At first glance, it would be possible to suppose that Mark 1:40-45 is another story about Jesus healing someone who was sick & so there’s not a lot to add from last week. But look again…
There are a couple of words here that are translated differently depending on which version of the Bible you’re reading. Firstly, there’s Jesus’ reaction to the leper in v41. The NIV says he was ‘indignant’; alternatively, the NLT says Jesus was ‘moved with compassion’. What’s going on is that something moves in Jesus’ gut – he’s moved by this bloke who is in obvious need who comes looking for help, trusting that Jesus can do something about his situation.
The other word that’s interesting is what he’s looking for. The NIV says the leper asks Jesus to make him clean; again, the NLT along with others says he wants to be healed. If we take the ‘clean’ interpretation over the ‘healing’ then the story takes a very different turn.
If you look at the Old Testament laws, there were a whole range of requirements that applied to people with skin diseases. The practical purpose of these laws was to prevent infectious diseases spreading through the community, but they had the effect of isolating people, meaning they were considered ‘unclean’ and not fit for a relationship with God or other people. Relationships were broken as they were cast out until they were healed or ‘made clean’.
So, when Jesus ‘heals’ the leper in the story, he is actually making him ‘clean’ and able to once again enter into a restored relationship with God and his community. What separated him from others is washed away and through the cleansing Jesus gives in his touch he is once again made pure & brought back into connection with God and with people.
To find the promise in this story, then, we can ask what makes us ‘unclean’ and how that separates us from others. Over the years I’ve worked with a number of victims of rape who describe themselves as being ‘dirty’ or ‘unclean’. There are things that we do or that others do to us that can leave us feeling this way. As a result we can separate ourselves from our relationships – from others, from God, even from ourselves. We can become social ‘lepers’ – unclean & cast out.
The touch of Jesus is important. In our culture, we’re almost obsessed with having clean hands in case we are made ‘dirty’ by what we might touch. Jesus’ touch works sort of like that – he absorbs everything that is ‘unclean’ or ‘dirty’ about the person he touches, but his purity is so great it actually makes the person he touches clean. Jesus’ purity overwhelms the unclean that he touches. The result is that the ‘unclean’ becomes ‘clean’ while he takes the dirt & gets rid of it once & for all on the cross.
Imagine that – the ‘unclean’ or ‘dirty’ made clean & pure by the powerful touch of the Son of God.
This becomes Jesus’ promise to those of us who look inside & see things they don’t like – to make us clean & pure. What if, instead of being overwhelmed by the dirt we sometimes experience or carry around with us, we believed that when he sees us, Jesus is ‘moved by compassion’ at our circumstances, reaches out his hand, and makes us pure & clean. Imagine living every day as a pure & clean child of God. What if we could hope against hope that God has the power to do what he promises (Romans 4:18,21) and that’s what defines us, not our dirty laundry…?
Next week, the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2-9 – the promise might be a bit hard to pick, so maybe look at it through Paul’s eyes in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6).
Peace.
