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! Today’s Message
Date: March 12, 2006
Speaker: Pastor Steven Thomas
Title: */Touching the Untouchable/*
Text: Mark 1:40-45
40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.
“I am willing,” he said.
“Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone.
But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news.
As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places.
Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
Introduction:
We have an incident recorded in our text today that is clearly intended to drive our attention to truths that go beyond the merely physical.
Now, we are not at liberty to run through Scripture, willy nilly, making up spiritualize interpretations of historical events.
There must be clear markers that such interpretation was intended by the author.
We have such indications here.
First, Mark included an account of the healing of a leper.
In Scripture, leprosy is routinely used as a physical illustration of man’s spiritual condition—a vivid portrayal of the sinfulness of man.
Second, we know that often the accounts of Jesus’ miracles served as more than mere indications of his power.
They went beyond their major purpose—to validate his message.
They often served as sign posts, directing our attention away from the physical reality to a significant underlying truth.
For example, in the gospel of John, we find that John did not use the normal term “miracle.”
Instead, he called the miracles of Jesus “signs.”
As signs, they had spiritual /sign/ificance.
And so, Jesus multiplied a little lad’s lunch one day to feed about 20,000 people and then explained to them, “I am the bread of life.”
On another occasion, he stood in front of a tomb that contained the body of his friend Lazarus, dead three days, called him out of the grave and out of the sleep of death.
He then explained, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Furthermore, as we will see, Mark uses our text to pave the way for next week’s text that makes explicit the implications of this story.
Therefore, please understand that:
*Today’s take-home truth: The leper served as a walking parable of the human condition.
From his encounter with Jesus we learn that:*
*I.
Our condition is worse than you think.
40*
Leprosy is a powerful and appropriate symbol of our condition—our moral depravity.
It is progressive, destructive, and produces ruin.
Let’s spend a few moments exploring this physical object lesson and what it teaches us about our spiritual condition.
A.
The nature of our condition:
Leprosy was a widespread and fearful condition.
The term as used in the Bible refers to a wide range of diseases of the flesh.
But, in general, the implications are that:
1.
It is ugly.
The worst of the diseases would leave the victim disfigured and grotesque.
We know that one of the diseases called leprosy is better known today as Hansens’s disease (after the man who diagnosed its cause).
See Hughes, p. 54
Part of the ugliness lay in the fact that the minds of the people blurred the distinction between the physical and the spiritual.
They attached moral significance to the disease—“What sin has this one committed to fall under the heavy hand of God’s judgment?”
This was an unjustifiable attitude, but understandable.
2.
It is isolating.
Two chapters in the book of Leviticus are devoted to the subject of leprosy.
Consider the isolation and loneliness packed into these words:
Leviticus 13:45-46
/45 “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!’ 46 As long as he has the infection he remains unclean.
He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.
/
Imagine—everywhere you encountered other people . . .
“Unclean, unclean.”
Addition laws created by the Rabbis said that a leper could not even stick his head inside a house without defiling it.
It was illegal to even greet a leper.
If a leper encountered other people out along the road, they had to stay at least 150 away if they were up wind.
If down wind, they could come no closer than six feet.
Josephus said that they were treated, “as if they were, in effect, dead men.”
3.
It is incurable.
One of the interesting features of biblical discussion of leprosy is that it is never referred to as being “healed,” it is always cleansed (a word that preserves the sense of moral defilement).
(Explain the NIV translation “cured”
No, the only One who could cleanse the leper was God.
Tell the story of Namaan~/Elisha~/king of Aram
2 Kings 5:7
/7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? /
This has interesting implications for v. 40!
Do you see that we have here a vivid picture of the spiritual condition of humanity?
We excuse, deny, and minimize the reality of our sin, but in God’s sight it is ugly.
How ugly?
Isa 64:6—rags to wipe the oozing sores of the leper.
The result of our condition is that we were:
Ephesians 2:12
/12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world./
We should all bow our heads before God and man and cry, “Unclean.”
And there is nothing that we can do to change our condition.
What a vivid picture of our soul do we encounter in this pitiful leper.
B.
The result of our condition
So understanding the nature of this condition:
1.
It instills a sense of desperation.
Do not read too hastily: “came to him.”
In desperation he through caution to the wind and did that which the law forbade: he approached Jesus.
In all probability, there was crowd around Jesus.
You can almost see the crowd parting in shock and disbelief at the approach of this outcast.
Desperate times require desperate measures, so the leper came.
2.
It drives us to plead for divine mercy.
He knew that his only hope was divine intervention.
He did not doubt Jesus’ ability to do what only God can do.
His only concern was Jesus’ willingness.
In his words we sense faith mingled with doubt that stems from a recognition of unworthiness.
Your great need is to see the reality of your spiritual condition—peer into the mirror of the word to see the ugliness there.
Only then will you be driven by desperation to fall at the feet of the only One who can clean you and make you whole.
*II.
Jesus’ compassion is deeper than you imagine.
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