Psalm 42, 2 Kings 5:1-15, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Mark 1:40-45
Jesus Heals the Leper
The miracle of healing which Mark records in today’s gospel lesson might seem, at first, to present a kind of contradiction in Jesus’ own ministry at this point. After Jesus has been mobbed all night long in Capernaum by people seeking him out to cure their diseases, Jesus has fled Capernaum – refusing to do any more healings there, because that is not what he came for. He came to preach the gospel of the Kingdom, and so has left Capernaum in order to preach in other cities. “That is why I came forth,” is what he tells his disciples.
But what we find here in Mark’s gospel are two more miracles of healing – in today’s gospel lesson, the healing of a leper, and the one we will consider next week, the healing of a paralytic. Mark presents these miracles to us – and, I am quite confident, Jesus performed these two miracles – in order to make a point OVER AND BEYOND the mercy which he showed to both men. The miracles were object lessons – for those who were onlookers, and for the Church, which has continued to ponder these miracles for the past 20 centuries.
So, let us pay attention to several details in Mark’s account of this miracle of healing, and ask ourselves what is the point of it all, not only for what Mark tells us about Jesus, but for what we ourselves are to make of this miracle early in our Lord’s ministry.
Mark first presents us with a picture of misery – the condition of the leper himself. The word leper appears to be all that Mark needs in order to tell us what kind of shape this man is in as he comes to Jesus. Luke’s account of this miracle adds a detail that is helpful here – namely that the man was “full of leprosy.” By this, I think we are to understand that the leprous condition of his skin had spread over his entire body.
Dr Paul Brand, a Christian missionary who conducted some of the most influential research on leprosy was able to explain why lepers whom he studied in India were missing so many fingers and toes. For a few lepers, their missing fingers were actually knocked off their bodies. But most of them seemed to lose their digits during the night. He set some people to stay up all night to observe the sleeping lepers, and what they found was this: rats would chew off fingers and toes while the lepers were asleep, but the lepers did not awaken, because they felt nothing.
As the leprosy spreads, many lepers go blind -- not because of the disease itself, but because, without feeling in their eyes, they forget to blink. Dr Brand writes this:
“The loneliest people of all are the ones for whom leprosy has also destroyed their sight. Like many others in the world, they are blind, but unlike most of the blind they can’t use their hands to bring them the sensations that their eyes are denied because they can’t feel either. They are really alone.” [Hat tip for the above for Coty Pinkney]
The leper before Jesus, however, was still able to see. And we find that his misery was not merely physical, but also spiritual. He fell down before Jesus, and Mark says that he was begging him, saying, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Here we have some powerful evidence of why Mark includes this healing, and why Jesus performed it in the first place.
First of all, note that the leper did not say, “You can make me well.” Instead, he says, you can make me clean. The leper was unclean, and that was the predominate notion of leprosy – a foulness, a rottenness of both body and soul.
Uncleanness is a concept very well developed within the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Most uncleanness occurred because a person touched something that was unclean – like a corpse, or any other thing that was unclean, such as certain animals or insects. For a great amount of uncleanness, the solution was to simply wait until sundown, then to bathe. Some uncleanness had to be removed by offering a sacrifice.
But, the uncleanness that attached to leprosy was incurable. You couldn’t make the uncleanness disappear so long as you had the leprosy, and in those days leprosy was utterly incurable. There was no medicine for it. Here is what the Law of Moses says about the person who is found to be leprous:
45 “Now the leper … , his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his upper lip, and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ 46 … All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.
It is no wonder, then, that the Jews had another name for leprosy – it was called “the finger of God,” and it was supposed that those with leprosy had been literally singled out by God for a terrible judgment. And, indeed, this was true in a few cases which are recorded in Scripture. When Miriam, Moses’ big sister, recruited her brother Aaron to lead an insurrection against their baby brother Moses, we read in Numbers 11 that she was struck with leprosy, so that she was as white as snow. Many centuries later, when King Uzziah decided to go into the Temple of God to offer incense, we read this in 2 Chronicles 26:
17 So Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him were eighty priests of the LORD—valiant men. 18 And they withstood King Uzziah, and said to him, “It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed! You shall have no honor from the LORD God.”
19 Then Uzziah became furious; and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the priests in the house of the LORD, beside the incense altar. 20 And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and there, on his forehead, he was leprous; so they thrust him out of that place. Indeed he also hurried to get out, because the LORD had struck him.
In the Old Testament lesson for today, about the healing from leprosy of Naaman the Syrian general, what we did not read was what Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story.” Elisha refused to accept any payment or gift from Naaman. But after Naaman departed to return home, Elisha’s servant thought to himself, “This is a bummer. I’ll follow after Naaman and tell him that Elisha changed his mind, and ask him for a gift anyway. And, so he did. And when Elisha asked him about it, the servant – a man named Gehazi – lied to Elisha about the whole affair. And this is what Elisha said to him: “27 Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever.”
Now we do not know if this leper was leprous as a judgment of God or not. We can be fairly certain that everyone around him probably thought so. And, whether he was an innocent leper or one on whom the finger of God had fallen, everyone treated him with something monstrously vile and dangerous.
So, when the leper comes to Jesus, begging him to make him clean, it is not merely the disease that the leper has in mind – rather, he is keenly aware of his utter separation from man and God. He is separate from man because he cannot be anywhere around them, and he is separated from God in the most tangible sense, for he cannot ever enter the temple. He cannot offer sacrifice; he cannot worship at the Temple; he cannot join others at the time of the morning or evening sacrifice and pray to God. He cannot even enter a town, but he has to remain outside any ordinary human community.
Therefore, what this leper demonstrates when he comes to Jesus is that he has faith in Jesus. Did you catch his words – “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” There is no question about Jesus’ ability to effect a cure. The leper is quite confident that Jesus can cleanse him of the leprosy and all that goes with it. The lesson Mark leaves us, the point which Jesus is making by healing this man, is simply this: there is no malady of body or soul so great that it cannot be redeemed by Jesus.
And, of course, that is what Jesus does for this man. . Mark tells us he was moved by compassion for the leper, and in his compassion Jesus does an amazing thing. He reaches out and touches the leper. Jesus does the very thing which no one else would even think of doing – touching him. To touch a leper was to make oneself unclean; and it was to risk becoming permanently unclean if you contracted leprosy by contact. But, Jesus touches the leper and says, “I am willing. Be clean.” And, immediately, the leper is cleansed from his leprosy.
What Jesus does next is very instructive on several levels. He “strictly” charges the man with respect to two things.
First of all, he charges the man NOT to tell anyone what has happened? Why that, do you suppose? Well, from what has just been happening in Capernaum we know that Jesus miracles of healing are getting him mobbed by people who are seeking him for a cure, but they are NOT interested in anything he has to say! Jesus wants to preach; Jesus wants to teach; and that requires that there be people willing to listen. Instead, they have NOT been interested in listening to anything Jesus has to tell them, because they want him to heal their diseases.
And, so Jesus, willing to heal the leper, is unwilling that this act of mercy should put further brakes on his preaching ministry. And, so he tells the man to keep quiet about this.
Second, Jesus tells the man to go to the priest and to offer the sacrifices and to offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them. By this, Jesus attempted to do two things: to demonstrate his own compliance and agreement with the Law of Moses. For in Leviticus 14, there are directions for what to do if someone is cleansed of leprosy. He is to show himself to the priest, who is to confirm that his leprosy is healed, and then the healed leper is to bring certain gifts and sacrifices to the priest, who is to offer them before the Lord.
How often do you suppose that had ever been done in Israel’s history? We don’t know for sure, but probably it was done when Miriam was cleansed of her leprosy during the wilderness wanderings. After that, there is only one recorded healing from leprosy in the entire Old Testament, and that is in the OT lesson appointed for today – the cleaning of Naaman, the Syrian general. And, in his case, the sacrifices commanded in the Law of Moses were not done, because Naaman is now a Jew, and he is under no obligation to comply with the Mosaic Law.
I suppose that the sacrifices of the cleansed leper were one of those footnotes in the liturgical training of the Temple priests. They had never had to use them. And, that is why Jesus wanted his leper to go to the Temple, because when he did so, it would be a startling testimony to the priests that the Messiah had come!
Unfortunately, the man did not do as Jesus commanded. He went out and did the very thing Jesus prohibited him to do, and he failed to do the one thing that Jesus had commanded him to do. And the result was that Jesus’ ministry was hindered. The irony here is very sharp. The leper who formerly lived out in the wilderness and could not enter the city is now running around inside the city, while Jesus who wanted to preach in the cities now has to depart the cities and stay out in the wilderness. And still they were coming out to find him – to hear what he had to say? I’m afraid not.
I am afraid that the leper is all too often what we see in those who truly come to Jesus in faith. In their great adversity, in their great need, they rightly seek Jesus’ grace and favor. But when their needs are met, when Jesus has extended to them grace and compassion so that their calamities are all taken away, then they are far less willing to listen to what Jesus tells them is good to do. The healed leper’s disobedience is easy to understand and to sympathize with. And, yet it made Jesus’ mission all the harder to accomplish. AND it deprived the priests in Jerusalem of a stunning testimony to Jesus himself.
For all that, I would encourage you to fix this miracle in your own memory. What the leper got right, we need to get right and to keep right in our own minds, and that is this very precious truth: what attracts the attention of Jesus toward us is NOT the desperateness of our condition. Jesus is not some sort of fireman who runs around looking for fires to put out. And, though he healed a great many people of terrible diseases and cast out a great number of demons, that is not what he came into the world to accomplish, and it is not what grabbed his attention. Instead, it was the faith of those who approached Jesus which invariably caught his attention and prompted his blessing.
The second thing we need to keep in mind is the nature of this man’s calamity. Leprosy was a most graphic picture of sin and its corruption of the human body and soul. Of all the miracles of healing which Jesus performed, this one has the greatest import for us, for it assures us that there is nothing beyond the scope of Jesus’ compassion. In practical terms, there is no sin beyond Jesus willingness to forgive, there is no human depravity, no human corruption that cannot be healed by the grace of Jesus Christ. We need always to remember this, both for our won sakes, and for the sake of those with whom we share the gospel.
Back when I was an undergraduate, I was a member of a group of students who were hired to be guinea pigs for the medical school. Most of the students in the study were Christians, and we all knew one another, and our common fellowship in the Lord was obvious in the banter between us over the two days of the study. But, a few students in the study were pagans, and pretty debauched pagans at that. Mostly they kept away from us, but one did not. On one hand, I think he was fascinated, and entranced with what he saw among the Christians in the study. And, we soon engaged him in a discussion of the gospel and the ministry of Christ. He seemed always interested, but also always reluctant somehow. On the last evening of the study, I asked him why he did not repent of his sins and trust in Christ for his salvation.
I’ll never forget his face and his voice as he replied. “I can’t do that,” he said. “I’m not like you guys. I’m really dirty.” What he did not comprehend is that it is the dirty people who most need to be cleansed by Jesus, and it the very dirtiest people, the worst sort of dirty people, whom Jesus will gladly cleanse, if they will come to him in faith. Another of my Christian friends shared with him this portion of Mark’s gospel. I never learned if he put his trust in Christ or not, because he did not do so that evening and we lost contact with him after that.
My hope for him, and for any like him, and for all of us is simply this – that the example of this leper’s faith will always motivate us to turn from our own uncleanness and to seek Jesus compassion and forgiveness, and that having received this forgiveness, we will find grace to obey the Lord in all that he instructs his disciples to do.
God grant that we will always come to Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, that we will not stand afar off in shame, but instead come to the one who can take our shame away. And may be ever keep this truth about our Lord prominent in our example and speech to the unclean world and all its unclean inhabitants who see in us a hope, not only of a clean conscience but everlasting life.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
