Mark 1:40-45

I am about to share something with you all that maybe it should have gotten brought up when I was candidating, but somehow this must have just slipped under the radar. I am not sure if anyone knows this about me here and if they did maybe I wouldn’t be here today. You see I used to be a man who was identified by public officials as someone who had a tendency to commit crime.

I need to tell you a story about me. It is a “Back in my day” story. I am starting to get to that age where I have lived long enough that the world has changed a bit and things aren’t done the way they used to be done. I am now at that point in my life when I can vainly brag about how much worse I had it than my kids!

Back in my day, there were consequences for actions that you had done and or failed to do. It applied in all aspects of life, even in your interactions with the local librarian officials.

You see back in my day, libraries charged fees for overdue books. You could rack up a debt if you didn’t turn your book in on time. And every time you walked in the local library with a fine on your account you felt as if all eyes were on you as you crossed over that threshold.

It is different now, the whole culture has just gotten so soft, but not in my day. In my day there were consequences for over due books.

You see, I had a borrowed book, and my automatic renewals had run out, and I started to accumulate a debt. I was notified via email that there was an issue with my account and that I would have to go in person, to the local library to make the necessary correction. I logged on to my online account with the library and clicked on the little warning triangle and it indicated to me, in black and white just what I had become. Right next to my status it said one word: Delinquent.

Nothing more. Nothing less. If the library could only use one word to describe me and my status, it would choose and did choose the word: Delinquent.

Now, I’m not that smart of a guy, so I got on google and I typed in “definition delinquent.” This is what it said. It said that I had become “Someone who is characterized by a tendency to commit crime.” Crime!

The library said…I was a criminal!

Seems a little strong! Maybe little bit of an over reach, but it is true that I was guilty. I had done something that I shouldn’t have done and I was guilty. Not only that, my actions had changed my “identity.” From that time forth, I was to be known as “a delinquent.” Delinquent had become my identity in the publics eyes. My criminal action of keeping a book past its due date demonstrated the fact that I was a persons who had a tendency to commit crime. I was a Social Pariah, a drain on society. I was guilty and I was shamed.

I felt that was a little strong and didn’t know if I could bear the weight of that status, so I had done the crime, so I would have to do the time so to speak…so I went into the library with my overdue book and paid my debt to society with a very small amount of money and all of a sudden, my status changed back to “active.” Just like that. As the kids say, easy peezy, lemon squeezy.

How do you feel hiring a Senior Pastor with a “criminal record?” Sometimes I tell people, “ya…I used to be known as the guy that had the tendency to commit crime!”

Silly right? This is a true story, but over something pretty trivial that never really threatened my standing within the community. I didn’t really have sleepless nights over this. I did not experience a great amount of unrest or a lack of peace.

But that isn’t the case for the man we meet in our passage today. He had no peace. He was in constant inner and outer turmoil. He would wince often at his core identity.

His status within the community was: unclean. And that uncleaness resulted in a life of misery, isolation, agitation and frustration. He had no peace.

This man was a social outcast. A disease to the community. Unwanted. Unaccepted. Unworthy of attention. A vagabond. A down and out destitute derelict.

No one wanted him around. He had to stay outside the city walls. This man was like the way the narrator described the Grinch to the Who’s down in Whoville, he wasn’t to be touched with a 39 1/2 pole.

Living life in this was for him and can be for us excruciating. And this is what we see in our passage today.

Over the last few weeks we have seen Jesus blow peoples collective minds in a public way on the Sabbath in the synagogue. Last week we saw Jesus enter into a private home at the request of his friends. They wanted Him to do something about someone else. And He did and it blew their minds. But in our text today, Jesus doesn’t minister to the masses. He doesn’t just care for someone His friends were concerned about, in our passage today, Jesus personal impacts one utterly desperate man.

This encounter is incredibly personal.

This is the take away for all of us here today. Today each one of us as individuals are in the cross hairs. All of us, individually, are going to have a very personal encounter with the Holy Spirit today as He recalls to our minds the very words of Jesus when He said, “My peace I give you.”

We all individually come here with guilt. We all come here with some core identities issues involving shame. All of us here have some dirt on us that we can’t just brush off, but all of us here also have the opportunity to come to Jesus for His cleansing blood. We can be washed in the blood of the Lamb.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood, loose all their guilty stains. Let’s read our passage.

Mark 1:40–42 ESV

40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

Mark 1:43–44 ESV

43 And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

Mark 1:45 ESV

45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.

Pray

Mark 1:40 (ESV)

40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

Here we have someone identified as a “leper.” Existing as a leper was an excruciating experience. The physical ravages were unrelenting. Moment by moment those with leprosy were reminded that things were not the way they should be as they experience all sorts of anguish. No rest for the weary.

They were physically, socially and emotionally and religiously cut off from the community.

Leviticus 13-14 gives meticulous instructions about those struggling with various skin diseases. These laws were give to protect the greater community from catastrophic infections; but they also drew a sharp line of distinction between that which was clean and unclean. For instance, we read that…

Leviticus 13:45 ESV

45 “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’

They weren’t allowed to enter the temple. They weren’t even allowed to live in Jerusalem proper or any other walled city of antiquity. They had to establish there residence in desolate places. In the wilderness. They might be able to enter into a city to attend a religious gathering in a local synagogue, but they had to be isolated and put behind a screen.

Such was the life of the man we read about in our passage. And yet we see that in utter desperation, this leper, breaks all the cultural taboos and comes to Jesus.

40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

Somehow, this leper, came to the end of Himself and when no one else seemed to be able or even willing to help, he pushes all of his physically, social, religions and emotional chips in and goes all in on this Jesus fellow.

He came to Jesus. In the previous section, Jesus came to Simon’s mother in law, but here we see this leper coming to Him. This man comes to Jesus in His uncleanness.

Now we who know the rest of the story, know that coming to Jesus with our uncleaness is the only way we can actually come to Jesus, none of us are clean, so we all come to Jesus having accumulated some dirt, but this leper didn’t know what we have the privilege of knowing, but He came anyway.

We so often try to hide our faults from others and Jesus Himself. We keep others and Jesus at arms length hoping that the distance we have created will not allow them to see our dirtiness, but this man came to Jesus with his dirtiness.

This man no doubt was weak and heavy laden and longing for rest, and so he came to Jesus and

Mark 1:40 (ESV)

40 And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

Implored Him. Knelt before Him. Spoke with Him and demonstrated faith in the providential plans of God Almighty.

This is amazing.

He implored Him. This word is two words combined. It is a compound word. “to come alongside” and “to call.” He was calling Jesus to come to His side. He is saying… “Look, I need you.” I can’t keep existing like this. I have come to my end. Left to myself, I am utterly hopeless. I need you to come along side me in my dirtiness. I am not going to hide it and I am not going to pretend like my uncleaness isn’t a part of me, it is, but I want you to come along side me and see for yourself just how dirty I am. He doesn’t keep a safe, prescribed distance, he comes right up to Jesus……

And then He “kneels” before Him.

He assumes the humble posture of dependence and reverence. By bending his knee to the ground, this leper was submitting Himself to the One who was his superior and then he opens his mouth and “says to Him” something that is a profound phrase filled with faith. He says……

“If you will, You can make me clean.”

This is amazing.

Now we need to understand what he is saying. He is asking for something that is not humanly possible. He is asking for a miracle. He is demonstrating great faith in Jesus capability when every one else, including himself was incapable. He is asking for a healing that would not only restore him physically, but also socially, religiously and emotionally!

He isn’t asking to be “declared” clean like OT priest had the position and power to do upon inspection according to Leviticus 13-14, he is asking for the cleansing itself. This is something that only God could do.

There is only one who can change the lepers spots, and melt hearts of stone. This leper says, hHis name is Jesus.

He says, I know you are capable of this. You can do it. I am humbly asking you, on bended knee to do for me that which I can’t do for myself. Only you are able to make me clean.

And upon seeing this man on bended knee expressing faith in Him, Jesus has a gut wrenching reaction that compels Him to action.

Mark 1:41–42 (ESV)

41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

Have you ever seen someone experience an injury and you can imagine the pain yourself? Like maybe someone shows you a cut they have or a bruise or a broken arm and your stomach turns a little bit? You can imagine the experience of the person in some sort of phantom way? This is what happens to Jesus. He sees this man and something happens inside of Him that causes His hand to rise up and reach out and do that which was prohibited by religious and ceremonial law. He touches this man.

He touched him. He didn’t even need to say, “I will; be clean” because His actions did the talking. Here we see the unnecessary tenderness and compassion of Jesus. He could have just said. “I will; be clean.” But He doesn’t just say the words to the man, He touches the man who probably hadn’t experienced the warmth of human touch for years.

God incarnate touched a diseased ridden social outcast that no one else would even come near.

Now we all know that bonding takes place with appropriate physical touch. So much nurture and care can be communicated through touch. This has been extensively researched and well documented, especially with children. Appropriate touch can impact on everything from brain development to short term behavior to long term mental and emotional development.

Our skin is the largest organ in our bodies and it sends sensations to our brains. When we engage in pleasant touch, like a hug, our brains releases a hormones that make us feel good, or safe and secure and accepted. Handshakes and hugs and high fives can firm up emotional and social bonds and lower anxieties and fears of being an outsider. Those tangible gestures connect us to people. They give us a real sense of belonging.

There were many things debilitating and dehumanizing during all the Covid stuff, but maybe the most detrimental and devastating was the lack of physical contact that took place between people.

Exchanging hugs in full bodies suit is not the same as skin to skin, chest to chest contact with arms fully enveloping one another. That type of exchange just can’t be authentically replicated.

There are many strategies and exercises that have been put in place by therapists to help care for people that live in a touch deprived culture. The strategies range from prescribing therapeutic massages, to weighted blankets, to therapy animals that you can pet, but nothing beats what Jesus offers this man.

Jesus “stretches out his hand,” and touches him. Jesus does stretch out his hand as far as He can in order to stay as far away as possible. Jesus stretches out His hand much like an olympic athletes thrusts himself forward at a finish line in order to get there as fast as possible.

Jesus stretches out His hand and physically touches this untouchable one. He breaks every cultural and religious norm. He can’t wait to touch Him. He can’t help but touch him. He had already left heaven and had come this far, so why stop now? He came to the earth that He created as God in the flesh so that He could touch people like this man in Mark 1 who is emblematic of all of us.

Every single one of us as gone astray and we are guilty and dirty.

Every single one of us here have accumulated a massive amount of shame as well. We have done shameful things and we have had shame dumped on us as we have been sinned against.

Our uncleanness isn’t just a condition, but it has also become our identity.

This guy, according to Levitical law, had to walk around and announce to every one that he was unclean. Can you imagine living like this? Every time you said that word out loud in public at the top of your lungs, it would be like driving another proverbial nail in your own coffin.

But the nail wouldn’t be hit by a hammer, it would be struck with a judges gavel delivering a death sentence. Unclean. I’m unclean. I don’t belong here.

Can you imagine this existence?

We might be tempted to say, “No, I can’t imagine living like that,” but let’s press into this for a moment.

The reason we can’t imagine living like that is because we are actually living like that.

We might not be walking around shouting these things out loud for all to hear, but the voices in your head are loud and clear. The message of your uncleaness, guilt and shame isn’t ringing in everyone else’s ears, but it is resounding between yours.

The voices in our heads so often remind us that we don’t measure up. That we don’t belong. That we are in danger of being found out.

The voices in our heads can swing a judges gavel that determines and firms up our perceived identity.

I am unclean. I am dirty. My shame is visible. I am a menace to this society. I am different in a bad way from everyone else. I am uncomfortable in my skin. I must have done something wrong. I don’t fit in here. I am ashamed. I don’t belong here.

Keep at a safe distance from me. Don’t get to close. I am unclean. I am dirty. I am so unworthy of being among you people.

Some of you are your own worst critic. You loath and despise yourself for what you have done and for who you have become. And as you conduct your life in the downward, depressive cycle of the echo chamber of your mind…you are in desperate need to someone walking up to you that is clean and touching you.

Let me introduce you to a man who can silence to those voices in your head.

The man I want to tell you about can use His once perfect, but now nailed scared hand to touch you.

The man I want to tell you about can open up Him mouth to and answer your question for a cleansing with the words, “I will, be clean.”

His name is Jesus. Jesus reached out and touched this man and He spoke words of cleansing over the man, and then the Mark tells us…

Mark 1:42 (ESV)

42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

There is so much more that we could explore in this passage, but we are going to stop here with this once unclean, outcast man cleansed.

Physical, Emotional, psychological, social and religious healing occured in this man’s life when he “came to Jesus.”

He came imploring Jesus to “come along side him,” but Jesus goes one step further, Jesus touches this man proving that God can indeed, “do far more abundantly than all that we ask or even imagine, according to the power at work within us.”

When this man was healed from His infirmities, He went out and energetically engaged with everyone!

Mark 1:45 ESV

45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.

Instead of running around yelling out to everyone within earshot, “Unclean. Unclean,” he now ran around saying to everyone with ears to hear, “I’m clean! I’m clean.”

He started spreading the news. And that news being spread had a domino affect on the society that he was a part of as people from every corner started seeking out a similar experience with Jesus, because really they were all unclean.

It started with Jesus being accessible and a man desperately needing what only Jesus could and would give, a touch that would result in a cleansing.

Upon the touch of Jesus, this man was purified and Jesus purity remained in tact. It was a one way transaction that resulted in peace, a restoration of the way things should be, God and man communing together. That is what this Christmas season is all about, “God with man is now residing.”

Close the message a little different than normal…

Favorite singer songwriter Andrew Peterson

written at a time when all wasn’t at peace and he was dealing with darkness, sadness, depression that comes from letting the voices in your head, the inner critic and shame message…

It retells the story of a time when he was on tour and cowering in fear and shame in a church closet right before he was to go on stage and perform for an audience of on lookers.

…

You reprenste the voice of the holy Spirit in this song, so don’t mess it up.

Benediction

Multidimensional ministry of Jesus.

He offered human contact where there had been none. The man’s sense of self-worth was restored and fortified. There was physical and psychological healing.

The man was also restored to the community, cleansed with no need to hide. His biggest hinderance to fellowship with others, was eradicated and erased. Social healing and restoration allowing him engage fully with the rest of his religious community. This man’s faith was rewarded.

He might amaze the masses. He might care for the crowds, but you are in the dead center of His directed gaze today. He sees you in your leprous state and He wants to come and have a personal encounter with Him.

You are unclean, but you can come to Him for a cleansing.

You are impure, but you can approach Him in His purity and He will rub off on you.

You might be rightfully rejected and cast aside by others because of your sins against them, but if you come to Jesus with your sins in hand, He says to you,

John 6:37 (NASB95)

37 “…the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.

So come to Him.

It wouldn’t be a sermon from the Gospel of Mark if it didn’t have irony. Those who were leprous had to exist outside the community, now think about this, after the here does the only clean one get exiled too? Outside the community.

Take advantage of the closeless and proximety of hte one who, one who was driven out into the desolate wilderness for us.

Let His cleanness rub off on you. You guilt, your shame is not threatening to Him. So run to the one who suffered on our behalf outside the camp (Heb. 13)

Christmas shopping done yet? Consider this your 15 day warning!

Why is it our natural tendency to “hide” our mistakes and flaws from others and God?

The leper came, warts and all to Jesus. What areas of your life need to be cleaned up?

The leper came to Jesus and “implored” him (meaning He asked Jesus to come along side Him) for a healing. Jesus doesn’t just come along side Him, He touches Him. What does that tell us about Jesus?

The leper expressed “faith” in Jesus capability to heal Him. He said, “You can make me clean.” Do you think that Jesus can heal you?