Mark 1:40-45 ”I’m Not Half the Man I Used to Be”
It was in my senior year of high school that I developed a serious skin rash that covered three fourths of my body. It caused me terrible irritation and I scratched and scratched, my arms, my legs, my stomach, and chest, all day, and much of the night. It was so bad I can remember waking up in the middle of the night and scratching my legs.
After a while of this my parents decided to take me to a doctor on the Air Force base where we lived. The first time we went and saw him, he suggested that I had poison ivy and sent me home with a cream to rub on the skin and a prescription for some pills that would help me.
I’d never had poison ivy and I didn’t remember getting into any but I did what the doctor told me to do and I endured another miserable two weeks. Miserable because I didn’t have poison ivy and so what he had prescribed didn’t work.
We returned to the doctor once more and this time he diagnosed me as having ringworm. Once again, he gave me a bottle of cream and a prescription for pills that would help get rid of the ringworm.
I went home again and endured another miserable two weeks. That’s right, I didn’t have ringworm either.
We returned to the doctor once more and since he was out of options he referred us to a dermatologist. We made the appointment and I endured a little bit longer and finally got in to see the dermatologist.
He took one look and said, “It looks like eczema to me” and sent me home, once again, with cream, some oatmeal bath stuff and a prescription for some pills.
Here we go again, I thought as I left the office.
But this time I had found someone who knew what he was talking about, someone who had diagnosed my situation correctly.
Now my story would have been completely different if I had lived when Jesus did. They didn’t have creams, or pills, or dermatologists. What they had was the Torah, the law. And according to the law that God had given Moses, I would have been labeled a leper and in the Old Testament book of Leviticus are very specific ways in which lepers are to be dealt with. Listen to these words found in Leviticus 13, “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a bright spot on his skin that may become an infectious skin disease, he must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest. The priest is to examine the sore on his skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease. When the priest examines him, he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean. If the spot on his skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest is to put the infected person in isolation for seven days. On the seventh day the priest is to examine him, and if he sees that the sore is unchanged and has not spread in the skin, he is to keep him in isolation another seven days. On the seventh day the priest is to examine him again, and if the sore has faded and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a rash. The man must wash his clothes, and he will be clean. But if the rash does spread in his skin after he has shown himself to the priest to be pronounced clean, he must appear before the priest again. The priest is to examine him, and if the rash has spread in the skin, he shall pronounce him unclean; it is an infectious disease.” (Lev. 13.1-8)
There were also very specific rules given for the ways lepers were to act in Lev. 13:45-46 which reads, "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!’ As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.” (Lev. 13:45-46). And it was also required that any person with leprosy remain 50 paces from those who were considered “clean”.
So let’s consider this man who approached Jesus in our text this morning. Mark tells us he was a leper. According to the law we heard from Leviticus, he would have been required to tear his clothes, cover part of his face, keep his hair messy and cry out “unclean” any time he came into close contact with people.
Socially, this man was an outcast. As soon as he had been diagnosed with leprosy, he had been removed from society, removed from his friends, removed from his family and had been forced to live alone.
Relationally, he was destroyed. No longer could this man approach his wife and tell her that he loved her or express his love for her. He couldn’t hug his sons or kiss his daughters. He might only be able to see them from a distance occasionally and perhaps not at all. He would miss them growing up and the major events in their lives. He could not be there for them at all.
Financially, he was ruined. No longer allowed to be around people meant of course, that he could no longer work. Not only was he considered unclean but anything he touched was unclean so he couldn’t make things to sell because those would not be acceptable. In order to survive, he would have to become a beggar. His wife and children left alone at home would have to become beggars as well because women didn’t work and the male children were trained by their fathers to take their role in society. No father, no training. No training, no job. No job, no income. It was a catch 22 for this man. And as long as he was still alive, his wife would not be allowed to get a divorce because it was against the Law as well and his children would not be taken care of.
Spiritually he was ruined. Literally everything this man had was stripped from him because of this disease. This man’s motto was “I’m not half the man I used to be,” and the reality is he wasn’t even partly the man he used to be” Is it hard to imagine that someone who finds themselves in such a state as this finds suicide to be an option?
But instead of finding his own solution to his problem, this man finds Jesus. And notice how he comes to Jesus.
First, He doesn’t come demanding, “fix me” or demanding that Jesus cure him. Instead, Mark records he comes begging. He comes in humility, “on his knees”. It is only a great need that can cause us to do this. If we feel secure and believe we have it all under control, we will never come to Christ as this man did. It is only when we recognize the depth of our need that we come like this.
Secondly, this man comes in faith. “If you are willing, you can make me clean”. Somewhere he has heard about Jesus and what he has done for others and has come believing that Christ can do for him what he has done for them. “If you are willing, you can make me clean”. You can do it Jesus. If you want to, you can do it.
Third, this man comes with a specific request. “Make me clean”. But this isn’t just a petition for health or to be free from the leprosy. This man comes to Christ and asks Him to restore him to wholeness which incorporates his need to have him remove the leprosy, to restore his family, to return him to work, to respond to the need in his spirit. This man brought every aspect of his life before Jesus but he didn’t do so in a generic way like we do sometimes but in a very specific way asked for Jesus to heal him. “Make me clean”.
Now not only was leprosy very distressing for anyone who experienced it, but some forms of leprosy were also very contagious, thus the reasons understood for lepers to be sent out to live alone, so that no one else would catch it.
And we don’t know how long this man lived with this disease but I submit to you that it was long enough that he had almost forgotten what it felt like to have anyone touch him. That it was long enough that he believed no one would ever touch him again.
And that’s why, when Jesus could have simply said the word, or snapped his fingers, or whistled and caused this man to be healed, he instead, reached out and touched this man. Jesus put his hand on this man. “’I am willing’ he said, ‘Be clean’.” As always, Jesus saw the real depth of this man’s need and He reached out his hand and touched him.
And Mark records immediately this man was healed. Not after a few hours, or a few days, he didn’t have to wait a few weeks, immediately this man was healed.
