Leper

Mark 1:40-45

Feb. 12, 2012

If you are a parent, do you remember when your first child was born?  You couldn’t keep your eyes off the baby, could you?  You felt like you could just stare forever at your child’s face and never get tired of it.  Even the shape of her ears, the definition of her fingers and toes fascinated you.  The baby couldn’t get enough of you, either.  He had to be held, touched.  And remember when he wrapped his tiny hand around your finger for the first time?  What a grip!  How did that feel?

Have you ever fallen in love?  Every time your loved one walked into the room, you would get that goofy, excited feeling.  Remember the first time she touched you?  Perhaps you were walking somewhere together and you realized she’d slipped her hand into yours.  How did it get there?  You didn’t know, but you wanted more than anything in the world never to let it go.

It is amazing what is in a touch.  But if you’re a leper, people don’t want to touch you anymore.  People can’t even look at you without revulsion or fear.

Have you ever been a leper?  Maybe you fumbled the ball in a big game.  Maybe you were the object of gossip.  Perhaps your character flaw had been discovered.  Maybe your abilities were disparaged.  Or maybe you were going through a divorce.  Or maybe you were diagnosed with an illness.  Or maybe one morning you woke up, and wanted a beer for breakfast and you realized you had a problem.  Have you ever been a leper?

The Leper’s predicament      In biblical times leprosy was the most dreaded disease known.  The condition rendered the body a mass of ulcers and decay.  Fingers would curl and gnarl.  Blotches of skin would discolor and stink.  There are even certain types of leprosy that would numb the nerve endings, leading to a loss of extremities and fingers, perhaps even a hand or a foot.  Leprosy was death by inches, lasting anywhere from between 9 -30 years after contracted.  

The social consequences of leprosy were severe.  Since they were considered contagious, lepers were banished or quarantined.  Throughout Scripture, the leper is representative of the ultimate outcast.  He stands for anyone who has been shut out, kicked out, or turned away.  And in the memory of every leper is the day he discovered the terrible truth.  In Leviticus 13, the law for dealing with lepers is described.  To warn people off, they had to wear tattered clothing and shout, “Unclean!  Unclean!”  whenever anyone came near.  It turns out that the disease is easily spread by body contact or even by air when the bacillus is inhaled.

Medical historians now believe that leprosy originated in Egypt.  The reason for that rationale is that scientists found the bacteria for the disease in a mummy’s tomb.  The bacteria evidently was mummified with the mummy and preserved for centuries.  

Leprosy begins with a white or pink patch of skin on the brow or on the nose or on the ear.  The patch begins to spread in all directions.  Eyebrows and eyelashes quickly disappear.  Spongy tumorous swelling grows on the face and then spreads all over the body.  The disease eventually becomes systemic, involving internal organs.  Bones can shrivel.  Because of loss of feeling, victims could cut themselves or break bones and not know it.  Sometimes the eyes and teeth are affected.  The voice can be affected because the disease can attack the larynx.  People could not only see a leper, but hear him and frankly, smell him.  One rabbi, writing around Jesus’ time, noted in a letter that lepers could be detected by smell anytime they were within six feet, or downwind, within 150 feet.

Not only was leprosy heartbreaking to the victim, but it was considered shameful, as well.  It was as if God had cursed the leper.  King David once cursed the family of Joab by saying, “May your family never be without a leper.”  (II Sam. 3:29)  Lepers were cut off not only from family and society, but also from the temple or synagogue.  They could not go home.  They could associate only with other lepers.  

Pardon me if my description made you uncomfortable, but if I’d just said ‘leper,’ you wouldn’t have fully appreciated what is going on our in story today.  Now I think you can understand the state of the man who came to Jesus for help.  He was a leper.  And when Luke tells the story in his gospel, he mentions the man was “full of leprosy.”  

Now the fact that he comes to Jesus was a shock.  He’s not supposed to do that.  Lepers were forbidden to approach anyone.   But this leper came to Jesus through a crowd, because in the course of Jesus’ ministry, there was almost always a crowd.  The leper had to violate all the necessary standards of exclusion to get to Jesus.  But his approach, however shocking, was reverent, humble, respectful, and hopeful.  He came begging and kneeling.  “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.”  

The Lord’s response  Mark says Jesus was moved with compassion.  He felt the man’s pain.  He felt the agony of the man’s spiritual and social isolation, and the physical distress that had plagued the poor leper.   Now, Jews, even rabbis, would throw stones at lepers for approaching too near for safety.  They put everyone at risk by exposing others to their infection.  But not Jesus.  He stretched out his hand, touched the man, and said, “I’m willing, be cleansed.”

In Leviticus 5:3, there’s a law forbidding anyone from purposely touching a leper lest they be defiled.  But Jesus didn’t worry about that.  He connected with the man with emotion, and that emotion led to a touch and a pronouncement.  “I’m willing, be cleansed.”  And Mark says, ‘Immediately he was made clean.”  “Immediately,” is one of Mark’s favorite words.  If you want to have fun some time, go through the Gospel of Mark and count how many times he used that word.  It means not only instantly, but completely.  The man was cleansed in an instant.  In one moment, he was a wreck, and in the next, he was cleansed.  Jesus healed with a word and a touch.  No liturgical ceremony or fanfare, just a touch and a word.  

Did you know that since 1982 we have a medication that can stop leprosy.  But it can’t reverse the effects of the disease.  If a patient is treated, the progress of the disease is arrested, but you don’t get back lost fingers or nose.  Jesus didn’t have the limitations of modern medicine.  Notice the word used to describe the leper’s healing – ‘cleanse.’  All the affects of the disease are removed forever.   Restoration to health, reversal of all ill effects.  The man was not only well, but he was fit.  Immediately.

Then Jesus sent the man to Jerusalem and to the priest for examination (because only a priest could pronounce a leper healed or restore him to his former life.)   If you want to see how a priest was to do that, read Leviticus 14.  Only a priest can give a healed leper a certificate of cleansing.

Jesus gave two commands.  First go to the priests.  Second, say nothing to anyone along the way.

The leper’s response    The reason for the command to say nothing is found in verse 45.  The leper disobeyed the command to say nothing.  He spread the news around to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city for the crush of the crowds.  The leper couldn’t keep his good news to himself.  He just couldn’t obey the Lord’s command.  Now the leper is free to come and go where he wishes, free to resume his life, to go back to his family and career. 

The Lord’s predicament  But Jesus now has to stay in the countryside, because he could no longer go into a town openly for the crush of the crowds.

Last month I met Wendy Martin’s children and grandchildren.  One granddaughter is a news anchor in Winnipeg.  I asked her about her work and her life, and she said the downside of prominence is that she can’t go anywhere without being recognized, and because she’s so approachable, strangers always interrupt her.  She can’t eat in a restaurant, shop in a store, or even talk on her cell phone on the street without interruption.  

In chapter 2 of Mark, Jesus is back in Capernaum, teaching at his home and some people wanted to bring a paralyzed man to him for healing.  They couldn’t get through the crowd, so the climbed the roof of his house, removed the roof, and lowered the man down to Jesus right in the middle of Jesus’ lecture. 

Note the reversal – the former leper has the freedom of the road, can come and go as he pleases, but the Lord now is confined to the open country.   In a sense, Jesus traded places with the leper.   And that’s a metaphor for what he did for us on the cross.  We were the spiritual lepers who lived in alienation and isolation from God because of our sin, and he who knew no sin took our guilt upon himself and suffered the penalty for us in our place.   On the cross, Jesus was forsaken and we were adopted into God’s family as pure, undefiled, cleansed, children.

Remember how we began this sermon?  I asked you, have you ever been a leper?  I don’t think anyone here has been a leper in a medical sense, but spiritually, emotionally, or perhaps morally, we all have been there.  There is someone, the Son of God, who with a touch and a word, can cleanse of us of all unrighteousness, all sin, all guilt.  He is not appalled by our spiritual uncleanness.  He is not frightened by our predicaments.  His heart goes out to us.  He’s ready to say, “I am willing.  I am willing.  I am willing to touch you, to cleanse you, to even die for you.”  

Let us pray:  Lord, thank you for this glimpse of your Son, Jesus Christ from the Gospel of Mark.  We had just a glimpse and that is never enough.  There is so much more we want to see. We thank you that he exchanged places with us on the cross.  We thank you that he took our punishment and became an outcast that we might be made sons and daughters.  We rejoice with grateful hearts.  We ask you that you give us the heart of the man who was cleansed on that day so long ago by Jesus’ word and touch, a heart so full of gratitude that he could not contain his joy and healing to himself, but had to tell others.  Thank you for all that we have in Christ.  Amen.