So the story we read today in Mark, also recorded in Matthew 8 and in Luke 5, is a wonderful example of Jesus’ love for the unlovable. All throughout Scripture we see that God has a tender sensitivity for the outcast, the hurting, the sorrowful and the desperate. I said last week how He is drawn to the tears of His children and He reaches out to those who are lonely and suffering. What a loving God we have.
Today we see the encounter between Jesus and a man who, as it says in Luke’s account, “full of leprosy”.
Let me tell you a little bit about leprosy in order that you may fully understand the correlation between this story and the gospel. See if you can make the connection as I go through these facts about the disease:
• The whole body could be affected.
• It usually began with fatigue and pain in the joints.
• Scaly spots would develop on the skin, as the disease progressed, the body would be covered with puss filled nodules.
• The appearance of the face would be altered, so that the sufferer would come to resemble a lion. Nodules would grow on the vocal chords so that the leper spoke with a raspy voice.
• The body was in a state of living decomposition, thus a terrible stench surrounded the leper constantly.
• Leprosy attacked the nervous system, compromising the body’s ability to feel pain. It acted like an unwanted anesthetic, numbing the body.
The leper might step on a stone or a thorn and injure his foot and be totally unaware that there was a problem. Infection would set in and eventually, the injured foot might just fall off. The leper might wash his face in scalding water and blind himself. He might reach into a fire to pick up a dropped potato and not realize that he had been badly burned. Rats and other vermin would often chew on sleeping lepers. One doctor in a third world nation would often send a cat home with his leprous patients after he had performed surgery on them.
• It usually ran its course in about 9 years.
• The sufferer usually died a horrible death.
• One of the worst aspects of leprosy was the social isolation it brought. The Levitical Law was very clear in its commands to lepers, Lev. 13:45-46.
• By the time of Jesus, the rabbis had added many more restrictions to the law governing lepers. If a leper even stuck his head inside a home, that home was considered unclean. It was against the law to greet a leper.
• When it was determined that a man had leprosy they would banish him from the village, he was no longer allowed to have communion with other people. He had to leave his family; he had to leave his friends.
• It was unlawful for a leper to approach within 50 feet of a clean person. If it was a windy day, the rule changed to 200 feet.
• He could not touch his family; he could only see them from a distance.
• Many families brought food and clothing for a while, but after a time, most families had a funeral service and regarded the afflicted person as a dead man.
• The leper had to tear his garments so people would recognize that he was a leper.
• Over his upper lip he had to wear a cloth so he wouldn't spread the contamination and every time he saw people coming, the leper was required to cry, “Unclean! Unclean!”.
• The leper’s cries would warn people that a leper was nearby and people would pick up stones to throw at the leper so he wouldn’t come near.
So this is the kind of man that approached Jesus in our story today. He was an outcast and when people saw him, they ran away. He could never give or receive a hug. He couldn’t sit and tell stories or recite Hebrew scripture with his family. He was alone, repulsive and dying. This is one of the most pitiful encounters that we see Jesus having.
Nevertheless, the leper came to Jesus in a proper, reverent way. I wonder if he wasn’t once a priest or other religious leader. He probably wouldn’t have been surprised if Jesus avoided him or told him to stay away from him. But Jesus didn’t do that. What did Jesus do? It says that when Jesus touched him, the leprosy left him and he was made clean. He stretched out His hand and touched the leper.
Jesus touched the untouchable and He cured the incurable. He reached out and touched a man that would make Him unclean. His love overruled the Levitical Law.
What a beautiful demonstration of His love…God’s love for people. This man was cast out by the priests, avoided by the people. They weren’t allowed in the communities. And here is Jesus, reaching out and intentionally and lovingly touching this man.
An incomprehensible exchange took place in that touch. In the words of Sinclair Ferguson, a theologian who lives today and heads up Banner of Truth, “By touching him, Jesus was really saying, ‘I am prepared to become, by choice, what you are by nature – a man under the judgment of the law – in order to share with you what I have – freedom and life.’”
Can you imagine what this man may have felt? Imagine getting a disease where you have to leave your home, your hometown, your family, your job, your church, your everything and nobody will ever touch you again and you will never touch anyone else again. Not only that, but whenever you see someone or someone sees you, either you or they have to announce “UNCLEAN”. So you can’t even sneak around. Imagine that, when people see you, they run the other way? Talk about profiling!!
And to know that there is One who will put Himself at risk so that you can receive His love. That He will condescend and meet you where you are with no regard for His own safety. Who would not be drawn to such a person?
Do you see the gospel in this story?
Leprosy is very much like sin in so many ways.
It begins very small (David and Bathsheba; a little drink; a little kiss; a little scratch ticket)
By the time you see it on the outside, the inside is already infected. When someone has a moral failure, you’ll usually find out that it was festering and growing out of control for a long time.
It starts as a small spot which any person could live with. We overlook a lot of sinful behavior in the Christian church today. Someone’s living together, someone has a few drinks here and there, a trip to the casino every now and then, someone skips church every now and then, a little peak at pornography every once in a while. We have become accustomed to tolerating little sins that we can live with. But they aren’t harmless. They, like leprosy, will grow and eventually take you over.
Left unchecked, it spreads.
Sin, like leprosy, rots the host. If we all could see the unforgiven sinner as God sees him, we would be sick. Sin rots us from the inside out.
Sin, like leprosy, defiles and isolates. Just as lepers would stay in their own communities and hang around each other, as the ten lepers in Luke 17, so it is with sinners. Read Proverbs 1
And finally, sin, like leprosy, always leads to death unless you find a cure.
Just as the man received the touch from Jesus, so must we receive His touch in order to be healed and made clean from our sins.
How Jesus Responded to the Leper:
-Compassion When we come to Jesus, He is always moved with pity or a better word translated may be
