MATTHEW 8: 1-4
THE CLEANSING TOUCH OF JESUS
[Job 5:17-27]
We must not separate Jesus’ humble life, or His authoritative teachings from His miraculous works. They are intertwined together to give us the message Jesus was sent to bring. The miracles serve to validate Jesus as the Messiah of God and to authenticate His claims and teachings.
The collection of Jesus’ teachings which we call the Sermon on the Mount is followed by a collection of Jesus’ miracles. Matthew places Jesus’ words first and His works second. After the authoritative sermon came the authenticating miracles that told one and all to believe His words. Chapters 8 & 9 can be divided into three groups of three types of diseases. The first triplet is three bodily healing; leprosy, palsy, and fever.
The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a rare and difficult thing, almost a miracle itself. Nearly all who think they have this capacity find when the opportunity comes that they do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, and pity are not enough. Jesus had the capacity not only to care for the suffering, but to heal their suffering (CIM).
I. JESUS’ LARGE FOLLOWING, 8:1.
II. JESUS’ WILLING MINISTRY, 8:2-3.
III. JESUS’ UPHOLDING THE LAW, 8:4.
In verse 1 a curious crowd follows Jesus down the mountain wanting to see and hear more from this amazing man. “When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him.
The mountain is the one Jesus climbed to teach the Sermon on the Mount. Large crowds were following Him (4:23-25) because of His teaching & healing ministry. The authority of His ministry has just been demonstrated by His teaching and He continues to reveal His authority by His taking charge over diseases. Jesus had a huge following til He turned His face like flint toward the cross & ask the people to partake of His death & life symbolized by eating His body & drinking His blood (John 6:52-58, 66-69).
With a multitude at Jesus’ side, He would not be easily reached. There was one kind of person however that the crowd would recoil from making way for this person to easily reach Jesus. Verse two discloses just such a person.
II. JESUS’ WILLING MINISTRY, 8:2-3.
The first healing Matthew records beginning in verse 2 is one of the untouchable. “And behold, a leper came to Him, and bowed down to Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean”
Leprosy, like AIDS today, was a terrifying disease because there was no known cure. This horrible disease appears to have been common among the Egyptians and Israelites. Some forms of the diseases call leprosy in Jesus day were contagious. The laws of Israel required ostracization including dwelling outside the city (Lev. 13:45-46). Lepers were also to be treated as unclean and quarantined (Num. 5:1-4). For a rabbi to interact much less touch a leper would be unusual in the extreme.
Leprosy began as a small spot below the surface of the skin. The hair within it turned white. The flesh would become raw with unsightly sores & scales of white color. It would sometimes spread to consume the whole body. Lepers were considered defiled and unclean and were required to shout “unclean, unclean” to keep others away. In that day anyone who came in contact with a leper became ritually unclean (Lev, 13-14) and was risking contracting and dying of the disease. Lepers were outcasts.
This leper approached Jesus and bowed down in an attitude of respect, of worship (Mark 1:40–44; Luke 5:12–14). He came because of faith in Jesus’ ability to heal him. [Those expecting Jesus to heal them today would do well to prostate themselves in worship of Jesus also.] The word bow down (proskuneo) is literally prostrated himself to the ground. This man so marked with stigma must have seen or sensed something humble and caring in Jesus even to dare approach Him.
The leper’s asking Jesus if He was willing indicates that he had faith in Jesus’ power and ability but was uncertain of His desire to get involved with one such as him. Jesus’ desire to get involved with those who humbly come to Him and call out to Him for help is here again demonstrated, just as it has been in each of our lives.
The leper’s language expresses what is often felt by people asking for spiritual blessings. Men more easily believe in miraculous power than in miraculous love.
“Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean”. These are the words of prayer. He believed and wanted help enough to seek Jesus out and plead for it. In faith, in longing, in humility, and in submissiveness he lays the response and responsibility before Jesus. He called the healing a cleansing because the disease made him defiled before man. He asks if he is too defiled for God?
Jesus’ response to his defilement is seen in verse 3. “And He stretched out His hand and touched him, saying “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”
Jesus’ healing touch of love would have startled the Jewish onlookers for He seems to be incurring ceremonial defilement. O the compassion of a pure heart -pure because it carried no selfishness or burden of its own sin. Jesus instead of receiving defilement His touch imparted cleansing. He reveals here that a new era was arriving that instead of the ostracism the law demanded, grace and mercy are offered (Lev. 13-14).
So Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him. I imagine the leper had almost forgotten what the touch of a hand felt like. He had lived ever since the disease surfaced apart from human contact. No embrace from a wife, child, or friend. When He walked in crowds a heart-chilling circle would clear all around him. But now this man stretches His hand across this lonely gulf and lets him feel once again the sweetness of a warm and gentle touch. It was part of the cure, it was the clearing away any lingering doubt concerning the willingness of Jesus to demonstrate compassion. The pure hand of love was laid upon the rotting flesh of the leper.
With the confirming touch upon him the leper hears the longed for words “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immense energy and vitality flowed from the words and the touch. No moral or physical pollution is too serious to make Christ shrink back from contact with a sinner who comes to Him desiring to be freed from his defilement by the belief that Christ has the ability and willingness to free him.
Immediately his leprosy disappeared. The man both felt and saw that he was clean. The eyes, forehead, lashes. skin, mucous membrane of nose & throat, the fingers, toes, whatever parts of the body that had been infected and damaged by leprosy bacillus [myobacterium leprae], were in a instant completely restored. And even more, for the door of social and religious restoration was now opened to him.
III. JESUS’ UPHOLDING THE LAW, 8:4.
In verse 4 Jesus’ gives the cleansed leper a two part instruction. “And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
Jesus was concerned that the man would be content with being made well without being officially pronounced clean; be physically healed but not religiously and socially restored. He was immediately to go and present his cleansed skin and flesh to “the priest, and present the offering that Moses’ commanded” (Lev. 10, 21). Not only would this open the door for his reintegration into society it would also be “a testimony to them” so they too would have opportunity to believe in Jesus. They would be able to verify the authenticity of the miracle. Jesus wasn’t out to alienate the religious community but to bring them to faith in Him as the true Messiah.
Periodically throughout the Gospels Jesus warned people not to spread the word about a miracle (9:30; 12:16; 16:20; 17:9). Primarily this was to keep His public notoriety within bounds. He did not want to be known chiefly as a miracle worker, but as God’s spokesman. He did not intend to entice the crowds or to stir up unnecessary conflict with the Jewish leadership but wanted to have time to focus on training His disciples.
CONCLUSION
When the leper came to Jesus and begged to be healed, Jesus reached out and touched him, even though his skin was covered with a dreaded disease. Sin is also a incurable disease— and we all have it. Only Christ’s healing touch can miraculously take away our sins and restore us to live our life before a holy God. But first, just like the leper we must realize our inability to cure ourselves and come and humble our self before Christ and ask for Christ’s saving help.
Are you sure this miraculous healer is sufficient for whatever need you have? You have seen Him do wonders for others. Jesus desires you to know that He is willing to do wonders for you. If you are willing to come to Him in worship and ask Him to, Jesus is willing to cleanse you. Don’t worry about the crowd and what they think of your condition. Come prostrate yourself at His feet in worship. You too can experience His cleansing touch. You too can know the assurance of His healing voice. You too can know the marvel of His love as His touch reaches into your life.
Jesus not only will minister in His mercy and grace to your spiritual and physical condition, He is concerned with you as a person. He is concerned with your future in society. Will you come to Him and let Him give you a place in society?
This event with the leper is an illustration of Jesus coming into this world made hideously ugly by sin. He touched it and still touches it though His people. Yet neither He nor His servants today receive defilement by contact with the contaminated but we bring cleansing from foulness to those who are seeking His touch. For only in seeking is finding. His coming changed us for being untouchable by a holy God, to being cleansed and restored. Will you be His hands of restoration?
