A Lesson From A Leper
NAS Mark 1:40 - 45
40And
a leper came to Him,
beseeching Him
and
falling on his knees before Him,
and
saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean."
41 And
moved with compassion,
He stretched out His hand,
and
touched him,
and
said to him,
"I am willing;
be cleansed."
42 And
immediately
the leprosy left him
and
he was cleansed.
43 And
He sternly warned him
and
immediately
sent him away,
44 and
He 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 testimony to them."
45 But
he went out
and
began
to proclaim it freely
and
to spread the news about, to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city,
but
stayed out in unpopulated areas;
and
they were coming to Him from everywhere.
A LESSON FROM A LEPER
Mark 1:40-45
Exegetical Idea: The leper told everyone about his miraculous healing by Jesus.
Theological Idea: We should tell everyone what God has done for us.
HOMILETICAL IDEA: WHEN GOD BLESSES YOU, YOU CAN’T KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.
I. Your hope of being helped is found in Jesus (v 40)
a. Come to Jesus
i. Come praying to Him
ii. Come depending on Him
iii. Don’t coming presuming on His will but come believing in His power
II. Jesus cares about you (v 41)
a. Compassion – deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it
b. Jesus is willing to do what no one else is willing to do .
i. Stretched out His hand and touched him – symbolism of conveying a divine blessing.
c. Jesus is willing to do what no one else is capable of doing.
i. Pronounces you clean – remove what makes you ceremonial unclean. (sin).
III. When God blesses you, you can’t keep it to your self
a. Your divine encounter or experience was never meant to replace your obedience to the word of God.
b. Go tell others about what Jesus has done for you
A LESSON FROM A LEPER
Mark 1:40-45
Main Idea: When God Blesses You, You Can’t Keep It To Yourself
This gospel of Mark is all about action. One of the key words in it is “immediately.” Over and over this word is used as it records many of the stories of Jesus’ miraculous healings of those suffering from sickness and demon possession. This conveys the message that Jesus’ ministry had a since of urgency to it and that He made the most of His time while He was here on earth. Jesus’ teaching was identified in verse 22 as “one having authority,” meaning that His words were not just words alone but that His words were words that had power behind them. In other words, He could back up what He was saying. He had the ability to not only talk the talk but the capability to demonstrate it through His walk. So they concluded in verse 27 that this was a new teaching that had some power to go with it. So verse 28 tells us that news about Jesus spread throughout the surrounding district of Galilee because He is healing the sick and cast out demons. He is going into their synagogues preaching and demonstrating the power of His words.
The Hebrews used the term leprosy to cover a variety of skin diseases; it is not the leprosy as we know it today. A leper was one who had a swelling or a scab, or a bright spot on the skin of his body and he was brought to the priest to be examined. According to our text we have a leper, one who according to Leviticus 13 has already been pronounced unclean by the priest. One who was ostracized out of civilization until he was pronounced clean again by the priest. One, who was required to tear his clothes, let loose his hair out of the turban, and to cover his mouth, and to shout as he moved about “Unclean! Unclean!” as a symbolism of his shame, grief, and distress. The leper’s only interaction was to be with the priest every seven days. But all the priest could do for him was examine his leprosy to see if it had healed. He was not supposed to have any interaction with anyone else other than the priest, not his family, not his friends, not his co-workers, not even his pets. But the text says that this leper “came to Jesus.” Meaning that somewhere along the line he decided that the risk of being put to shame was less than the risk of remaining the same. He decided that the risk of being rejected was less than the risk of staying neglected. He decided that what the law was unable to do that Jesus had the power to do. So he broke protocol in hopes of being healed. And the first lesson he wants to teach you this morning is that “YOUR HOPE OF BEING HELPED IS FOUND IN JESUS.” So he beckons you to come to Jesus. If you are hurting; if you feel helpless; if you think your situation is hopeless, you ought to come to Jesus. If you have been forsaken or forgotten, you ought to come to Jesus. If you are troubled in today and are uncertain about tomorrow, you ought to come to Jesus. If you are struggling with suicide and striving for success, you ought to come to Jesus. So whether it is in your marriage or in your money; whether it is on your job or in your home; whether it is with a friend or a foe; Come to Jesus.
The leper even teaches us how to come to Jesus. He was “beseeching Him.” Same word that Paul uses in Romans 12:1, “I urge you brethren by the mercies of God…” He was requesting Him, pleading with Him, urging Him, making an appeal to Him, and some translations use begging Him. In other words, he was petitioning Jesus for help. Is that not what should be entailed in our prayers. That God gives us the right to pour out our spirit by crying out our needs for His divine intervention into our most horrific situations and our minute circumstances. He beckons us to ask, seek, and knock; that whatever we ask in Jesus’ name it will be done for us; that whatever we ask according to His will, He hears us. So Come praying!
But also, the text says that he was falling on his knees before Jesus. Meaning that he had positioned himself in a place of dependency; He had moved to a point of seeking mercy. He had gotten into an attitude of humility by acknowledging his inability and the need for Jesus’ sovereign ability. It is a place of dependency; it is a place of mercy, it is a place of humility, which means he understood that it was a place of potential blessing. So Come depending!
Next the text says, that the leper said, as part of his prayer, as part of his dependency, If you are willing, You can make me clean. The word used for “willing” means to have a desire for something. This word is in the subjunctive mood, meaning that it is a word of possibility. Meaning that there is a possible chance that the one you are asking, might or might not have the same desire for something that you have. The leper desired to be healed but he did not know whether Jesus desired the same thing. So he said, “if you are willing.” In other words, he did not presume that Jesus’ will for him to be healed was the same as his will for Jesus to heal him. Another way to put it is, he did not take Jesus for granted. Don’t assume that God’s desired outcome for a situation is the same as your desired outcome. Don’t assume that just because you have being praying about a situation that God has to provide the solution. Don’t take God for granted by thinking that just because He has being healing others that He has to heal you. The leper understood that “his ways were not God’s ways, and his thoughts were not God’s thoughts. That Jesus being God had the right to choose whatever He desired. So the leper teaches us, Don’t come presuming on Jesus’ will but come believing in His power. He said, “You can make me clean,” meaning, You have the power, you have the ability, you have the resources to do something about my situation. Don’t confuse God’s will with His power. Just because God has the power does not necessary mean that He will. And just because God is not willing does not mean that He doesn’t have the power. God is God whether He is willing to change your situation or not. God is all powerful whether He chooses to demonstrate His power in your situation or not. Is that not what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said when they would not bow down to the image and gods of king Nebuchadnezzer, “if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us… but even if He does not, let it be known…we are not going to bow down.” Because they understood that the outcome of their situation had nothing to do with whether they were serving the only true God.
The question might be asked, “Why should I come to Jesus?” What makes him any different than anyone else? The answer is simply, JESUS CARES ABOUT YOU. 1 Peter 5:7 admonishes us to cast all of our cares upon Him, because He cares for us. The writer of Hebrews says in 4:15, we do not have a high priest that cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. Jesus understands how we feel and knows what we are going through. The gospel is about our God wrapping Himself in human flesh and identifying himself with mankind by tabernacling among them for more 33 years. He is the God-Man. As a man, He identifies with our pain and as God, He can use the instrument of His divine power to deal with it. The text says, Jesus was moved with compassion. Jesus did not rebuke the leper for coming to Him. Jesus did not act arrogant with the leper for coming to Him. Jesus did not reject the leper and send Him back to the priest. No, Jesus had compassion, which means to have a deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire or wish to relief it. Meaning, He allowed His humanity to be connected with the frailty of the leper’s humanity to the point that He wanted His divinity to do something about this situation. Jesus cared so much about what this man was going through that He was willing to do to the man what no one else was willing to do. The text says, that He stretched out His hand and touched him. According to the Levitical Law, no one was suppose to lay their hands on a leprous person because they would be considered defiled. They too would be considered ceremonial unclean. So Jesus was willing to touch the untouchable. Why? He could have just spoke the word and it would have been done. That’s what He did anyway, so why touch the man? Jesus was willing to break protocol for the sake of making a personal connection with the leper saying that I now identify with your shame; with your grief; with your distress. Jesus wanted to let him know that I feel what you feel, I hurt how you hurt, and that your pain has become my pain. So Jesus connected with humanity. But also, this touch by Jesus was a means of conveying that the leper was about to receive a divine blessing. The Bible says, Peter’s mother-in-law was healed with a touch to her hand . The Bible says that Jesus healed two blind men by a touch to their eyes. In the seventh chapter of Mark, the deaf man with a speech impediment was healed by a touch. It was in Nain where the widow had lost her son to death until Jesus came to the funeral procession and touched the coffin of the young man. Even as Jesus was facing arrest and then death, when Peter cut of the ear of one of the soldiers, the Bible says that Jesus healed the soldier’s ear with a touch. Is that not what we need, a divine blessing, so won’t we put ourselves in a position to get touch from Jesus. If you will put yourself in the position to get a touch from Jesus and He does not touch you, you still may be close of enough to touch the hem of His garment. Is that not what the woman with issue of blood did, she said to herself, if I can just get close enough to touch the hem of His garment, I will be made well.
Not only is Jesus willing to do what no one else was willing to do but Jesus was willing to do what no one else was capable of doing. The text says, Jesus said, “I am willing, be cleansed.” The people and the priest were unable to make this man ceremonial clean again. All the priest could do was examine him and all the people could do was wait for the outcome. Even the leper himself was unable to do anything about his own condition. So Jesus made what Daniel P. Wallace, the Greek scholar, calls a pronounced imperative, “Be cleansed.” Jesus is speaking to the leper and it is something that is happening to the leper, because it is in the passive voice, but it is something that the leper himself cannot do. Jesus is the only one that could make him ceremonial clean again. Although we can’t say that God is willing to heal us of any disease, we can say that God has already made provisions for our sin disease that makes us ceremonial unclean. Is that not true about you and I, that sin had made us ceremonial unclean and there was nothing we could do for ourselves because all of our righteousness is as filthy rags in His sight. Isaiah 1:18 says, Come now, and let us reason together saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. William Cowper put it like this, There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stain. That’s why Jesus could say, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me. He is the only one that is capable of doing what we need Him to do to make us ceremonial clean again. Had it not been for the Lord on our side where would we be? And the Bible says, the leprosy left him and he was made ceremonial clean.
Then the text takes an interesting twist, because Jesus “stearnly warned” the leper and sent him away. The word used means, moved with anger or spoken with strict force. Jesus gave the leper four commands, “See, go, show, and offer.” All of these were in accordance with keeping law found in Leviticus 14. So why would Jesus have to speak this way to this man? Jesus helps us when He said in Mat. 5:17 that He did not come to abolish the law or the Prophets, but He came to fulfill it. Although this man had been miraculously healed, he still had the responsibility to obeying the law. God has never meant for His divine interventions or our divine encounters or experiences with His miraculous power to be a replacement for obedience to His word. Jesus also knew that the probability of this man being obedient to the law was slim to none. After all, he had already broken the law by coming to Jesus. Remember I told you that the priest had the responsibility of officially pronouncing the leper unclean and then clean again. And in pronouncing him clean there would be another examination by the priest and then a series of sacrificial offerings that had to be made by the priest on the man’s behalf, and even when he went back into camp, he would have to remain seven days outside his tent, wash his clothes, bathe his body and shave the hair on his body. It was a process that would take many days to complete. Although Jesus told the leper that it would be a testimony to the priest, the leper teaches us our last lesson. When God blesses you, you can’t keep it to yourself. The text says, that he went out and told everybody that came across his path about what Jesus had done for him. To such a extent that Jesus had to relocate His ministry. The man came to Jesus privately but left proclaiming Jesus publicly. After all, in his mind, the priest could only pronounce him clean back to the people but they could not tell the people how he got clean. Can’t nobody tell your story like you can about what the Lord has done for you. If and when God blesses you, you ought to go tell others what He has done for you. Because in the end, what happen here is what Jesus said in John 12:32, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, draw all men unto Myself.” Are you lifting up the name of Jesus to a point where people are coming to Him from everywhere and from all walks of life.
In closing, a rich man had the world’s best show dogs. His pedigree dogs had won him all kind of awards. But one day the rich man decided that he wanted to find him a mutt. His butler told him that he was crazy, why in the world would you want to mix a mutt in the middle of all these fine show dogs you have. His limo driver took him reluctantly to look for this mutt. They found one who was dirty, shaggy, and mangey. The driver stop the car in embarrassment so that the rich man could get the dog and put him in the car. The rich man carried him back to his house. Gave the dog a bath in the his Jacuzzi tub; got all of his shots; had him groomed and clothed. Then fed him from his own table gave him a place to sleep alongside all his other dogs. Then, after some days, the old mutt ran away. And the rich man’s servants said that we told you that you couldn’t change that mutt. They said that we told you that that mutt was no good and would not be appreciative of your kindness. The rich man was sad and searched all over for the mutt but couldn’t find him and after some days concluded that the mutt was gone and maybe they were right. Then one day, there was what seem to be a scratch like know at the door. The butler went to the door and open it and there stood the mutt but he was not alone but had a whole lot of other mutts with him. Because he had went out and told them to come meet a man that if you are hungry, he’ll feed you; if you are dirty, he’ll clean you up; if you are sick, he’ll make you well. All I am trying to say is that when God blesses you, you can’t keep it to yourself. From one sinner to another, tell someone about what Jesus has done for you.