would
have to leave his family—all who loved him and whom he loved.
His only associates would be
other lepers, unless somehow, sometime the disease went away.
He could not bring sacrifices
to the Temple, worship at the Temple, or take part in the religious festivals
of the people.
And the state of medical
knowledge was such in that day that that he would most likely be isolated from
normal society for the rest of his or her life.
It must have seemed a fate
worse than death.
II. Let’s imagine the scene in our story.
A. Watch the poor leper come to Jesus and throw himself at Jesus’s
feet.
Right now, he’s broken the
law. He was supposed to stay away, but the poor man is desperate.
He cries out to Jesus: “If you
will, you can make me clean.”
We aren’t told what it was
that inspired this man to believe that Jesus could heal him.
I suppose he had been
watching from afar as Jesus healed people with various diseases.
He decides to take a chance;
what could he lose?
He rushes up to Jesus before
anyone can drive him away and throws himself on his knees before Jesus and
pours out his heart before the Lord: “If you will, you can make me clean!”
Notice that he doesn’t say, “…you can heal me” but “…you can
make me clean.” As bad as the
disease was, it was the uncleanness that was even harder to bear.
Will Jesus drive him away?
He’d probably experienced enough of that.
B. Now, as the poor man
kneels, holding his breath, watch Jesus.
Jesus looks at him and is moved with pity. When the man said, “If
you will…” Jesus could only respond in one way, “I will; be clean.”
Jesus had a tender heart.
The word translated “compassion” or “pity” comes from the agitation of one’s inward organs, like a
convulsion of in one’s belly or heart.
But compassion is more than
a strong feeling. In the Bible compassion has to result in action, like the
compassion of the Good Samaritan, who, seeing the half-dead man lying beside
the road, stopped and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and then
set him on his donkey and brought him to the inn.
To properly show compassion,
we must also do what we can about the plight of those we pity.
C. We read that Jesus
stretched out his hand and touched the man.
This is an important part of
the story.
Jesus could have healed with
a word.
But this man needed to be
touched.
The word in Greek can mean
more than what we call touching. The word basically means “to take hold of,”
“to fasten to,” “to adhere to.”
This is the way I picture
the scene: Jesus reaches out and takes hold of the poor leper with his hands on
both of the man’s shoulders. It’s almost a hug.
This was an important
gesture to the poor leper, who had not been intentionally touched by another
human being—except other lepers—since he had contracted the disease.
D. Then Jesus told the man
to go, show himself to the priest and get the required certificate of health so
that he could rejoin normal society.
So, as important as his
healing, was the freedom now to go back to his family—maybe a wife and
children, maybe his parents, brothers and sisters—surely his old friends.
He would no longer be
disdained, untouchable.
He could again join the
community in worship.
Did the leper become a
follower of Jesus? We don’t know. We hope he did.
Some who were healed became
believers; some didn’t. Not all who enjoy Christ’s blessings give their hearts
to Jesus, but we hope this man did.
III. Here is what I see as a deeper meaning in the story.
A. People were sure that touching a leper would cause them to become
infected.
But when Jesus touched the
leper, the infection went the other way.
Instead of the leper’s
disease going to Jesus, Jesus’s wellness—Jesus’s
goodness—“infected” the leper.
Instead of the leper’s
uncleanness making Jesus unclean, Jesus’s “cleanness” cleansed he leper.
B. Here is a true story that
illustrates this point.
The greatest Christian
leader in Japan during the last century was a man named Toyohiko Kagawa.
It was in the early years of
the 20th century that Kagawa, then a teenager, came upon an evangelistic tent
meeting. Curious, he went inside and was impressed with the message of the
missionary conducting the meeting.
Later, the missionary—a Dr.
Meyers—led young Kagawa to the Lord.
Kagawa was so earnest about
his new faith that, after two years of college, he went off to spend the summer
preaching outdoors in the worst slum in Kobe.
Rain or shine, the young man
preached the gospel to anyone who would listen.
He contracted tuberculosis
and the doctor filled out the death certificate.
But Kagawa recovered, went
back to school.
Soon he was back preaching
in the slum.
Again his strength gave out.
He became very sick again. He went to live in a fisherman’s hut.
No one would come near him,
and he was very lonesome.
But Dr. Meyers, his
missionary friend, came to him.
Dr. Meyers stayed with
Kagawa in the hut and slept in the same bed, which was only a heap of straw.
Kagawa asked the missionary, “Aren’t
you afraid of my disease?”
Dr. Meyers answered, “Your
disease is contagious, but love is more contagious.”
Kagawa recovered and
continued to live his life for Jesus.
This is what happened when
Jesus touched the leper.
Maybe, in some sense, this
is what happens when a faith-filled believer touches a wounded, broken sinner with
the love of Jesus.
CONCLUSION
In this story we see the loveliness of the Savior.
This is the Jesus who is your Friend and my Friend.
This is the Jesus who gave
himself to heal us from our brokenness, to cleanse us from sin, and to prepare
us for live with him forever.
Let me leave you with two
lessons to take away from this story.
1. We are needy people, just like the leper. We need spiritual health,
cleansing, and wholeness.
We can kneel before our Lord
and make our request.
Haven’t you made the leper’s prayer often? “Lord, if you will, you can help me.”
And, even if we don’t get an
answer we hope for, we can let Jesus’s goodness flow into our body. We can let
his love fill our soul.
Jesus does will to help us. Just as he willed to
cleanse the leper, he wills to cleanse us and make us whole.
Jesus wills that the peace of God, which passes all
understanding, will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
He waits to touch us, to
take hold of us, and make us his.
But one touch isn’t enough.
We need to come back every day, make our plea, and let Jesus touch us again and
again.
2. We do not have the power heal either sickness or sin with a literal
touch. But if we are like Jesus, we will reach out to those in need and touch
them—literally and figuratively.
That’s our mission at
Village Ridge: to spread the love of Jesus to those around us.
That means to our fellow
residents and to the staff members who care for us here.
You are limited in what you
can do. But you can give an encouraging word; you can pray; you can express
your gratitude. You can mention your faith in appropriate ways.
You can point people to Jesus.
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