The Healing of the Leper
Download MP3We are continuing our study of the Gospel According to Mark. We are 5 weeks into this new study, and I hope that as we have made our way through these first verses of this first chapter, that, especially if you have read these passages before, that you are seeing and hearing these accounts of the life of Jesus with fresh eyes and fresh ears, and if this is your first time studying the life of Jesus, I pray that you are not only finding Him captivating, but worthy of your attention, your affection, and ultimately, your whole life. Last week, we looked at Mark chapter 1 verses 21 through 34, where we read of Jesus continuing His teaching ministry in the synagogues, and the the first accounts of Him healing people in Capernaum. And in these verses, we see the authority of Jesus on display. Not only is he teaching with authority, but He is demonstrating His authority over the physical and the spiritual facets of life by healing people who are suffering.
Jeffrey Heine:And the gospel writer Mark will continue to present these themes of authority and power as he describes Jesus's ministry as it moves from Capernaum, 25 miles to the city of Galilee. But before they make this journey from Capernaum to Galilee, Jesus rises early before sunrise to pray. And so let's look together at Mark chapter 1. If you've got a Bible, we're going to begin in verse 35. That's not in your worship guide.
Jeffrey Heine:So if you've got a Bible, we'll be in Mark chapter 1, beginning in verse 35. And let us listen carefully, for this is God's word. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place where he prayed. And Simon Peter and those who were with him searched for him. And they found him.
Jeffrey Heine:And they said to him, everyone is looking for you. And Jesus said to them, 'Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.' And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Triune God, would you meet us by your spirit and lead us to your truth today?
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, whether we know it or not, each one of us here, we are in desperate need today. We are in need of your love, your peace, your mercy. So we draw near in faith asking that you would draw near to us. So would you speak, Lord? For your servants are listening.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. Mark says that Jesus left while it was still dark outside, and he went to a desolate place. Now, the Greek here that's translated desolate usually means the wilderness. And Capernaum was a densely populated area, and so Jesus would have traveled a considerable if He was going to pray in a desolate place.
Jeffrey Heine:And the disciples wake up, and Jesus is gone. And in Simon Peter's words, everyone begins looking for Jesus. And we see here another nod to the role that Peter is playing as the eyewitness who's telling these stories to Mark, who's writing them down in his gospel. Peter vividly remembers this panic, this frantic searching for Jesus. Had Jesus left them?
Jeffrey Heine:Had he abandoned them? Had he been captured, taken away? Everyone was searching for Jesus. And when they found him, they told him that everyone was looking for him. And he told them that it was time to move on to the next towns.
Jeffrey Heine:Look with me. It's it's verse 38. Jesus says to them, let us go to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. Why does Jesus want to move on to these other cities? Well, he says he wants to preach.
Jeffrey Heine:In fact, Jesus says that it's the reason that he began, he came out for this public ministry to preach. In Luke's gospel account of this scene, Jesus is quoted as saying, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. Notice that Jesus did not say that he wanted to move on to these other cities to heal the sick and the physically suffering, even though that was part of what he's been doing in Capernaum and will do in Galilee. But we need to see that Jesus grounds his purpose of his coming out, of being sent by the Father. He grounds his purpose in the preaching of the good news of the kingdom of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Understanding this helps to calibrate in our minds how these physical healings that we see in Jesus's public ministry must be serving his aim of declaring the good news of the kingdom. Everything Jesus does and everything Jesus says is focused on that mission. Because if the chief aim of Jesus's ministry was to heal every sick person, he would have stayed in Capernaum until the last person was healed. And only then could he move on to Galilee. But that was not the case.
Jeffrey Heine:The healings served the greater mission of proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God. But as news spread about this rabbi healer in Capernaum, the primary ministry of proclaiming the kingdom became less and less possible because the mobs, the crowds of people, were coming not for teaching, but for healing. The author and musician Michael Card wrote of this distinction in his commentary on the gospel of Mark, saying this, the best of Jesus's call to preach the good news is being eclipsed by the good of his ability to heal. Meaning, the greater ministry of preaching the kingdom of God was being eclipsed by the good ministry of healing the sick. And Jesus knew what was primary.
Jeffrey Heine:He had to focus on that which his father had given him to do. So Jesus instructed his disciples that it was time for them to depart Capernaum, and it was time to move the ministry to another town, to Galilee. Now, I I find this circumstance endlessly fascinating because for the first time in Jesus's life, at 30 years old, he is encountering celebrity. Earthly fame is now a variable in this rabbi's life. The one who left the throne of glory for the humility of the manger is finally getting the attention he deserves, but it's a problem.
Jeffrey Heine:Because Jesus wasn't after celebrity. Jesus had a mission from his father, and celebrity was now compromising that mission. This scenario also reminds me of my tendency to make Jesus what I want him to be. The people were suffering. Sickness was rampant.
Jeffrey Heine:And along comes this rabbi who has the authority and the power to heal, who wouldn't rush to meet this healer. But the real problem was that the people took the good that Jesus could do and ignored the great. They wanted the physical healings, the fixes to their immediate problems, and they ignored the kingdom that he proclaimed. They cared more about what Jesus could do for them temporarily than who Jesus could be for them eternally. Recently, I was showing my kids how to do a phone update.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, fun stuff. And how you have to go through these steps of downloading the update. And and inevitably, the up pops the terms and conditions. And it asks you if you agree. And I told my kids to just ignore all of it and just click I agree.
Jeffrey Heine:And then it hit me what a horrible lesson I was teaching them. Just ignore all these pages of legally binding paragraphs, and just mindlessly click, I agree. That's what's happening with Jesus and his ministry in Capernaum. Sin, repentance, the kingdom of God, yep. Agree, agree, agree.
Jeffrey Heine:Just give me the healing. Expecting the gifts of God while neglecting the word of God is foolishness. Demanding the blessings of Jesus while ignoring the words of Jesus is absurd and ultimately impossible, because we we cannot have one without the other. There's no accepting just parts of Jesus without accepting all of him. There's no surrendering to Jesus to be Lord over parts of our lives and not all of our lives.
Jeffrey Heine:And yet, how often and how easily do we fall into this way of thinking? Maybe some of you have been in, like, a in a religious environment or gathering of some type where where the expectation, the demand for physical healing was detached from the most excellent call of repentance and redemption into the kingdom of God. Maybe you've seen that before. Maybe you've been in a place where the focus was on the immediate physical healings above and beyond, and maybe even outright ignoring what Jesus came to proclaim and accomplish regarding redemption into the kingdom of god? And if you have, then you've had a glimpse of Capernaum.
Jeffrey Heine:A glimpse of people wanting Jesus as a celebrity healer but not as their king. That's what Jesus was fleeing. We see the character and mission of Jesus on display in these verses when he refuses the celebrity, when he rejects the fame and denies the people the opportunity to manipulate his mission of preaching the good news of the kingdom. And that is why Jesus, he travels to Galilee, preaching in the synagogues and, yes, still healing the sick and the suffering, which is another beautiful display of Jesus's character. Just because people were confused about his mission and many were ignoring his teaching and demanding a lesser work of healing, that does not mean that Jesus withheld his compassion or his power to heal.
Jeffrey Heine:With great patience, great compassion, Jesus continued to preach and Jesus continued to heal. Now Peter has a shocking story to tell. A story to tell about their journey to Galilee. It was a wild story that would have been burned into Peter's memory because it must have been one of the most shocking and terrifying experiences that Peter had experienced in his life thus far. It's a time when a man with leprosy approached Jesus and begged to be healed.
Jeffrey Heine:Leprosy was a catch all term in the 1st century for all sorts of skin diseases. But leprosy proper, now called Hansen's disease, is a bacterial infection believed to be the oldest infectious disease in humans. A person can be infected with leprosy for 4 to 10 years before the first symptoms are seen. But once they do, they're devastating. It is a slow death with open wounds and often the loss of limbs due to the loss of feeling pain when there's an injury.
Jeffrey Heine:And in the book of Leviticus, the Old Testament book of Leviticus, there are chapters dedicated to how the community is supposed to address leprosy. Because not only was this leper sick and suffering as an individual, they were a danger to the whole community. If a leper walked into anyone's home, everything in that home would be declared unclean. If a clean person put their head, just pop their head into an unclean person's home, someone that had been declared unclean by the priests, then they too would be declared unclean. And if that leprosy persisted over a matter of days and they they were not showing any signs of getting better, then the leper's home would have been carefully torn apart.
Jeffrey Heine:The wood, the stone, the plaster, each part torn down, carefully carried outside the gates of the city and thrown into the desolate places where the man would be forced to live alone. In a sermon that was preached in London in 18/60, Charles Spurgeon was speaking on the Levitical laws that lepers had to endure, and he said this, quote, Living apart from their dearest friends, shut out from all the pleasures of society, they were required never to drink from a running stream of water which others might later drink. Nor might they sit down on any stone by the roadside upon which it was probable any other person might rest. They were, to all intents and purposes, dead to all the enjoyments of life, dead to all the endearments in society of their friends. End quote.
Jeffrey Heine:Being declared unclean as a leper was a lonely and painful death sentence. And now, Mark offers this account. A man declared unclean with a dangerous deadly infection of leprosy now approaches Jesus. He would have looked like a dead man walking up to them. He would have been required by Levitical law to wear long robes that were torn, ripped robes, so that everyone could see from a distance that this was this was a man to be avoided.
Jeffrey Heine:He was required by law to grow his hair long and his beard long like a covering, and everywhere that he went, he had to cover his mouth with his hand and shout the word unclean. He was forced to do this so as to not defile anyone who might have the unfortunate circumstance of being close to him. So not only would the man be forced to live in isolation outside of the community, but he had to constantly be on the lookout for anyone who might accidentally come close to him. According to the Mishnah, that's the Jewish oral tradition written down, in the Mishnah, it says that if a leper was sitting under the shade of a tree, minding his own business outside of the city, And a clean person walks by him and doesn't immediately flee from him. But for a brief moment, they share the shadow of the tree.
Jeffrey Heine:Then the clean man is now unclean. The leper knew that he was a threat to everyone, and everyone knew that he was a threat to them. And so the idea that a leper would approach anyone was unimaginable. Approaching anyone carried a potential death sentence for the leper and whomever he approached. And I think that's why Peter so vividly remembers this one day in Galilee when a leper put the disciples' lives at risk when he walked out of the shadows and into the presence of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Mark records, the leper came to Jesus, fell on his knees, and began to beg saying in verse 40, if you will, you can make me clean. Now Jewish priests had the authority to declare a person clean or unclean. The leprous person would come to them. They would survey their skin. Sometimes they would have different rituals or washings that they would do as they were trying to assess the extent of the illness.
Jeffrey Heine:And so Jewish priests, they had the ability to declare if someone was clean or unclean. They could declare them clean or unclean, but they could not make them clean. Only God could make a leper clean. So the leper is demonstrating that he believes that Jesus isn't isn't just like one of the priests at the temple. Jesus has this divine power to heal him.
Jeffrey Heine:News of the rabbi healer had made its way to this leper somehow. Maybe a friend or a family member got word to him in the desolate places, desperately hoping that Jesus might might heal their loved one. And however the man heard the news, he he boldly comes to Jesus and he pleads for healing. Notice how the leper is so unrestrainedly bold in approaching Jesus. He does so because he believes that Jesus is able, that Jesus is powerful enough to meet his desperate and extraordinary need.
Jeffrey Heine:The man is acknowledging that Jesus is able. The Greek that's used here that's translated can is the word dunamos, which means having power. It's where we get the word dynamite. He has power in him. He's able.
Jeffrey Heine:He can. The man believes that Jesus has the power to heal him. But the leper is not presumptive in his pleading. He isn't coercing Jesus or coming with a sense of entitlement. He isn't ordering Jesus to heal him.
Jeffrey Heine:He's begging Jesus. The man is coming in humility, trusting in the will of Jesus. He's saying that if Jesus is willing, he knows that Jesus can make him clean. The leper humbly comes to Jesus and trusts in his power and his will. The leper was reviled by society.
Jeffrey Heine:Many in his community would have easily assumed that the leprosy was some form of judgment from God. It was because of sin. That's why he's sick like this. And the fact that the Lord hasn't healed him yet, well, that just says he doesn't have enough faith in God. Or there's some sin in his life that he's not repenting of, and so this is just punishment.
Jeffrey Heine:He's being rightly punished by God. This man knew he had zero leverage to command Jesus to do anything. He could not demand healing, but he did not let his desperate need keep him from going to Jesus because he believed Jesus was able. He boldly goes to Jesus as a humble beggar. And Jesus, who knew every traditional law that prohibited this interaction from happening, he did not flee from this man in fear.
Jeffrey Heine:He was not offended by the leper's boldness. He did not recoil in disgust at the sight of his suffering. No. In verse 41, we read that he was moved with pity. Jesus looked at him with compassion.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus looked at the man. This man, broken by the brokenness of the world, broken by the disease that ravaged his body, broken by the community that forced him to live as an exile, broken by the law that condemned him to live as a dead man, Mark records that Jesus, in compassion and pity, responds to the man's pleas. Jesus stretches out his hand. He touches the leper, and he says to him, I will be clean. Remember that just stopping in front of Jesus and sharing a shadow with the disciples, kneeling before him, the leper had already endangered Jesus to be declared unclean, and yet Jesus reaches out his holy, undefiled, powerful hand, and he touches the leper.
Jeffrey Heine:How long had it been since the leper had been touched by anyone? How long had it been since he had even had a conversation with someone up close, let alone be touched by someone, touched with a compassionate and loving hand? Jesus touches the untouchable. He embraces the unembraceable. He loves the unlovable.
Jeffrey Heine:And that's good news for people like us. What Jesus is demonstrating in the compassionate act of healing the leper testifies to that greater kingdom mission, the kingdom that he is preaching about. It's the healing of the sickness of our souls. We identify with the leper, not because we have similar physical needs, but because our souls are in even greater need than the leper's body. We may not dress in rags or live exiled on the edges of society, but the sickness of the soul is the state of every person before God.
Jeffrey Heine:Our rebellious souls have forced us to live in the desolate places outside the kingdom of God, estranged from our father. The prophet Isaiah spoke of this in Isaiah chapter 64 when he said that in sin, we have all become like one who is unclean. We're all lepers. The rebellious soul sick with sin and the consequences of death is even more desperate than the leper. And rather than turning his face away and casting us off into the wilderness of his judgment, Jesus brings healing to our souls.
Jeffrey Heine:That means, the means by which He heals us is by taking on our sickness as his own. That he becomes sin on our behalf. The holy clean Jesus takes on our uncleanness that we might be made eternally clean. By his wounds, we are healed. Through the cross, Jesus reaches out and touches our sick souls and brings us eternal healing.
Jeffrey Heine:And we know that Jesus didn't have to touch this leper with his hand. There are numerous healing accounts in the New Testament where Jesus heals people at a distance. It wasn't required of him. So what do we make of this? Well, this is a good time to remember that calibrating truth about the aim of Jesus' earthly ministry.
Jeffrey Heine:He came to preach the good news of the kingdom of God, so this healing must be serving that point And the manner in which that he is healing them is also serving that point. Jesus is demonstrating his power over everything. Over the sickness, over the physical, over the spiritual. He's demonstrating his great compassion to bind up the brokenhearted, to destroy, and to restore what sin and death have stolen, and to bring God's children into the fullness of the kingdom. The touch represents this loving condescension of God to rend the heavens and come down to rescue us, to reach out through the incarnation, to draw near to us and bring healing to our souls.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus reaches out and touches the leprous man, not afraid of the disease, not afraid of being defiled himself, But he extends healing. Rather than him catching the infectious disease, he imparts healing and restoration to this man. And Mark records that immediately, the leprosy left the man, and he was made clean. And now Jesus, his demeanor changes. Some of your translations might even have the word, indignant or, in that in indignation, Jesus looks at the man.
Jeffrey Heine:There is a turn, and it's complicated to see. Jesus gives the man instructions, and Mark, of all the gospel writers, is the only one that includes this. And I think it's because Peter saw it firsthand, this dramatic shift in tone. Jesus looked at the man, first with compassion and pity, but now he speaks with a startling intensity. He charges the man not to speak of this to anyone.
Jeffrey Heine:This was to protect Jesus's ability to to openly go into these towns and preach the good news of the kingdom. And that way, he wouldn't be overwhelmed by the masses seeking healing. This intensity was due to this priority of Jesus, to preach the good news. The physical healings, as we said, are not the aim of the ministry. They are serving the preaching of the kingdom.
Jeffrey Heine:So in Mark's words, Jesus sternly charges the man not to speak about what happened, because the news of the healing would threaten His mission. And Jesus instructed the man also to go to the priests to show himself to be clean and to begin to rebuild his life as an undefiled man. Now, I'll spare you every detail of what the cleanliness rituals were, but just like it was complex going and and and having, you know, someone's home being destroyed and all these rules and regulations for how someone would be dealt with if they were unclean, there is a whole list of things that have to happen to be called clean. First, he had to shave his head, shave his eyebrows, shave all the hair off of his body to present his body to be inspected by the priest. And then after that, he had to get 2 birds and some cedar woods, scarlet yarn and hyssop.
Jeffrey Heine:And one of the birds would be killed, the blood poured into a bowl, the hyssop used to sprinkle blood on both the living bird and the man 7 times. And then he had to take that bird that was still alive, covered in blood, just as he was, go into the wilderness and release it into the wild. That signified that he had been sprinkled clean and he had been washed, and now he was free like this living bird to live again. Then he was permitted back into the community, but he couldn't go into a dwelling place yet. He couldn't go into a home.
Jeffrey Heine:He couldn't go into a tent. He had to sleep on the ground for a week. And then they had to check him again to make sure that those sores and wounds weren't coming back. And so, he would shave his his body again, and this time he had 2 male lambs, one female lamb. The blood was drawn again, and this time, there was blood sprinkled on his big toe, his left his right thumb, and his right earlobe.
Jeffrey Heine:Then it was sprinkled across his forehead. Then he had to do with oil on his big toe, his his right thumb, his earlobe, and his forehead again. You might not have known that big toe was in Hebrew in the Bible, but it is. And if you ever come to me asking for me to design a Hebrew tattoo for you, just know that regardless of what you want it to say, it will say big toe. And I mean that.
Jeffrey Heine:And after all those days had gone by, and he shaves his head again, and he takes a bath again, and he presents himself before the priest once again, for Him to be seen and and declared clean now. I imagine Him in all of these steps, especially the ones that don't make that much sense, that he was thrilled, rejoicing with every step he took. He was a dead man living in the desolate places, and now he is alive. He's among the living. He gets to do all of these things.
Jeffrey Heine:Even if he doesn't understand it, every step of obedience was a step of joy because he was dead and now he is alive. I expect that the man, you know, he he he didn't listen to Jesus. He quickly told everyone what happened. And it made it so Jesus could no longer, openly enter a town, it says at the end of this chapter, because he had to stay in the desolate places outside of the city, because the people, the masses, were only after that healing. And people were coming from every quarter, Mark says.
Jeffrey Heine:In a passage like this, it's it's not easy to draw a bunch of simple direct parallels to our own lives. But I think that there are two principles in this scene as we begin to close, that are critical for every Christ follower to take into our own walks with Jesus. 2 attributes, and they are this, boldness and humility. I know these two attributes might seem at odds or even contradictory to your ear. But rather than 2 opposing attributes, I believe that they are interrelated, interdependent attributes that we are invited and empowered by God to live into fully in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Boldness and humility. We are emboldened by God to go to God boldly. We are emboldened by God to go to God boldly. We are able to approach God with confidence because of the blood of Jesus, because our hearts have been sprinkled clean, to use the words of the writer to the Hebrews, who also said, we are able to draw near to God with a true heart and full assurance of faith. Like the leper who broke convention, custom, and these traditional laws to approach Jesus, we too approach Jesus with a boldness afforded to us as believers because of his redemptive power.
Jeffrey Heine:And like the leper, it is not a boldness that's rooted in entitlement. It's not presumptive. We aren't coercing Jesus or commanding his power. Just like the leper was not telling Jesus to heal him, we don't direct Jesus. Our boldness does not come from entitlement.
Jeffrey Heine:It comes from the atonement that Jesus has achieved in making us clean. It comes from the redemption that Jesus has accomplished in making us daughters and sons of God. Like the leper, we come with all boldness and all humility. We plead with the one whom we know is able, the one who is powerful to address our most desperate needs. And we are humble because we recognize our need.
Jeffrey Heine:The more years you walk with Jesus and follow him, the more and more you will see your neediness. We don't graduate from the gospel of grace. Ask anyone here who's been walking with Jesus for decades. The longer the walk, the greater the understanding of need. The greater the understanding of need, the greater the humility.
Jeffrey Heine:Time with Jesus cultivates humility. The leper is coming in humility, trusting in the will of Jesus, declaring, if you will, I know you can. The inverse of that first part is is also true. If Jesus won't, he is still able. Jesus is still able even if right now he is not willing.
Jeffrey Heine:That's a calibrating truth that we must keep in focus as we boldly and humbly go to Jesus in all of our needs. We learn from Jesus' words, Thy will be done. It's a surrendering. Jesus could have turned this leper away. He did not owe the man healing.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus would have been just as powerful, just as righteous, just as holy if he had turned the man away, but he didn't. He looked upon him with compassion, with pity, and he gave him back his life. And we also are able to go to Jesus with all boldness and all humility. We do not let our humility keep us from asking, from begging, from pleading. And we don't let our boldness lead us to entitlement.
Jeffrey Heine:That's why we need both, boldness and humility. And because of the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to live into both and approach the throne of God with confidence, full assurance of faith. The leper has so much to teach us. It's important for us to see ourselves standing in his place today. Again, to quote from Charles Spurgeon in his sermon from 18/60, he says this, quote, How am I to know that Christ died for me?
Jeffrey Heine:You will never know it until you are willing to stand in the leper's place. Christ came into the world to save sinners. I am a sinner. I know it. Then he came to save me.
Jeffrey Heine:You will not be saved by feeling that Christ died for you, but by his dying for you. If he died for you, you were saved when he died. If he took your sins, then he took them indeed, and they are not yours. If Christ really died for you, then your sins are pardoned, whether you feel that they are pardoned or not. End quote.
Jeffrey Heine:The leper was well aware of his desperate need. He couldn't pretend that he was well. Every step that he took, every time he called out unclean, he knew he was in need. And when we stand in the place of the leper before Jesus, we join in his plea to help us in our deepest need. And because of the cross and resurrection of Christ, we know that Jesus has reached out his holy, righteous hand to heal us.
Jeffrey Heine:And may we who trust in Jesus today, like the leper, draw near to God with bold and humble hearts, in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean with the blood of Jesus, our healer and our King. Let's go to Him in prayer. Lord, by your spirit, would you help us in this moment to behold Jesus? Help us to see him. Help us to marvel at him.
Jeffrey Heine:Help us to receive the wonderful gift, the miraculous gift of redemption into the kingdom of god, not through our own work or merit, but but through Jesus alone. Help us, spirit, to see him, to behold him even now. Lord, we trust you at this time as we seek your face. Would you come and be with us that we might trust in the cure for our souls, Christ the King, in whose name we pray these things. Amen.
