READ Mark 1:40-45 KIDS What two things do you need to know about Jesus from Mark 1?

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1 Mark 1:40-45 Moved with Compassion September 16, 2018am Ne w Hope R oad Joelton, TN READ Mark 1:40-45 KIDS What two things do you need to know about Jesus from Mark 1? Diagnosis: leprosy. We do not know the man s name. We do not know his age. We do not know what he did for a living. We do not know if he was married with young children or the sole bread-winner for his aged parents. We know literally nothing about this man other than one thing. He was a leper, but let me try to use my imagination a little bit. The Jews had laws written in Leviticus 13 that speak to how to deal with this dangerous disease that most believe to be modern-day Hansens Disease. One morning while washing his face this man felt a tender spot under his beard. He moved the hair away from the spot to see a bright white bump just on the top of his skin. Then he noticed too that the hair around that area was pure white. Too white, too early for a man in his early thirties. Immediate fear struck him. Sure this could just be an ingrown hair or just a bug bite, maybe just small infected cut, but he remembers last week. Corey M. Minter Page 1 of 10

2 Just days before, he was walking into town and just as he rounded the hill he saw it or him rather just a few feet off of the road. Nowhere near the 100 paces away that he was supposed to be. No sooner had he seen him than he smelled the awful stench of being backwind. Body odor, unwashed rags and just rot. Leprosy. His father had told him about the disease, as his father before him had warned before him. It started with just a white spot on the skin that would numb the nerves and deaden the hair follicles all around it, until eventually, it would spread like cancer all over the body killing a person inch by inch with open wounds. It could be spread by any number of ways, that s why there were so strict laws about the handling of the disease and those who had contracted it. This leper was a pathetic sight. He wore little more than rags and had a scraggly beard that covered up most of his face. What his beard did not cover, his long stringy hair was pushed down over his eyes so that no one could see his face or even make eye contact. He was huddled over a bowl of table scraps. No doubt this was the designated meeting place where some friend or family member would drop off what little food they could spare, yell for him, and run away before he got there. The sight, the smell, the shock all converged in a single panicked gasp. The poor hunched over figure jumped to his feet and screamed, UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! Corey M. Minter Page 2 of 10

3 Get away from me! Back to your hole! was his indignant reply, and the leper grabbed as many scraps as he could while continuing to shout UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! He picked up a rock to throw it at the outcast to punish him for getting so near the road where travelers frequent, but he realized too late that he had picked a bit of the food the wretch had been eating, still wet with the man s saliva. In a moment of thoughtless disgust, he dropped the food and wiped the filth on the scrap that hung around his neck. All the way home, he muttered to himself, making sure to mark it in his mind to talk to the priest first thing tomorrow to see if there was anything the community could do to drive that filthy leper colony further away from town, but all that vanished when he walked into his courtyard to the laughter and joyful shrieks of his two girls, Abba! Abba s home! The pair ran out to meet him and he almost fell under the weight of them jumping in his arms. With both girls in his arms, there was little room for his wife to join in, but the girls simultaneously reached out and snatched her into the family hug. Life was good. God was good. But now standing in front of his wife s heirloom, hammered bronze mirror looking at that spot he wasn t so sure. He pulled the collar of his tunic to the side and saw several more spots, itchy and scaly, and he determined that he had to go see the priest. That would set his mind at ease. He would go to the priest; he would review the laws of the Torah, and he would send him on his way a clean man. He pulled his wife in, gave her a quick peck on the cheek and kissed the tops his daughters heads. See you for dinner! Corey M. Minter Page 3 of 10

4 That would be the last time he would ever be that close to them. His visit with the priest did not go as he had planned. Immediately, the priest, almost without touching him, pulled his hands away, Unclean, he gasped. Unclean! The priest urgently warned as he began to pour water over his hands. He pointed out, away. Unclean! He almost fell over on his stool trying to get away, calling for guards to escort the man out of town, to the rest of the lepers. His fate was sealed. Never again would he walk into his courtyard and be tackled by his girls. He would never be able to hold his wife or sit down at the table with his family, again. His life would be lived 100 paces away from them from now on. No festivals. No feasts. No weddings. No grandchildren. Life the unclean life lived at 100 paces away from any of them. He wondered what his littlest would think. None of them would understand why, but she would probably think that he had abandoned them. Them How could he provide for them, now? What would they do? His leprosy would put them out on the streets. They would have to beg and live off of the kindness of their neighbors, gather grain from the fields at the edges of town like beggars. This was not the plan. This was not how it was supposed to go. There was no cure. There was no hope. He was taken to the edge of town and shoved out with strict warnings to obey the law: stay away and scream Unclean! whenever a passerby got too close. Corey M. Minter Page 4 of 10

5 I can imagine that first night at the leper commune with the few others that had been cast out of society. Each of them in varied degrees of the leprous condition sitting around the fire. Some probably looked OK like him just a few white spots easily hid beneath a beard or scarf. Others, though. With the ailment affecting the extremities first, whole fingers and toes had started decaying. Noses looked more like openwound-stubs. What did they talk about? I can imagine they wanted to hear this new guy s story. Maybe there was a scuffle between he and the leper that he saw some time ago. He wouldn t be here right now, away from his family, if he had not been so careless, camping out so close to the road. This was hist fault! But as the fire burned down to embers so did the tempers, and I can just hear it among the lepers. Some skeptical. Some with a sliver of hope. I heard He turned whole jugs full of water into wine. Sure Sounds like someone who had downed a few jugs of wine told that story. Someone told me He can cast out demons just by commanding them. He probably paid him off. We ve seen these false messiahs before. But have you heard what people are saying about the way He teaches?! Authority. He says it with conviction! Night after night, the same stories were told. The leprosy grew and grew, and hope shrunk and shrunk. Corey M. Minter Page 5 of 10

6 But one night, a little further away, just far enough away from the glint of the fire, they heard a raspy voice say, I heard that He heals. Just a few days ago, I heard He healed an old woman with the fever. When the rest of Capernaum heard about it, they all came to visit Him, and He healed every. single. one. Capernaum?! That wasn t far from them. They had been talking about Jesus for months, and He had never been very far away, but now, He was just down the road. That was when our friend the leper made up his mind that no matter what, whatever the cost, no matter the law, whoever tried to stop him, he was going to get to Jesus. Mark 1:40 Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, If You are willing, You can make me clean. Up to this point, I have been telling you a story. I have filled in a lot with just some my imagination, but from here on out, you need to know something. As detrimental and putrid and disgusting and heart-breaking as leprosy was in that culture, sin is worse, then and today. Sin will separate you from your family. It will stigmatize you and mark you as unclean before a holy God. Sin will rot you to your very core. It will numb you. The callouses that sin builds up in your life will cause you to be bitter and cynical. Sin will lie to you and tell you that there is no hope, that this is just your lot in life, the burden that you have to bear. Don t. You. Listen. To. It. The leper comes to Jesus and he says, If you are willing, You can make me clean. Corey M. Minter Page 6 of 10

7 There are two things that you need to know about Jesus. He is always willing. There is not one leprous sinner who comes to Christ with sincerity that He will turn away. Christ loves restoring families. Bringing husband and wife, estranged child and parent, back together is His passion. He lives to to take the stigma of sin from off your life and to clothe you in His righteousness. He moves on the heart of the most calloused and cynical and whispers that He is willing to give them life and life more abundantly. He is willing to bring the truth of the Gospel into your life. In Him there is always hope. Sin is not your lot in life but sanctification. It is what He, before the foundations of the world were even laid, set into motion. He is willing to take your burden, to loose it from off your back and bury it in the tomb where His body once lay. Jesus is always willing. What doctor seeing his patient would not be willing to heal? Every single one would heal if it were within his ability, but too often, the diagnosis is beyond their control. Instead of healing, they try to bring comfort. Instead of healing, they give you timetable. Every doctor is willing, but they are not always able. Jesus is always able. There is no sin too bad, no relationship too broken, no stigma too stuck, no situation too hopeless, no burden too heavy that Christ cannot forgive, mend, make new, restore or loose. If You are willing, You can make me clean. Aren t you glad today that Jesus is both willing and able? 41 Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, I am willing; be cleansed. Corey M. Minter Page 7 of 10

8 42 As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. Worse than the leprosy of this man s skin was the sin of his heart. Jesus dealt with both: the leprosy left and he was cleansed. But I want us to focus in on that phrase which compelled Jesus to heal and forgive this man in verse 41: Then Jesus, moved with compassion That phrase is one word in the original language (splagknistheis), and it actually the word that we get the English word spleen from. It means, essentially, that Jesus felt pity for this leper in his gut. We might call it heartache or a proverbial kidney punch, today. Of all the emotions that Jesus could have felt (anger for this man s disobedience to Levitical law being one of them, endangering a whole crowd of people with his infectious disease), Jesus feels his pain. I bring this up this morning because it is important that you know that Jesus both judged and had compassion on this man simultaneously. Without judging, the leprosy would not have been diagnosed. Without compassion, the leprosy would not have been healed. The most hateful thing for Christ to have done that day was to act as if nothing were wrong with the man. He comes to Jesus in all of his leprous filth, and Jesus could have soothed his conscious and said, You re not that bad, and the man would have gone away maybe affirmed but still infirmed. Instead, Jesus rightly judges his issue of leprosy and sin, and immediately, he extends grace. Corey M. Minter Page 8 of 10

9 He was moved with compassion to do so. You cannot have the grace of God without first the judgment of God. The very end of the story and the chapter gives us two ironies. 43 And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them. 45 However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction. 1. The leper understood more about evangelism than we do. 45 However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction. Isn t it ironic that Jesus tells the leper to not tell anyone, and he does, but Christ has commanded us to witness and we don t. There is no class. There is no format or way to do it. I like how one old preacher said it, Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where he got the bread. Evangelism is just one leper telling everyone where he got the healing. 2. Christ takes the place of the leper. We can really only speculate why Jesus would give the healed man a command like this in verse 43: don t tell anyone that I healed you. My Corey M. Minter Page 9 of 10

10 assumption is that Jesus s goal was to stay in the town, preach in the synagogues and minister in the city, but since His popularity spread so quickly, He was literally incapable of doing that. Instead of preaching in the synagogues and sleeping in a house, Jesus was driven out to the deserted places, and people came to him. Did you notice that Jesus traded places with the leper? Here, the leper was cast out of the city made to dwell in the deserted places, but when Jesus healed him, he gets to go home back in the city, but Jesus has to stay in the desert. That is exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. We were cut off from God. Jesus was accepted, but Jesus healed us and in so doing, alienated Himself from the Father (darkness during the crucifixion and My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? ). Corey M. Minter Page 10 of 10