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Expectations are important.
Expectations sometimes determine success or failure or at least our perception of them.
John Quincy Adams held more important offices than anyone else in the history of the U.S.
He served with distinction as president, senator, congressman, minister to major European powers, and participated in various capacities in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and events leading to the Civil War.
Yet, at age 70, with much of that behind him, Adams wrote:
My whole life has been a succession of disappointments.
I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success in anything that I ever undertook.
That’s a sad commentary on what I think we would consider to have been a very successful life.
As Jesus began traveling around the region of Galilee teaching and healing, there were expectations.
We saw the expectations of those in Nazareth who watched Jesus grow up.
They didn’t expect anything from Jesus.
As a result, they rejected him.
Some began wondering if Jesus might be the Messiah and there were expectations that came with that.
But no one expected Jesus to be God come in the flesh.
After recording the dream Joseph had of an angel explaining Mary’s pregnancy Matthew wrote:
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
(Matthew 1:20-21)
The prophet Matthew was quoting was Isaiah.
The passage is found in Isaiah 7:14.
The Jews had to have been familiar with the prophecy but they were not expecting it to be fulfilled in Jesus.
Because their expectations of Jesus were that he was just an ordinary man with some extraordinary abilities they had a difficult time accepting some of the things Jesus did.
If you haven’t already, turn to Luke 5.
In our passage we’ll see how some of Jesus’ actions clash with these expectations.
Jesus will heal two individuals: one a leaper and the other, a paralyzed man.
Remember, the basic understanding of Jews at the time was disease and especially leprosy were caused by sin.
Also, only God can forgive sin.
We’ll start with verse 12.
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.
When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
(Luke 5:12)
Jesus had told people in Capernaum that he need to share the good news of God’s kingdom in all the towns around the Sea of Galilee.
While he was in one of those towns, he was approached by a man with leprosy.
Matthew and Mark simply say the man had leprosy but Luke tells us that his body was full of it.
There was not a part of his body unaffected by the terrible disease.
Leprosy destroys the nerves, leaving those afflicted with it no sense of touch.
As a result they don’t know when they’re touching something too hot and it burns them.
They rub their face but they don’t know how hard they’re rubbing.
The disease would start with just a small spot and spread.
Luke says this man’s body was covered.
God gave regulations for how to deal with those who contracted the disease in Leviticus 13 and 14.
Once the disease was discovered the individual was not allowed to live with the rest of the community.
They were outcasts that lived dwelled alone or with other leapers.
The man came to Jesus though and knelt before him.
Undoubtedly even he had heard stories of the things Jesus could do.
Believing Jesus could heal him, he said, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
There are two interesting parts to this request because it was a request.
First, the man indicates his belief that Jesus is able to heal him; he’s just not sure if Jesus would want to heal him.
No one wanted anything to do with leapers.
Perhaps Jesus wouldn’t want anything to do with him either.
Second, we would expect the man to ask Jesus for healing but instead he asks to be cleansed.
“You can make me clean.”
Diseases may have been the result of sin but this was considered the worst of all diseases and thus the result of the worst of sins.
Whenever they met someone on the road Old Testament law required them to cry out, “Unclean, unclean” in order to warn others of their disease.
Jesus could make him clean again.
Then, he would be able to rejoin his family and society.
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.
“I am willing,” he said.
“Be clean!”
And immediately the leprosy left him.
(Luke 5:13)
Perhaps the most amazing part of this story was that Jesus touched the man.
Because of Old Testament law that required isolation and fears of contracting the disease, no one would touch a leaper, but Jesus did.
That the disease covered the man’s body tells us that he’d had the leprosy for some time.
It had probably been years since anyone dared to touch him but Jesus did.
It wasn’t necessary for Jesus to touch the man.
It wasn’t even necessary for Jesus to see the man.
In Luke 7 Jesus will heal the centurion’s servant without ever meeting the man.
But Jesus touched the man.
The fear was that if you touched someone with leprosy you would catch it.
But that’s not what happened here.
Instead of Jesus catching the leprosy, the man caught Jesus’ wholeness.
That Jesus touched this leaper tells us so much about the compassion he had for him and for each of us as well.
Jesus did what no one else was willing to do.
William Barclay, commenting on this story reminds us that:
It is of the very essence of Christianity to touch the untouchable, to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable.
Jesus did – and so must we.
Jesus was willing to heal the man – as the man had asked – and declared that he was now clean.
The leprosy that had covered his body was now completely gone.
This did not end the matter though.
Just as the law prescribed what those with leprosy were to do it also prescribed what they were to do if perchance they were healed.
14 Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
(Luke 5:14)
There were rituals that needed to be carried out as the law prescribed.
Jesus wanted to make sure the man completed all that was required of him.
Additionally, the man would be a witness or testimony to the healing the healing that Jesus had performed.
However, Jesus did not want the man going out and broadcasting news of his healing.
The ultimate reason Jesus had come was to die for our sins.
It wasn’t time for that yet and Jesus didn’t want to confuse the expectations they already had concerning him.
Of course, we know what the man did.
He did what we would have done.
He was so excited about his cleansing that he told everyone he met.
And even if he obeyed Jesus and didn’t tell anyone, others who witnessed the event told others.
15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
(Luke 5:15)
You can understand how it would be hard to keep that kind of news quiet.
The crowds only grew larger.
16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
(Luke 5:16)
We read about Jesus going alone to pray in the last chapter and here we read about it again.
Jesus would go off to a place where he could be alone to pray.
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