Made Clean

 

Sunday, February 15^th, 2009

Epiphany 6B

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA

Mark 1:40-45

Theme: Jesus’ Redeeming Action – in History and in Our Lives

 

“⁴⁰ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ ⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ ⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, ⁴⁴saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ ⁴⁵But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.”

 

It would seem to be a straightforward miraculous healing story from the life of Christ.  Jesus is out and about, a leper comes up to him and pleads with him to be healed, and Jesus does just that.  It is nothing surprising to us, since we know Jesus to be compassionate and caring, and willing to ‘make all things new.’

 

There are a couple of things about the story that are not readily apparent to us as twenty-first century readers, but that would likely jump out at the folks who read it or heard it read for the first time. 

 

The first is that Jesus actually touched a “leper.”  As you might remember, the term used then and which is translated as ‘leprosy’ could encompass any number of skin conditions and ailments, not just the one associated with the term today – which is more specifically named Hansen’s Disease.  Someone stricken with any of these forms of ‘leprosy’ was banished from interacting with society in general, sent away to live outside their given village or town or city, and forbidden from coming into contact with anyone that was NOT stricken with a similar ailment.  The fact that Jesus touched the man communicated in a dramatic way that he was identifying with what would be the most wretched outcasts of society.  In daring to come in physical contact with a leper, he was making HIMSELF unclean – but in the process, he was doing something greater and more powerful – he was not simply healing the man, he was making him CLEAN in the ritualistic sense as well. 

 

What would be somewhat perplexing to us TODAY would be his statement following the healing:  he ‘sternly warns’ the former leper to tell no one of what has happened, but to go show himself to the priest first, then offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.

 

 

Wouldn’t it be nicer if Jesus had told the man to go greet his family first, to hug his mother or his wife and children, show them that he was healed, and THEN to go to the Priest?  It would certainly give us a much warmer, fuzzier feeling about the whole story, wouldn’t it?

 

When we read in the text that Jesus ‘sternly warned’ the man, we could easily envision him putting on his serious face, and intently saying whatever it was, maybe even shaking his finger a little bit.  But the term actually denotes a much stronger emotion – to the point of anger or even violent displeasure.  It gives us perhaps a little more insight into the interaction going on between the two.  It could even be an indicator of Jesus’ recognition of the man’s character… even though he was moved with compassion to heal him, there were still some changes that needed to happen in that man’s life, and he needed a swift kick in the pants to get started on them.  As it turns out, for all the stern warning he gave, it didn’t work. And Mark makes note of it. 

 

What did the man do?  He did what any one of us would have done.  He ran out and started telling everyone and their BROTHER what Jesus had done for him! 

 

It is interesting that in the course of the story, Jesus and the leper sort of switch places.  The leper is at first an outcast.  Jesus is not.  Jesus heals the leper, and in doing that gives him back his home, his family, his life.  What does the leper do for Jesus?  He forces him to remain out in the country, granted, for radically different reasons – too popular, too likely to be mobbed if he were to venture into any center of population, so he is essentially banished from a normal existence by this act of compassion.    

 

We can accept the story at face value, seeing it as just an illustration of Christ’s divinity, God’s miraculous healing power at work through him, and leave it at that.  After all, Jesus ministry WAS a big deal –  he WAS, after all, GOD INCARNATE.  People were going to find out just who he was sooner or later, or they were at least going to THINK they knew who he was, and of COURSE it was going to cause an uproar.  THIS is as good a time as any for that to happen.        

 

We can nod in understanding of that statement fairly readily today, but there is a question that needs to be asked in light of the event and in the reading of the Gospel:  Why is the story here?  What purpose is it serving being placed just so, after traveling throughout Galilee, and before being cornered at home in Capernaum – and being swamped there, blocked in by the crowd, and we have the healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends. 

 

If we could turn just a few verses further back – back to verse 34: 

 

And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. 

                   

There is a recurring theme in the Gospel of Mark.  Scholars call it “The Messianic Secret” – there are multiple instances where Jesus tells people – not just his disciples, but people he has healed or had some form of contact with, who on some level recognize who he is and want to proclaim it, usually at the top of their lungs, just as this leper did, but whom Jesus commands to tell no one.  We can be find examples in Matthew as well as in Luke, but they are significantly fewer.  In the Gospel according to Mark, it is a unifying theme throughout the telling of the Gospel. 

 

There is a sense in Mark that the further you get into the story, the more involved you become, the more you get to know Jesus, the more you get to KNOW Jesus.  It is a growing thing.  Just as in any relationship.  The longer you spend time with someone, the more you get to know them; their quirks, their habits, their idiosyncrasies.  It is a similar situation with Jesus in Mark.  You catch glimpses of who he is, or what he’s about, as you read through the things that happen as he moves through his public ministry, but it isn’t until the last week of his life that we are made fully and completely aware of who Christ is.  And then we are left to do with that knowledge whatever it is God has for US to do.  Mark is singularly different at his conclusion.  The tomb is empty, and the women ‘left the tomb and fled, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.’  That is the end of the Gospel in the oldest manuscripts that have been found to date.  There is, of course, more to the Gospel as we have it now, an additional eleven verses that draw a picture that is more in accord with the other Gospel narratives of the resurrection. 

 

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

 

It is a tantalizing question.  What if the short version was the original, and what if it was left at that? 

 

Let’s think for a minute what the people who first heard this Gospel would have responded if the story had ended there.  I know how I sometimes react when a particularly suspenseful program comes to a cliffhanger point and then the dreaded words appear onscreen:  “to be continued” and it usually involves yelling at the television.

 

I can only imagine being in a congregation, sitting and listening to Aquila or Priscilla read the Gospel to me, and I edge closer and closer to the edge of the bench that I’m sitting on, and then the story takes that unbelievable turn, where the Messiah is beaten and crucified and DIES and is buried, and then the women come to the tomb three days later to finish dressing the body, and it’s not there! And they run away and that’s the end???  No WAY!!!

 

So I rush up to Aquila and grab him by the front of his robe and yell in his face “THEN WHAT HAPPENED???!!!” 

 

And he looks at me and smiles this incredible, knowing, gentle smile, and he says “sit down, let me tell you the rest of the story.”    

 

And that’s where we come in.  That’s where WE get to tell the rest of the story, because the rest of the story is the one that God writes with OUR lives – how God through Christ has made US clean. 

 

What better way to tell people today about what God is doing today than through the lives of people living today?     

          

Let’s pray.