The text this morning is from the Gospel of Mark, the first chapter:
And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, [Jesus] stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
The text today shows us a loving God who takes pity on His servants, on those who ask Him for healing, on those who ask Him for mercy and compassion and for Him to do His will. And in this story, it’s easy for us to focus on what happened after Jesus had mercy. We like to dwell on the hidden things of God. We want to figure out, “Why did Jesus tell the leper not to tell anyone? Why did the leper disobey God Himself and spread the news regardless of Jesus’ stern charge?” And these are good to talk about. In fact, when I began to look at this text, that’s what I wanted to talk about: the disobedient leper. But as I went, as I translated, as I thought, as I prayed, it became clear that there is something more to this text than just the ending. Let’s talk about the miracle.
You see, the text today shows us a healing. It shows us a cleansing. It shows us… a miracle. The whole of the readings today were about this. Miracles. It’s an amazing thing to see. But, miracles don’t always look the way we want them to. Think of Naaman in the Old Testament reading: “Why should I bathe in the water to heal my leprosy? Can’t I bathe anywhere? What makes this place so special?” And that’s a pretty active negative response to what he, the miracle-seeker, has demanded. God isn’t doing His miracle in power here, He’s doing it through washing, and it’s not what Naaman expected.
You see, miracles don’t always look the way we want them to. Miracles don’t always come the way we demand. But in the Gospel text, the miracle is given to the man seeking it out. But there’s something else being performed here. And this is hidden in the text for today.
A leper came to Jesus. This is incredible in itself. We have the whole idea of a man searching out Jesus. He’s heard the good news of this amazing healer, this amazing teacher, this amazing man, who casts out demons, who calls men from their jobs and they follow, who silences unclean spirits, who raises up mothers-in-law from deathly fevers (some may or may not say this is a good thing – I’m sure I’d be quite happy on this point). This Jesus, this man, this is someone who does amazing things… but it’s not yet completely clear to the leper what is going to be happening.
This leper comes to Jesus, the Lord, and is subservient. He literally places his life in the hands of Jesus. He’s doing what he believes is right: paying homage to the king, submitting to his Lord. He wants something, so he grovels. The leper knows that this man, this Jesus, can do what he needs Him to do. He’s heard the good news that this man, this Jesus, is a miracle worker. He’s heard the good news that this man, this Jesus, does things no one else can. He’s heard the good news that this man, this Jesus, does what no one else has done.
He’s heard the good news that this man, this Jesus, teaches and preaches and proclaims and prophesies with an authority unheard of in this land, teaching in ways and by means that no one has ever seen or heard before. So, this leper kneels down before Him, opening up his heart before a man that he has only heard of and pleads, pleads, pleads with this Jesus to heal him.
If Jesus wants to, the leper says, if Jesus wills it, then the leper can be made clean. The leper can be healed. The leper can be made whole again.
For the leper, it seems that he was only searching after a physical healing. He wanted the leprosy that he had carried for so long to be taken away from him. He wanted the miracle his way and his way only. He wanted it in power. He wanted to be healed. It wasn’t wrong of him to ask this of Jesus. It certainly was in the realm of possibility for Jesus. After all, Jesus is God and nothing is impossible for God. And Jesus did it. He stretched out His hand, He touched the leper. He healed him from his leprosy. But this wasn’t the leper’s real problem. His real problem lay deeper.
Jesus doesn’t just see the surface problems of the leper, nor when He looks upon His people. We can cry out to him for healing, and we often do. I mean, how often do we cry out to God even from this altar for the healing of His people? For people with cancer, for people with ailments, for people with swelling, for ill people, for the aged, for the frail, for the surgeries they face, for the illnesses they bear, for the hurting of their hearts, for their depression, for their sadness, for their pain. We cry out to God, “HEAL THEM, O LORD! If it is your will, heal them!” We ask God for a miracle.
Does Jesus want to do a miracle for them? Yes, of course, Jesus desires that all His people are made whole. Jesus loves you. He has pity on you. His heart burns with compassion for those who suffer and hurt. He doesn’t want His people to have to suffer, He doesn’t want them to have to hurt, He doesn’t want them to die. But suffer…. hurt… die we do. And why? Didn’t we just hear Jesus loves us? That Jesus cares for us? Of course Jesus loves us; of course He cares for us. But sometimes, in this life, before the second coming of the Christ, before the world and all of us are remade into our glorious and original intent, God does not heal us in our bodies. Sometimes, we suffer. Sometimes, we hurt. Sometimes, we die. And though these things bother us, just like the leper, the fact that we suffer, or that we hurt, or that we die, isn’t our real problem. They do affect us, and affect us deeply, but that’s not our real problem.
The real problem is that we have brought this on ourselves! We sin! We’re sinful! We are diseased through and through. We have cancerous lesions of sin, bubbling boils of making God sorrow, painful knots of failing to serve our neighbors. Our sin has moved into us and through us. It has infected us and there is a 100 percent mortality rate. There is no cure; you will die.
But take heart, dear friends, the story isn’t over. Remember, leprosy in the days of Jesus was more than just a skin disease. The Jews of this time saw it as an uncleanness of the person: there was something in the leper that made him unclean, some sin, something that made the leper leprous. For all that the Jews of Jesus’ time got wrong, they at least sometimes got it right in that sin is an all-pervasive infection and is the cause for all ills, all wrong, all evil in this world.
And whether the leper knew it or not, he was asking the right thing of Jesus. “If you will, you can cleanse me.” The leper might have only been looking for physical healing. He might have only been looking for the disease to be taken away. He might only have been looking for the Lord of Creation to spread Himself over His child and heal Him. But what the leper asked Jesus for was cleansing. And this is good, because Jesus wasn’t just looking at the leprosy. Jesus was looking at more. Jesus wasn’t just looking at the disease, He wasn’t just looking at the symptoms of the illness. Jesus was looking at the source. Jesus was looking at the man’s sin.
We often focus on the disobedience of the leper after this, but we fail to see the disobedience of the leper before he ever comes to Christ. The leper is a sinner. The leper is disobedient to God, always, just as you are. But Jesus saw this, even if the leper didn’t, even if you don’t.
Jesus said, “I will; be cleansed.” And the man was. His leprosy disappeared. And this is miraculous. But it isn’t the only miracle. The man was cleansed indeed, but he was cleansed of his sin, too.
The leper wasn’t really looking for a cleansing from his sin; he could get that in the temple. Present himself to the priest of the temple, just like Jesus said, over the next few days, prove his leprosy was gone, offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, offer a sacrifice for the redemption of his sins. This was no hard task for the leper to go through. Everyone did it. It was the system that God set up for His people. But God, Jesus, had a new system in mind. God was using His Word. God was using the willing Jesus.
You see, God doesn’t desire sacrifice; God desires mercy. And God had mercy on this poor leper. God had brought Him to the very source of Life itself, Jesus Christ, and this man, this Jesus, had compassion on the leper and healed him, healed his leprosy, but also forgave his sin. Jesus made the man clean, forgiven. This is where the real miracle of the text lies. This is where the miracle comes, not in power, but hidden in forgiveness.
The leper didn’t know what he was asking. “If you will, you can cleanse me.” Jesus said, “I will.” This is more than just a desire to heal the leper. This is a desire to go to the cross. Jesus willed to go to the cross. Jesus desired to take the sin of the world onto Himself so that He could absolutely, 100 percent, even more faithful to His people than the assurance of death, forgive their sins and cleanse them from all unrighteousness.
And we, too, have this. We are sinners, tried and true, and we cry out to God for mercy. God then looks upon us and has mercy. His heart is opened to us. It burns with compassion for His people. And so, hearing our cry, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the cross that He might take your sin and have it crucified. No longer are we complete subjects to sin. No longer are you suffering sinners. You are forgiven saints in Christ. You are forgiven in Jesus’ name.
Naaman was cleansed, the leper was cleansed, you are cleansed, all on behalf and on account of Christ. The leper didn’t have to go show himself to the priest; the Great High Priest already sees what He Himself has done! He has forgiven you, He has cleansed you!
Our suffering in this life, while it may not be taken away from us now, will be taken from us and remade into something beautiful. It will be remade to show God’s glory. It will be remade to declare to the heavens and the earth, “God has redeemed me; I am redeemed.” You now declare this, but soon your bodies, your lives, your souls, your everything will declare this from the innermost workings of your heart.
And you have this promise. It was given to you in your baptism. Just as Naaman washed in the river, just as Jesus touched the leper, so too were you washed in the waters of baptism, so too were you touched by the Lord of Life Himself.
You see, the miracles we desire don’t always look the way we want them to. We want power. And the Lord of all creation has great power, and we desire to see that great power in the way that we expect it to be seen. Fire from heaven, booming voices, prophetic dreams. But, God’s greatest power, the most effective power, the God-revealing power, is in the baptism and washing and forgiving of God’s people. This is the real power of God that focuses in on your real problem of sin with laser-like efficiency.
Like the leper, you were drawn to God Himself by the very Word of God. It’s the only way people can come to Christ, if they themselves are drawn by the Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. This Word of God is forgiveness. This Word of God is love. This Word of God reaches out from the heavens and washes you clean, cleansing you from all your sins, and placing the righteousness and forgiveness of God onto you, into you, and through you, taking all your stain, taking all your troubles, taking all your pain, taking all your sin. And while it may not seem like it in this life, your suffering is soon to be over.
For you, the greatest miracle to come is on its way, that miracle whose promise was given to you in your baptism, that miracle of the resurrection of the dead, into your full body, your redeemed body, your perfect body with no tarnish, no disease, and no sin. You are forgiven. You are cleansed. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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