FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture Reference: Mark 1:14-45

Bringing In the Outcast – Continued

Please read Mark 1:40-45 for the background to this section.

The man Jesus healed of leprosy sounds like it all ended for everyone happily, a wonderful story; the ravages of disease are undone; the pain of separation is reversed. Yet there is a tragic twist to this incident, and it is vital that we understand it. This man with leprosy, like so many others, had missed the point. He comes to the Healer; he is healed; he is thrilled with it; he is overjoyed. But, even so, he has missed the point. How do we know? The word for “sternly charged” is very strong. In essence Jesus is saying, “You are absolutely not to go spreading this around!” Why? Because the man has seen only the healer, not the King. He is to tell only the priests; they, as the religious professionals, should at least be able to recognize the evidence of their eyes. If, as they believe, it’s as hard to heal from leprosy as to raise someone from the dead, surely they will see that God must be in this. If they don’t, what Jesus probably means is that it will be evidence against them that they have refused to recognize the true messenger of God. But the man does the exact opposite of what Jesus has insisted on, he goes and tells everybody he can find. It’s hardly likely that he tells them God’s promised Kingdom has arrived and that he has met the King. If nothing else, the fact that he directly disobeys Jesus’ clear instructions proves that he has not recognized Him as the King. The outcome is that he succeeds in derailing Jesus’ whole strategy. He no longer enters the towns; instead, now the people come out to Him.

Jesus did not come to give people normal life; he came to give people abundant life, eternal life! This is what the healings point to. For a start, Jesus’ actions show that the ceremonial rules about “clean and unclean” and “touching and not touching” are finished with and no longer necessary. He is not concerned about obeying those rules any more. But, more than that, as Jesus touches the man, He takes on his uncleanness so that the man can be made clean and the barrier which excludes the outcast is broken down. In a sense Jesus becomes the outcast, so that the outcast can be brought home. It is evident in the fact that Jesus no longer goes into the towns, but the people come to Him, an outcast from the cities. Jesus has come into the world to do just that on a grand scale. Leprosy was a terrible curse; it ruined normal life and brought pain and ugliness into human life. Jesus healed people from it, such was His compassion, but, wonderful as that was, it points ahead to the healing of the far greater curse of sin, which, even more than leprosy, ruins normal life, destroys relationships and brings pain and ugliness into human life, but not just in the natural, in the eternal even more so. Jesus came to provide cleanness from sin, the disease, the curse that affects us all because we have all broken God’s law. Under the curse, we are all outcasts, cut off from God by the barrier of sin. Therefore, as Galatians 3:13 puts it, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us . . .” When Jesus the King went to the cross, He became the curse for us, dying under the weight of it and bringing in the outcasts. Life can begin anew, not just a normal life regained, like the one this man knew when he was healed, but far more; eternal life. This is what the Kingdom of God is all about. The one thing that can keep you an outcast from God is exactly the same disease that we all start with, our sin. If you have been to the cross and seen Jesus become a curse for you, then there is nothing at all that can ever separate you from His love. He says to all who acknowledge Him, “I will; be clean.”

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: Mark 1:14-45

Bringing In the Outcast – Continued

Please read Mark 1:40-45 for the background to this section.

From Last Lesson: If you did recover from leprosy, only the priests could declare that you were “clean” once more. There were detailed rules for that as well, including sacrifices that had to be offered.

All of this meant that life for the leprosy sufferer, the “leper,” was very grim. Although in theory they were allowed to live anywhere except inside a walled city, in practice they lived away from everyday society, quite literally out of touch. To make matters even worse, the religious authorities in typical style had added to the original rules a whole section of legislation about exactly how clean people might be made unclean. See if you can make sense of this, for example:

“If an unclean man stands under a tree and a clean man passes by the latter becomes unclean. If a clean man stands under a tree and an unclean man passes by, the former remains clean. If the latter stands still, the former becomes unclean.”

All this would make normal people more wary than ever about contact with the disease. This was one set of regulations the people of Israel observed very strictly. Even Uzziah, one of their greatest kings, when struck with leprosy was shut away in a house by himself for the rest of his life . . . a king, yet an outcast (2 Chronicles 26:16-21). The rabbis believed that it was as difficult to cleanse a leprosy sufferer as it was to raise the dead, which was not exactly encouraging. The Old Testament records only two cases of leprosy being healed, both by divine intervention; one was Miriam (Numbers 12:1-15), the sister of Moses, and the other was Naaman (2 Kings 5:1-14), the Syrian general.

So here comes this man, carrying all that weight of exclusion on his shoulders. Think how he must have felt! Knowing the hopelessness of his situation, the scale of the barriers which divide him from his fellow man, we can understand why he goes down on his knees! He has clearly heard about Jesus; perhaps from a distance he has watched Him in action. In any case, he seems to have no doubts; “You can make me clean.” The only question in his mind is whether Jesus is willing to do so. Jesus at once speaks and acts. Moved with deep compassion, He stretches out His hand and, breaking all those barriers, He touches the man. By that action, the rules say, Jesus Himself becomes ritually unclean; by the touch that the man has not felt perhaps for many years. “Be clean!” Jesus says. What is interesting is that some versions of the Bible says, “be cured,” yet the literal meaning in the original is “to be made clean.”

Think of it, a diseased man has been healed, a healing that is immediate and 100% successful. But, more than that, the barriers have been broken down; the outcast is brought back in and restored. Then Jesus sends him off to the priest. That is what the law states; the priest is the only one qualified to check you over and declare that you are clean. The custom is that you visit the local priest and then go on to the authorities in Jerusalem. Then there are special ceremonies to perform, partly to act out your freedom, and partly to give thanks to God, and you will be certified free of disease and fit to rejoin society again. At last, this man can now look forward to normal life; back to the family, back to work, back to self-respect.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: Mark 1:14-45

Bringing In the Outcast

Please read Mark 1:40-45 for the background to this section.

I have never personally known anyone with leprosy. However, I have heard and read of many who have devoted the best years of their lives to working in remote corners of the world, (especially India, for some reason), on ways to reverse the worst ravages of the disease and helping their patients be able to return to a somewhat normal life. I have studied a bit about leprosy, how it works by destroying nerves, killing feeling and sensation. I have read the stories about how leprosy patients are outcast and rejected by their families and in their villages and towns. I have read from those treating the disease, “Of all the gifts we can give a leprosy patient, the one he values most is the gift of being handled and touched. We don’t shrink from him. We love him with our skin, by touch.” I have learned all this in my studies, but I have never met anyone with leprosy.

However, not long ago I read a story of an incident in Tibet that involved leprosy. According to the author of the article:

There was a beggar on the street, and to those seeing him it was painfully obvious why he was there. The man had leprosy, and begging was how he survived. He was an elderly man, but because of the disease, it was very hard to be sure. His face was so stricken and wasted that I couldn’t really guess his age. There wasn’t a great deal anyone could do for him. I didn’t know a soul in the city and I couldn’t speak his language. I did speak to him; I did pray for him; and I did put money in his bowl. But I knew there was something very simple I needed to do. I grasped what little remained of his two hands in mine and looked him full in the face as I talked to him and tried to imagine the depth of his suffering. That was it, not much, really. But at least I had given him what I can almost guarantee no one else ever did, a caring touch for the outcast.

Jesus came to this earth to bring in the outcast. We find Him doing what He has just said He must do, touring the area of Galilee, “preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” In one of these places a man with leprosy begs Him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Leprosy in the Bible does not mean exactly what it does today. It’s probable that “leprosy,” Hansen’s disease as it’s also known, spread into the land of Israel from the east a few centuries before the time of Christ. But in those times they did not have the benefit of precise medical terminology, and the expression “leprosy” covered a number of different conditions, including other conditions with visible effects on the skin. Unlike the leprosy we know, some of these conditions would be highly contagious. The whole range of infectious skin diseases were covered in the Jewish law by very detailed regulations (Leviticus 13-14), and so the Jewish people were very much aware of skin diseases. Leprosy created two problems. The first is the obvious one; it was a disease that disfigured you, damaged your body and made people afraid of you, the same kind of fear that today accompanies AIDS, and even lately COVID-19. The second problem is that leprosy also made you ritually unclean, excluded from God’s people. You could not go to worship; you could not share in the sacrifices; you were effectively cut off from everyone and everything. If you did recover, only the priests could declare that you were “clean” once more. There were detailed rules for that as well, including sacrifices that had to be offered.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.