Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church.

It is a blessing and a privilege to have you with us this morning.

It is also a privilege and a blessing to have any of you who may be joining with us online this morning.

We wish you could be present with us but are also so thankful for this technological window that allows us to worship together even from different locations.

Please open your Bibles with me to Mark 1, Mark 1. We’re coming to the end of this first chapter of Mark in which he has introduced us to the purpose of his Gospel, that it was about Jesus Christ the Son of God.

He has introduced us to the forerunner who would proclaim the coming day of the Lord in John the Baptist.

Then Jesus arrives on the scene and are treated to a seat at His baptism and then to the report that temptations took place.

After John is arrested, Jesus comes preaching with a seemingly simple message “Repent and believe the good news!”

We get to see Him call His first disciples, have a fantastic day of ministry in Capernaum and then shockingly make the decision to leave a dynamic ministry environment to move on to the other towns in Galilee to continue His primary mission to preach the Gospel.

This morning we come to an interesting and enigmatic story - and it is a story that could really legitimately be preached many different ways.

A question that we must deal with right at the beginning is why is this story here?

Mark has just written in Mark 1:40 that Jesus has essentially been on a speaking tour through the region of Galilee and that He has been both preaching and casting out demons.

The first century Jewish historian Josephus reports that there were more than 240 towns and villages in the region of Galilee.

To put that in perspective, the state of Washington has about 281 towns and cities.

But we’re going to find that by the end of this story, this incident, Jesus can’t enter into any of these towns.

This is such an important event that it is recorded all of the synoptic Gospels - of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

So let’s read the passage and then discover together what is so important about this story that all three of those men included it and God has brought it to our attention today.

We’ll be reading Mark 1:40-45.

So ays we come to the end of this chapter it seems that Mark is now posing the question of what reaction will his readers, and by extension those of us here today, have to Christ.

He has presented Him as the Son of God and throughout this first chapter we have seen two reactions to Christ.

The first is that of His disciples who, upon His command, drop their livelihoods to follow Him.

The second is that of the crowd in Capernaum who only wanted from Jesus what He could give them as far as healings and miracles went but weren’t interested in the Gospel message that He preached and which was His primary focus.

This morning we’re going to be given a view into a third person’s reaction to Christ and as we examine the story it should call us to question the way we have responded to Christ.

It is fitting that we come to this passage on not only a family worship Sunday but also a day on which we will present ourselves before the Lord’s table and share in the Lord’s supper.

But before we get to that let’s explore this passage together to understand the flow of the story and then to see how it impacts our lives.

We’re going to examine this story in three movements - the leper’s plight, the Lord’s provision, and finally the story will end with the Lord’s plight.

So if you’re a notetaker there is your outline, if you’re a Southern Baptist note taker there is your fully alliterated outline.

The leper’s plight, the Lord’s provision and finally again the Lord’s plight.

The Leper’s Plight

As we have already looked at this morning Mark 1:40 tells us that Jesus has been on a preaching tour throughout the province of Galilee.

During this time He has not only preached the Gospel but He has cast out demons and presumably there have been some healings along the way as well.

As a result of this His popularity is on the rise and there are many who are taking notice of His ministry.

One of those, who Mark chooses to highlight here, is a particular man afflicted with leprosy.

Now it is important to not necessarily apply our 21st century understanding of the disease of leprosy to this man.

In the first century any sort of skin.

The symptoms include lesions on the skin that turn the skin a lighter color - much like the descriptions of leprosy that are found in Leviticus 13 and 14.

If a person was found to have a discoloration or a scaly patch on their skin they were required to be quarantined for seven days.

If after that seven days was over and the priest examined the person and found that the lesion had not spread or has remained the same then he will be quarantined for another seven days.

If after that the sore has remained the same or has faded then the priest can pronounce him clean.

But if the sore has spread then the person is pronounced unclean and must live outside the camp, socially ostracized and cut off from both the religious life that was so important to the Jewish nation but also all of their family.

Today we know leprosy by the more medical term of Hansen’s Disease.

We also know that it is curable by the prompt application of antibiotics to fight the bacteria that cause the disease.

The symptoms of this disease if allowed to progress are awful.

The end result is a loss of feeling as nerve damage results particularly in the extremities.

Those who have been afflicted with this disease in places such as Africa and Asia have been known to reach into burning fires after a dropped potato without any thought because their nervous system is damaged to the point where they no longer feel pain.

The result of this is often wounds such as burns or cuts will go untreated or result in mutilations of their body because they simply have no idea that they are being hurt.

The disease can also lead to blindness as the nerve damage affects the facial area of the person who has the disease.

This particular strain is most likely what this man would have been suffering with.

You can almost sense the desperation in his voice as he falls at Jesus feet.

He’s tried everything else.

He’s been separated from his community - most likely for years.

He’d had to endure living as a social outcast wearing tattered clothing, keeping his hair unkempt and crying out “unclean, unclean” anytime he might come into contact with others.

The disease is now known to be transmitted via the air and so it is well understood why the rabbinical law required that lepers downwind of others keep a distance of 6 feet and when upwind they had to remain 150 feet away from others.

Just like fever leprosy was also viewed to be the physical judgement that was the result of some hidden sin.

In Numbers 12 when Miriam and Aaron complain against Moses, God strikes Miriam with leprosy and she must remove herself from the camp for a time.

After Naaman presents himself to Elishah to be healed in 2 Kings 5 and Elishah’s servant goes after Naaman to accept some of the payment that Elishah had refused, his servant Gehazi is stricken with the disease of leprosy that Naaman had been cured of.

According to Josephus and rabbinical teaching of the day, lepers were viewed as walking corpses.

Josephus writes in his Antiquities

And for the lepers, he suffered them not to come into the city at all, nor to live with any others, as if they were in effect dead persons;

In the story of Naaman, before presenting himself to Elishah he presents himself to the king of Israel along with a letter from the king of Aram with these results

It is made clear to us from the Scriptures that no one was viewed to having been cured of leprosy but instead that they had been cleansed of the affliction.

So this man risks everything to come to Christ - a very bold and impertinent gesture.

He knew that by approaching Christ he would make Him ceremonially unclean.

And yet he presents himself, prostrate and makes his statement that we see looking at verse 40 “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

On the surface this statement would present itself to us as a statement of great faith.

And in one sense it is - this man is acknowledging Christ’s transcendent, supernatural power to heal those things which cannot be healed except by a move of God.

But notice also this statement - “If you are willing”.

This man recognizes without question that Christ has the power to heal him - what he questions is whether or not Christ will condescend to heal him.

Almost as if he expects Christ to look at him and say “Well, fevers and demons are one thing.

Even the lame and the blind are worthy - but you leper - no you are not worthy of healing.

Get away and back to the hovel that you have been hiding in.

Take your foul odor and ruined flesh and be gone.”

That may seem like an extremely harsh and difficult thing for us to contemplate and yet how often do we think the exact same thing.

We have no problem acknowledging that Christ is powerful enough, is capable of forgiving our sins and yet one of the most common objections you will hear whether it is on the street, in the workplace or in your own heart is “of course Christ is capable of forgiving my sin - but He wont forgive my sin.

It’s just too much.

I’ve gone too far.

It’s not that He is incapable but my sin is different and He could not possibly forgive me.”

Oh what an arrogant statement - probably the most arrogant statement that we could ever make.

To think that somehow we could out sin God’s capacity for grace and forgiveness.

To think that we could ever be beyond His sovereign reach if He so wills to heal and to forgive us.

Charles Spurgeon once said it this way

If I saw you at the very gates of hell—so long as you had not actually crossed the threshold—if I saw you trembling there, and you said to me, “Can Jesus Christ save me now?”

I would reply, “Yes, my brother, look unto him, and he will take you from the gates of hell to the gates of heaven in a single moment.

If you are here this morning and you have been thinking that.

If you have been approaching God in just this manner - or maybe you are approaching Him that way this very minute - repent of that self-pitying arrogance and recognize that He is not only capable but willing to forgive you here and now.

Oh that we would never doubt His willingness to either heal or to forgive us.

But we also must recognize this statement from another angle as well.

Notice here the contrition of this man.

He comes to Christ on his knees recognizing that this is really his last hope for cleansing and begs Him “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”

How often do we come to Christ and, instead of showing this form of contrition, we say thank you Jesus I accept what You have done for me.

We don’t even give a passing nod of affirmation to His willingness or His capability - we presume that what He has done on the cross requires our acceptance.

We almost say “I am willing Jesus, You can now make me clean.”

This is again another statement of arrogance on our part to assume that there is something valuable within us that would compel Christ to heal us or to make us clean through His forgiveness.

Oh that we would never presume upon His willingness but instead present ourselves with a contrite heart that recognizes that only through Christ can we be made clean and that He has already demonstrated His willingness in the most clear demonstration ever by humiliating Himself and submitting to the Father’s will as He went to the cross.

It is in Christ’s response that we see both His provision for this simple leper and for us today.

The Lord’s Provision

First we need to address an instance of textual variance that some of you may see.

If you’re reading from the New International Version your version may have a slightly different wording to this verse than the Christian Standard Bible that I read out of.

The NIV reads this way