Mark 1:40-45 "Be Clean"

Introduction

Jesus had moved beyond just Capernaum and was now going throughout all of Galilee preaching in the Synagogues and casting out demons.

This was the reason that He came into the world. He came to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth in the spiritual sense.

It is in Mark 1:15 that we learn what His message was. It was simply: 15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Now we all know that eventually His whole life and ministry would embody the essence of the gospel of God. Christ would be the very means and foundation by which God would build His Kingdom.

But at the introduction of His ministry on earth Christ was proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom and demonstrating the cosmic power of the Kingdom through the working of miracles.

One such miracle is seen in our text this morning. And this miracle illustrates for us the spiritual nature of the power of Christ because at the heart of this miracle the there is a man appealing to Christ for cleansing. Look back to verses 40-42 of the text with me:

I. The Cleansing (40-42).

The appeal was being made by a leper who sought Jesus out. And he said to the Lord, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

Now it may be helpful for us to understand the religious and social order of the day. Leprosy was basically a classification of a skin disease that went deeper than just merely the surface of the skin.

According to Levitical law they had to wear torn clothes and had to wear their hair down with their upper lip covered. And everywhere they went they had to repeatedly declare the word unclean as to warn others of their presence.

And their dwelling place was outside of the community of Israel until the skin disease was gone. Leviticus 13: 45-46 describes what was expected for lepers as they dealt with their skin disease.

Some Jewish Rabbi’s taught that there was a direct connection between leprosy and certain past sins that the leper had committed.

You could see the torn clothing of a leper and their unkept appearance a mile away. And needless to say hearing the sound of their ongoing pronouncement of being “unclean” everywhere they went warned people in advance of their presence.

But this leper had an objective and he came to Jesus not with declarations of unclean but declaring instead the desire to be made clean and he falls on his knees before Jesus.

And his request tells us that it is not a question of the ability of Jesus to heal but of the willingness of Jesus to heal.

And it is in verse 41 in the ESV where we see the words “Moved with pity” and we need to know that the terms that are used in the Greek text denote anger and not pity. It was not the Lord’s anger towards the man but the affliction that had so dominated his life.

Some scholars argue that there is a deep emotional disdain for the destructive nature of sin and the destructive nature of Satan himself that arouses the Lord’s anger. This would fit with Mark’s context which is showing the power of deliverance exhibited in the Kingdom at the hands of King Jesus.

And we see here that Jesus simply, stretched out His hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.”

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

Jesus could heal people and cast out demons by a word alone, so why did Jesus touch the man?

Especially when Leviticus 5 says that touching something unclean would make the one touching it unclean. So why is Jesus doing something that appears to be in violation to the Levitical Law?

First notice that the pronouncement to “Be clean” happened in accord with the touch of the Master’s hand. I believe that John Calvin gets it right when he says: “By his word alone he might have healed the leper; but he applied, at the same time, the touch of his hand, to express the feeling of compassion. Nor ought this to excite our wonder, since he chose to take upon him our flesh, that he might cleanse us from our sins.” (Expositor's Bible Commentary)

Christian no one had touched this man for a long time. But when the one who has the sovereign authority over death and sin pronounces you clean the defilement of sickness has no choice but to obey. The same voice that sounded for light to come forth out of darkness and the material essence of the Universe to come forth out of nothing said be clean. And immediately leprosy left him, it had no choice but to go.

Then the same one who healed him charged him and sent him away. Look back at your text to verses 43-45:

II. The Charge (43-45).

This is not the kind of charge you have to do when you drive a Tesla or when your phone goes dead. This is a strong insistence being made by Jesus.

First He charges him to don’t tell anyone. But the man goes and starts talking about what had happened. He can’t contain himself and this is not the only time that Jesus gave such instruction and the one healed or delivered couldn’t hold back.

The reason Jesus instructed him to do this was due to the increasing nature of Jesus’ fame that would hinder Him from going to the towns. The crowds would increase in number as to prohibit the open town to town ministry of Jesus.

And this would cause Him to have to go out to the countryside or “a desolate place” to make room for all the people.

And second, Jesus tells the man to go and offer what the Mosaic law code required for ceremonial cleansing and show himself to the priest as proof to them of his healing. Now Jesus knew that the sacrifices pointed to Him

There were sacrifices to be made in keeping with the ceremonial aspects of the law (Leviticus 14). With the ceremonial sacrifices having been accomplished the man who is healed would be welcomed back into his community and into the fellowship with those in his synagogue and town.

But Jesus is the one who is driven out from the town. This is an interesting contrast that Mark under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit doesn’t want us to miss. Listen to what James R. Edwards says of this in his work on Mark’s gospel: Mark began this story with Jesus on the inside and the leper on the outside. At the end of the story, Jesus is “outside in lonely places.” Jesus and the leper have traded places. Early in his ministry Jesus is already an outsider in human society. Mark casts him in the role of the Servant of the Lord who bears the iniquities of others (Isa 53:11) and whose bearing of them causes him to be “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa 53:12). (James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary Grand Rapids, MI; pg. 72.)

I believe that Edwards is correct. Mark’s gospel is thematically showing forth Jesus as the Messiah who is the suffering servant of the Lord, who suffers for the sins of the people as described in Isaiah 53. And as the suffering Messiah, Jesus would identify with sinners on our behalf to purchase our redemption to restore us to right relationship to God.

In this way Mark illustrates it for us as Jesus switches places with the leper. The leper returns to town while Jesus is driven out to a desolate place.

Christian our text this morning functions like a bridge that ties the physical sickness of leprosy to the idea of the spiritual sickness of sin.

And it is doing this to set the stage for the coming accounts of not just showing Jesus’ authority over sickness but also showing Jesus’ authority over sin. This becomes critical in Mark’s gospel as it is one of the ways Jesus reveals His Messianic identity and by doing this makes the religious leaders very hostile towards Him.

The application to us this morning though is seen when we insert ourselves into the story before us. You see we are the leper who is deeply in need of the restoration that only the Messiah of God can bring.

Lepers had no hope until they were healed of their leprosy. The inspection of the priest and the sacrificial rites took place post healing. But the leper in our text this morning had an encounter with Jesus and was made clean by the power of His word, “I will; Be clean”.

And only Jesus can do that. Certainly Jesus still heals people of physical sickness but physical sickness was a direct result of the fall of man into sin. Jesus understood this connection better than the people of His day that He came to minister to. Jesus knew that suffering of all kinds in the world was a symptom of the real underlying problem of sin in a fallen world.

It has long been said that there is no cure for the common cold. Most of the medications we take for it address the symptoms of the cold but they don’t cure it. It usually take 4-5 days for the common cold to run it’s course. Nyquil and chicken soup may make you feel better but they both just comfort you by addressing symptoms.

Christian Jesus Christ did not just come into the world to just merely address the symptoms of sin. He came into the world to take our sin upon Himself as a substitute in our place. He came to be a spiritual leper for us to make us spiritually clean. He came to be cast out, to be rejected by men so that we could be reconciled and accepted by God.

Conclusion:

Unbeliever it will take more than addressing the symptoms of sin to save you. Spiritual leprosy runs deeper than just the surface, it goes all the way down to the depths of the heart and it taints everything about us. You need a substitute. Sin has alienated you from God and made you an outcast and the symptoms of it bear out in your life. You need a savior! Christ alone is the only one with the power to cleanse you. You need an encounter with Him.

Believer, it is Christ who hold us firm. He has taken our sin upon Himself, in our place and this is the basis of our righteousness and justification before God. So we come confessing our sin and resting in His grace to forgive us of our sin and sanctifying us in His truth. Confess and receive. Let’s Pray!