Introduction
I’ve coined a new name for Jesus. I call him Jesus the Great Gasper. He is the man who makes people gasp, who causes gaspers. Consider what he did in a twenty-four hour period. He amazed people by his teaching, just by his teaching! People are left astonished by the way he taught. Maybe they were not gasping for breath by it, but they most likely were by the appearance of a demoniac and Jesus’ casting the demon out. That was a gasper. And then there was the evening of healings and exorcisms. As many people who came to him for healing of whatever disease they possessed, he healed them. That was a gasper too. In our passage this morning we come to what is perhaps the greatest gasper up to this time. It seems to be little more than a sentimental healing story, and yet to the witnesses who would have been present, it was the most shocking incident in Jesus’ brief career.
The Cleansing
As I said, the story seems to be a sentimental healing story. This is the first story in which Mark takes time to describe a little bit the manner of the person seeking help.
40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Our hearts go out to the man. We can picture him falling on his knees and earnestly pleading. We can imagine the anguish he is feeling. And then we are attracted to his childlike faith. He knows Jesus is able to heal, and though he is anxious for healing, he still addresses him humbly: If you are willing.
Jesus’ response is just what we would expect. Mark notes that he is filled with compassion. Well, of course he is. What else would Jesus be? Mark then describes how Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. Again, that doesn’t surprise us. It is a tender gesture that we would expect of Jesus. We all know how pleasing a loving touch is when we are grieved or stressed.
And then, Jesus’ comment – I am willing – is just the appropriate word that would come from a man of love. By now, the rest is commonplace. Jesus says the word and the man is immediately cured. Nothing new about that. The only thing that would have astonished us is if Jesus had refused to heal or had been unable. Otherwise, we mark it down as one more nice healing tale. If we had been present, no doubt we would have stood around with warm, cheerful smiles on our faces. Possibly, but I am more sure that our Jewish companions would have had mouths wide open in shock. This was another gasper.
So, what’s up with our Jewish friends? Let’s revisit the story. Go back to the beginning when the leper approaches Jesus. Note again that he falls on his knees and begs Jesus to heal him. We were thinking that such earnestness indicated the man’s anguish or pain from his disease. Perhaps we have experienced the same feelings. I know I did when kidney stones attacked me. I would have fallen on my knees before any doctor and begged for healing!
But there is more taking place here. What does he say exactly to Jesus? If you are willing, you can make me clean. This seems to be a courteous request for help. We often put our requests to friends like that: “Would you be willing to help me out?” But putting it all together, Mark indicates that this man had real doubt. This is the only instance of anyone asking for help questioning Jesus’ willingness. Why would he doubt? After all, the reason he came in the first place was that he had heard Jesus healed all the sick who came to him. Why would he be the exception? We need to understand the nature of his disease to understand why.
Leprosy
The first thing to note is that most references to leprosy in scripture are really not about true leprosy. Fortunately I am not a physician, so I have no temptation to introduce technical terms or enter into an elaborate presentation of the various medical conditions involved with this term. It was difficult enough just to wade through the reading on the subject, and I am not about to represent it in a sermon. I am personally satisfied with the NIV’s footnote: “The Greek word was used for various diseases affecting the skin – not necessarily leprosy.”
Leprosy, as we think of it, causes a loss of sensation. This loss of sensation in turn leads to ulcers on the skin and other malformations. There may be pain in the limbs and joints. The hands may curl into claws. It is, needless to say, a horrible disease. That’s probably not what the lepers in scripture had. Doctors reviewing the list of symptoms that are presented in Leviticus 13 would note that indeed some of them indicate mild skin problems. This again leads us to wonder why the biblical form of leprosy was considered so horrible.
One reason is the visible nature of the disease. I have a deadly disease – diabetes. Take away my ability to inject insulin into my body and I will not be alive next week. Yet, though my disease is deadly, you are not repulsed by it. You are not afraid to get near me or even touch me. But if diabetes did nothing more than produce nasty looking splotches and scars all over my skin, you would have a difficult time feeling comfortable around me. These lepers bore ghastly looking marks for everyone to see.
Furthermore, the leprosy disease appeared to be contagious. It didn’t matter whether or not it really was; nobody cared to find out. This was one reason why lepers had to be quarantined or kept at a distance. In Moses’ time they had to live outside the camp of the Israelites. Lepers could not enter Jerusalem or any walled city. Those who lived in towns had to give warning of their leprosy to anyone who came near. Leviticus 13:45,46 prescribes the rules for a leper:
45 “The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 46 As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.
Such regulations present the third reason leprosy was so horrible. The victim lived a dismal life. He became a social outcast cut off from people and to a large part the religious culture which was the dominant element in Jewish life. He could not worship in the temple. In the outlying towns, he could attend the synagogue, but only behind a screen separating him from the rest of the congregation. He would not have been permitted to participate in the feasts and rituals of the community except in some segregated sense.
Now, by this time you may thinking that, seeing how terrible this disease was, then all the more reason to expect Jesus to react to the leper with compassion and heal him. This kind of sickness is just what you would expect Jesus to heal. If the leper had checked with us first about Jesus’ willingness to heal, we would have assured him that Jesus would gladly help him. And, yet again, if he had asked one of the disciples, chances are they would have tried to turn him away. Why?
The key to this mystery lies in a single word that appears four times in the story, though the NIV translates it differently one time. What does the leper say that Jesus can do? It’s not heal; it’s not cure; it’s clean. When Jesus speaks, he says not “be healed,” but “be clean.” The NIV says, Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Actually the Greek says, he was cleansed. To be sure, the man was cured of leprosy, but more was happening beyond a physical healing. We need to go back to Leviticus to understand.
As Gordon Wenham in his commentary on Leviticus notes, the command by God, Be holy, because I am holy, could be termed the motto of the book. You will find those words in several passages, but 11:44-47 is especially instructive. Let me read it:
(By the way, why do I take time to read scripture? Why don’t I just tell you what it says and save a lot of time? The reason is that I don’t want you, when you are telling others about what you learned, “My pastor says that the Bible says…” Rather, I want you saying, “The Bible says…” I want you impressed with the Scriptures, not me.)
44 I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. 45 I am the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
46 These are the regulations concerning animals, birds, every living thing that moves in the water and every creature that moves about on the ground. 47 You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.
In this particular case God is prescribing rules about food, but the principle is the same for disease as well. Israel, to be the nation of God, must be a holy nation. The people, to be the people of God, must be holy. The essence of what it means to be consecrated by God is to be set apart by God for himself. That’s what he had done for Israel. He had set aside the nation out of all the other nations to be his holy kingdom. But here is the catch. To be made holy in the sense of being consecrated for God, one has to first be what the Bible calls “clean.” That’s why God says, You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean. If you don’t, and you become unclean, not only can you not become holy, but disaster will take place if you come into contact with what is holy.
Here is the way the system worked. You, or anything, could be in one of three conditions. You could be unclean, clean, or holy. We will use a Jewish priest as an example. A priest was a Jew from the tribe of Levi who was made holy for the service of God. He was consecrated – set apart – from other Jews to serve in the temple. To carry out his holy work, he had to be ceremonially clean; otherwise he would bring judgment on himself.
An example of what could take place is given in Leviticus 7. Have you ever wondered what happened to all that meat that was sacrificed in the temple? A lot of it became dinner for the priests and their sons. Verse 6 says that any male in the priest’s family could eat the meat with this proviso – it must be eaten in a holy place; it is most holy. The sacrifice is holy, having been consecrated to the Lord, and its holiness needs to be preserved. Now listen to the directives in verses 20 and 21:
20 But if anyone who is unclean eats any meat of the fellowship offering belonging to the LORD, that person must be cut off from his people. 21 If anyone touches something unclean—whether human uncleanness or an unclean animal or any unclean, detestable thing—and then eats any of the meat of the fellowship offering belonging to the LORD, that person must be cut off from his people.
That is severe! You can see the reason one must be careful to distinguish between the clean and the unclean. Now let me give you one more example, and then I will put the whole system together. This is another food case. Leviticus 6:26,27 reads thus:
26 The priest who offers it shall eat it; it is to be eaten in a holy place, in the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting. 27 Whatever touches any of the flesh will become holy…
Here is what’s happening. The common state of most things and people is to be clean. But being clean is not transferable; it’s not contagious. Being unclean is and so is being holy. When an unclean object and a clean object touch, the clean object becomes unclean. Likewise, when a holy object and a clean object touch, the clean object becomes holy. But, when an unclean object and a holy object touch, the result is judgment on the unclean object and defilement for the holy object. It’s not a good thing.
Now, let’s put it altogether to understand the predicament of our leper friend in the story. The leper, by virtue of his leprosy is unclean, very unclean as far as the Jews were concerned. Here is one rabbinical teaching: “If an unclean man [afflicted with leprosy] stood under a tree and a clean man passed by, the latter becomes unclean. If a clean man stood under a tree and an unclean one passed by, the former remains clean. If the latter stood still, the former becomes unclean.” The leper is double jeopardy. He can make others ceremonially unclean, and, horror of horrors, pass on his very leprosy making them permanently unclean, permanently cut off from God’s people.
Coming into the presence of Jesus, the leper was putting Jesus in a precarious position. I assure you, the crowd was not gathering closely around this time to see what would happen. They were stepping back in fear and indignation at this man. He knew that, and he knew that Jesus might do the same, especially because of who Jesus was. The people would not have regarded Jesus as a doctor, nor even simply as a miracle worker. They would have regarded him as a man of God, one who was holy. The question before everyone was not what should a compassionate man do, but what should a holy man do.
Many of the people and the religious leaders considered leprosy itself to be a judgment against sacrilege. Miriam, Moses’ sister was struck with leprosy temporarily for speaking against Moses; Uzziah, an otherwise godly king of Judah, was struck with leprosy for the rest of his life after trying to offer incense in the temple, an act reserved only for priests. The people probably didn’t know if Jesus would heal or pronounce judgment.
But before he healed or spoke, he did the unimaginable. He touched. The holy touched the unclean! And wondrous yet, the unclean became clean. No, I cannot take you back to Leviticus or anywhere else to show the precedence for that. I can show you how provision is made to restore the unclean to a clean state, but not by the holy touching the unclean. That only results in judgment. Somehow the holy touch of Jesus brought cleansing.
Application
William Barclay says that Jesus’ action reveals this attitude: “To Jesus he was not unclean; he was simply a human soul in desperate need.” Yes, Jesus saw a human soul in desperate need, but he also saw one who was unclean. That’s just the point. Jesus came to make the unclean clean. That’s what his touch can do and only his.
That is what he has done for everyone who has fallen before him and pleaded to be cleansed; that is what he will do for anyone who comes to him. Understand there is no unclean disease so terrible that Jesus cannot and will not cleanse you. What has made you unclean? Is it bitterness? “I have too much anger in my heart for God to forgive.” Is it adultery? “What I have done is too shameful.” Is it sacrilege? “God could never forgive the things I have said and done against him.” Perhaps your sin has long endured. “I’ve been a sinner for too long.” Perhaps your sin is very strong. “I’m too caught up in what I’ve become.”
Know this – Jesus can and will cleanse you from your sin. Whatever your sin, you are no more unclean than everyone else whom he has touched. Whatever your sin, its power is not greater than Jesus’. His power to cleanse you; his power to make you holy is greater than sin’s power to make you unclean. The real question is not is Jesus willing to cleanse you, but are you willing to humble yourself like the leper and seek his cleansing. If you do seek it, know that the hand that touches you will bring healing, cleansing, and life, not judgment.
Indeed, Jesus can and will, not merely make you clean, but make you holy. By his touch he will give to you his own righteousness. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want not merely to be excused for your sins, but to be made holy in God’s sight? Haven’t you dreamed of what it would be like to be innocent once again? To once again be chaste? Redemption is more than being forgiven. It is being made whole, just as the leper was made whole. That’s the touch that Jesus extends to any who would come to him.
And he extends that touch to you while you are unclean. That’s a point that both Christians and nonChristians overlook. They think that first they must become clean before they can become holy. The nonChristian says, “I want to follow Jesus, but first I have got to get my act cleaned up.” The Christian after sinning says, “I know God will forgive me, but first I have got to show him that I have changed.” That’s the old covenant mindset. That’s Leviticus. That’s the Law. But we are the people of the new covenant. Our book is the Gospel, not the Law. And the Gospel says that Jesus our Redeemer makes holy the unclean. That’s grace.
Know also that Jesus extends his touch to us out of compassion, out of love. He does not begrudge his healing, cleansing touch. He gladly extends his hand to you. He delights to touch you. He joyfully cleanses away your sin-made leprosy and makes you acceptable to God.
Jesus gave the leper a command he did not follow. He told him to show himself to a priest. Why a priest? Because through a priest’s declaring the leper clean, he could again worship God in the temple. Jesus, the Great High Priest, declares you clean who would be touched by him. “Now go,” he says. “Go and delight in the worship of your God who gladly receives you, his holy child.”
