SERMONS FROM THE HEIGHTS by Randy L. Hyde, D. Min. Senior Pastor Pulaski Heights Baptist Church Little Rock, AR 72205 www.phbclr.com rhyde@phbclr.com Psalm 30:4-12; Mark 1:40-45 February 15, 2015 ON NOT LISTENING TO JESUS Of all the New Testament gospels, and that includes John, Mark is the briefest. When he tells a story, he doesn t add a lot of verbiage. Clean and neat that s Mark at least compared to the other gospels. He s the Joe Friday of the New Testament. Remember Joe Friday? Well, you do if you re of my generation or older. He was the cop on Dragnet first on the radio and then on TV and was famous, when interviewing a woman about a crime, for saying, Just the facts, ma am, just the facts. That s what Mark gives us, generally: just the facts. So, when he does provide us a detail, however minor it might seem when we first read it, we best pay attention because it is quite important to the message he is wanting to convey. In other words, when it comes to the Gospel of Mark, every word counts. He doesn t waste any time either. In Matthew s gospel, for example, we re near the end of the fourth chapter before we are told that Jesus healed anyone. And even then we aren t given any specific stories, just a general statement that he cured every disease and every sickness among the people (vs. 23). Luke is also into his fourth chapter before he reveals Jesus as a healer. He tells the same story Mark does, the one about Jesus removing the evil spirit from the man in the synagogue at Capernaum. In fact, since Mark was written first, and most scholars believe Luke had Mark in hand as source material for his own gospel, the chances are really good that Luke knew this story because of Mark. 1
The same may have been true about Matthew, so for their particular purposes, and to the audiences to which they are writing, he and Luke tell their respective stories their own way. And in doing so, they bide their time before telling us about Jesus healing ministry. Why do you suppose that is? Well, I have a theory. They use their first three chapters to set up Jesus ministry, to introduce us to him, while Mark chooses to jump in immediately. And it may very well be that Mark, for whatever reason, is so sparse with his words precisely because he did write his gospel first. Just the facts, ma am, just the facts. That s Mark. So as we said, when he does give us details, even those we might consider insignificant, at least at first blush, we need to pay careful attention. As we consider the story of Jesus and the leper, let s put up our antennae so we might be able to glean from Mark s story, as much as possible, all he wants us to know. What does get your attention in Mark s story? Okay, since this is my sermon, I ll tell you what comes to my mind when I read this story. Mark tells us that Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the man who was kneeling at his feet. Get the picture in your mind, if you will, make it as much as possible, as the old gospel song says, clear and plain. Laws are being broken here... important laws, laws that are central to the life and well-being of the people. The leper approaching Jesus, and Jesus resulting touch of the leper, form a clear and unadulterated case of civil disobedience. First of all, the man wasn t supposed to get close to Jesus, so he broke the law in doing so. All lepers were required to keep their distance from healthy folk. You are probably aware that when someone came close to a leper, the leper was supposed to cover his face and cry out, Unclean! Unclean! Not this time. The man takes the initiative, comes up to Jesus, kneels at his feet, and begs him, If you choose, you can make me clean. He wasn t supposed to do that sort of thing. Besides, how does he know that Jesus has the capability of helping him? From Jesus ever-growing reputation? If so, how did he hear about it? Has he heard about how the Nazarene healed the man in the synagogue on the sabbath, and how everyone in Capernaum then came to Jesus that evening for healing? It s doubtful 2
he witnessed it himself. He probably wouldn t have been able to get anywhere near the house for the crowds of people, not to mention the fear he might be stoned to death. How does he know about Jesus? And what does he know that he would be willing to take such a risk by approaching Jesus? We can t be sure, of course, but he knows enough to be aware that Jesus can heal him if he so chooses. It s not a matter of Jesus ability, simply of his want-to, his desire to help the poor man. And if Jesus was willing to heal everyone else who came to him with infirmities, doesn t it stand to reason he might be willing to help the leper as well? Besides, what does the leper have to lose? What if he is stoned for his actions? It s not like he has any quality of life as it is. Desperate circumstances call for desperate measures, and this man is about as desperate as he can get. So the first broken law is committed by the leper. But he is outdone by Jesus, isn t he? Moved with pity, Mark tells us, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him... Oh my, you just didn t do anything like that, not in those days. It s one thing for the leper to approach Jesus. After all, he is desperate, that we understand. But for Jesus to touch him? There s not another person in the whole wide world who would do such a thing. Touching a leper immediately immediately rendered you unclean yourself, and placed you in danger of catching the disease, and generally caught the attention of people who had retribution in their hearts, and led to all manner of other difficulties. Do you remember the early days of AIDS? It was still unclear how the disease spread, and there were theories and rumors of theories running rampant, most of them based on a certain level of hysteria... not unlike what recently occurred with the Ebola scare. Health-care professionals were leery of even entering the room of an AIDS patient, much less touching them, and when they did they were so covered up with protective gear they looked like zombies. Remember Ryan White? A young teenager, he became the poster child for HIV/AIDS when he was expelled from middle school after being infected through a contaminated blood treatment. A teacher in our church in Baltimore was leery of having one of her students return to school after it was determined that one of his 3
parents had the disease. Now we know, of course at least we think we do how such transmittal works, and the fears have subsided... as has the disease itself. In Jesus day, leprosy was HIV/AIDS and Ebola, the flu, measles, polio, and all manner of infectious diseases all wrapped up in one. It was a terrifying and fearful illness, and Jesus marched right into the face of it and did what no one else no one else would ever do. He touched the leper. Out of pity he touched the leper. And yet, somehow, the word pity doesn t fully convey how Jesus felt. The Greek word for pity goes beyond any of our standard definitions of the word. This is more than simply feeling sorry for the poor man. It pictures a profoundly intense emotional response on Jesus part. 1 Gary W. Charles, Feasting, p. 359. You can just hear Jesus groan in his spirit as he reaches out and touches the man. Talk about civil disobedience! If Jesus didn t care enough about the law pertaining to this disease, and how people were to respond to those who were plagued by it to the point that he would stretch out his hand and touch the man why did he then tell the leper to obey the law by presenting himself to the priest in order to be declared healed from his disease? The man s got to be reunited with his family and be able to rejoin the life he once knew, and Jesus, if anyone, knows that. The only way for that to be accomplished was by the local priest making an examination and telling the man he could now rejoin society. That s understandable enough. But then Jesus goes further with his instructions to the man. See that you say nothing to anyone...... nothing to anyone... Biblical scholars call it the messianic secret, that Jesus wants to operate quietly and on the hush-hush. The rest of us just consider it a puzzle. Why does Jesus not want the man to tell anyone such wonderful news? Around these parts, from time to time, we sing the Gene Bartlett song, Christ was born in a distant land, tell the good news, tell the good news. Lived on earth for the good of man, tell the good news, tell the good news. And Jesus says, No! No! No! Don t tell the good news! Don t tell anyone! Don t tell a soul! Again, look carefully at the way Mark frames the story. Jesus sternly warns the leper to tell only the priest and no one else. The Greek word for sternly is almost as strong as the one for pity. Jesus is serious here, dead serious. And what does the man do? He immediately begins telling anybody and everybody who will listen! I once was lost and now am found! I was a leper and now I am healed! He 4
gladly receives the cure that only Jesus can give, but he doesn t listen to Jesus at all when it comes to keeping his mouth shut. He tells his story to everybody, anybody who will listen. My friend Bo Prosser, who has preached in this pulpit before, about a month ago became a grandfather for the first time... of twins, no less. My friend Rick Hyde (no relation, though we call each other cuz ) just became a first-time grandfather as well. Both of them have flooded Facebook with pictures and messages about those babies, to the point that they re just absolutely obnoxious about it. But I understand. Had Facebook been around when I first became a grandfather, I would have been just as bad, if not worse. When good news comes your way, what do you want to do? You want to share it with everybody, and anybody who will listen. You want the whole world to know, maybe even if Jesus tells you not to do it. It did make it difficult for Jesus, which is probably why he told the man not to tell anyone what he had done for him. Word spread so fast Jesus couldn t go into a town without being recognized. So, he developed a new strategy. He d camp outside the city limits and the people would come to him. Whether he wanted it or not, Jesus is becoming famous in those parts. Now let s see what Jesus plans to do with all this notoriety. But was it his notoriety that kept him out in the country, some strange desire for people not to know who and what he was? Is he already running out of gas and needs some time to re-energize his physical and emotional strength, and the only way for him to do that is to lay low? And the only way for him to lay low is for people like the former leper to keep their good news to themselves? Maybe not. At the beginning of what we call Holy Week, Jesus entered Jerusalem just at the time when things had gotten really, really hot and he knew his presence would draw the attention, not to mention the anger, of the religious authorities. And he is at the end of his ministry. If he was ever going to be exhausted, this would be the time! So it s doubtful he would camp out in the country just to avoid the demands of the people or because he was worn out from the exertion of taking such a burden upon himself. Could it be that he stayed out of town because he himself was now unclean? Having touched the leper, making the man clean, Jesus has transferred the man s impurity to himself. 5
If so, here s the interesting thing: that evidently didn t matter to the people who wanted to be near him. People came to him from every quarter, Mark tells us. And remember, Mark is so sparse with his words that everything he says carries great importance. The people didn t care about Jesus having touched a leper. They wanted Jesus to touch them. People came to Jesus from every quarter, and they didn t care if he was unclean or if he made them unclean. They wanted what he, and he alone, could give. Civil disobedience! Do you want Jesus to come to you? Are you willing to take such a risk as the leper did, as these people who came from every quarter did? If you are, you might have to not listen to Jesus, if indeed he tells you to keep it to yourself. I wonder if the man Jesus healed of leprosy ever went to the priest to be declared healthy and clean. I rather doubt it, and do you want to know why? Because he didn t listen to Jesus at all. Not at all. And if Jesus touches us as he did this man, we probably wouldn t listen to Jesuseither. Lord, touch us with your redemptive power and give us the desire to tell anyone who will listen what you have done for us. In Jesus name we pray, Amen. Notes 1 Gary W. Charles, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 359. 6