“If You are willing, You can make me clean” (Mark 1:40)
In our passage from Mark this morning we see Jesus continuing to be involved in people’s lives and see yet again His compassion for those in great need.
But in this case it is with a man whose condition we have little connection with – leprosy (though sadly it is apparently on the rise in some aboriginal communities). Leprosy involved being both a medical and social outcast.
In fact, the attitude to leprosy then was almost exactly that to AIDS today, a mixture of fear and disgust. Some years ago Princess Diana caused a great stir because she hugged an AIDS sufferer. By that act the Princess was said to have shown compassion, and reached out to people who were considered leprous almost, in the modern day context.
But you can’t contract AIDS just by touching a patient; however, you could contract leprosy by contact with a leper, and so the act of Jesus in touching this man would be deemed high risk. He would also be declared ceremonially unclean.
And yet He touched him, and also healed him – but more importantly made the man “clean”. Notice how this was the real nature of the request. Leprosy, because it was a specific OT picture of sin and its effects, left one ceremonially unclean – cut off from the religious life and fellowship of God’s people. This is what he above all sought to have restored to him. And he saw in Jesus an ability to deal with not only the issue in his flesh but also the issue in his heart which was the greater issue and of more far-reaching consequence.
So he came to Jesus in humble, believing, yet submissive faith – “If you will”. And Jesus did not disappoint, but sent him on his way “clean”.
The tragedy is that he left Jesus and acted according to ‘As I will’, doing what seemed good in his own eyes, and as a result hindering Jesus’ work.
What do we learn from that about the condition of our soul? Of the compassion of Christ? Of being His people? Of the Gospel?