Göttinger Predigten im Internet
ed. by U. Nembach, J. Neukirch, C. Dinkel, I. Karle

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 12, 2006
Sermon on Mark 1:40-45 by Hubert Beck
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Mark 1:40-45 (English Standard Version)
And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he 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.

HEALED, RESTORED, REJOICING!

It is quite amazing, is it not, how easily we take everyday “wonders” for granted and seem quite surprised when those “wonders” do not work as we expect them to.

A most mundane example would be our automobiles. We simply expect them to work and hardly ever stop in astonishment at how many tiny little pieces of that machinery (not to mention the larger and more noticeable parts of our car) work together so well most of the time. We just take them for granted – and we get very disturbed when they do not work as we expect them to. The car works so well most of the time that we expect it to work well all the time and get upset when it does not do so.

In the same way, we take our bodies pretty much for granted. Rarely do we stop to think of how many, many things must work together peacefully and efficiently at any given time to even keep them going, much less to make them feel well. Millions of interactions must take place every second to sustain our bodily processes and to make it possible for us to function without difficulty. When suddenly we have an ache or pain or when some major failure in an organ or limb occurs we immediately wonder why this had to happen to us as though malfunctions should never occur. It is not as though we have been cognizant of all the times things have worked so properly, of course. It is rather that we only think about them when they have given way and we are in discomfort, pain, feel threatened, or perhaps even face death (which, of course, must be expected by everyone else save for us, you know!).

The Example of the Unnamed Leper of Our Text

Can you not imagine that such was the case with the man who approached Jesus in our text? He was not born with the skin disease called leprosy. It had been contracted in some way long after he was born. He remembered another day when he had been well, though, when he had gone about his business, had enjoyed his family, had been a respected member of a community of people. As today’s Psalm puts it, “I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’ By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.”

Do we not all recognize the plight of this man? Have we not all had those moments when we wonder why God “hid his face” and left us in shoes similar to this man afflicted by leprosy – when we were in poor health or perhaps with unexpected indebtedness or maybe with family distress or possibly in deep depression over this or that problem that seemed insurmountable? Surely much of the misery of this man was the fact that he remembered better days here in this lonely place from which he emerges to plead for the help of Jesus. When he said, “If you will, you can make me clean,” it is as though he said, “Let me again see the face of that goodness that once shown on me and that now seems to have hidden its face from me.”.

His diseased condition had, by the laws of that day’s culture, isolated him from every human contact except, perhaps, the company of other lepers in the same condition as that in which he now found himself. We are not told of any companionship whatever here, however. He was alone out in this desolate quarantined isolation lest he contaminate others in the community.

How he had heard of Jesus or knew anything about him in this terrible isolation is not known, but this we are told: he “came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, ‘If you will, you can make me clean.’” He didn’t question the power of Jesus to do this for him. He only questioned the will of Jesus over against his request. He casts himself entirely onto the will of the only one who could help him.

The Healing Word is Spoken

Jesus immediately assures him of his will to heal: “I will; be clean.” But between the man’s request and Jesus’ response lies a world of significance in the way Mark tells the story.

Jesus was “moved with pity,” Mark reports. That phrase strikes a warm place in our heart, does it not? But the peculiar thing is that, while most translations fall back on this phrase, some ancient manuscripts read, “being angry, he stretched out his hand . . . !” What place would such a phrase have in this tender story of Jesus’ care for a needy man? The question has been asked many times over with no definitive answer. But may I suggest it may have considerable significance. Is it not possible that the anger spoken of is not directed against the man who asked for relief, but at the leprous disease that had so debilitated him? Is it possible that, according to these older manuscripts, Jesus is expressing his anger that sin has so disturbed the world in which humankind exists that it has brought this man into such a desperate situation? May it not be, therefore, an expression of “pity” for the man because he is so “angry” with the very disturbance that is crippling him? (This is not to say, lest it be misunderstood, that this man is being punished for his sinfulness with this disease. It is to say, rather, that disease has entered the world of sin as a harbinger of the death that accompanies sin, and Jesus’ anger is directed against all the fallenness that has so disturbed the marvel of creation in this way and that is now so evident in the condition of this man.)

Possibly, then, we here get an insight into the mission of Jesus – a mission to disarm the very powers of that which cripples the world that was made to serve God. Is not the cross itself, in a sense, God’s expression of anger and hatred over against sin and death in a powerfully vivid fashion? There God clashes with the bitter enemy in a mortal battle to wrestle the world free from death and all that it brings with it . . . including the diseased condition that haunts this leprous man kneeling before Jesus who will be the crucified One bearing all that troubles the world on his shoulders.

Whether this understanding was originally built into this text or not, the fact remains that Jesus’ response to the man is indeed filled with pity. “I will; be clean.”

The second thing that is of great significance between the man’s request and Jesus’ response is the note that “he stretched out his hand and touched him” as he spoke to him. Although we may shrink back from doing something like that because of the horrible sight and even smell of one afflicted by a severe skin disease (the word “leprosy” was apparently used rather loosely in New Testament times to indicate any of a number of severe skin diseases), the point is not simply that Jesus was brave enough to get beyond his senses to touch the man. By the religious laws of the time this touch made Jesus unclean himself – immediately, simply by the touch. In other words, to touch this man was to put himself into the same category with the leprous man and therefore to make it mandatory for Jesus to go to the priest along with the healed man to get a certificate of cleanliness when the diseased man was restored to health The touch made Jesus a fellow leper . . . a position that no person witnessing this moment would want to occupy.

Now a third thing becomes quite evident in a dual manner: First of all Jesus’ response is not what those around may have expected. Had Jesus said, “It is God’s will for you to be clean” or even “I call on the Father to cleanse you,” it would have been acceptable. But Jesus’ response takes all the responsibility for the healing on himself: “I will; be clean.” There were healers of all sorts – religious ones as well as physicians of a sort or frauds and pretend healers – who populated the landscape of the time. But here was one who took personal responsibility for healing this man –

And Jesus did it by simply touching him, taking his disease up into himself, becoming diseased with the man! Nor did he go to the priest for a bill of cleansing as he instructed the healed man to do, for he did not consider himself diseased for having touched the man. Quite the reverse! He considered the man cleansed because he, who had taken up the leprosy into himself had not only absorbed it, but had handed his own health back to the man whom he touched! And instead of both being diseased, both were now well! This, surely, became evident to all around as they watched this scene unfold before their very eyes!

And again must we not wonder whether Mark is telling the story in such a fashion that he is giving us a “foretaste” of that which is to come. Is this not ultimately the story of the cross? The cross is where the “well person” touches the “sickness of the world” to either be contaminated by it and go to a death of no return or else to convey his “wellness” to the “sick of the world” confirmed by his resurrection from the dead!!! In and through the cross the Father touches the sin-sick world under the form of his Son in order to heal it from that which would otherwise drag it down into the cold grave of death!

In order to continue his march from this healing of the leper to the healing of Calvary Jesus wants to go about the countryside freely, so he “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.’” Again a strange alternate wording is found in some manuscripts, using the phrase “breathing indignation he sent him away . . . ” for “sternly charged him.” What lies underneath these strong words associated in some manuscripts with Jesus as he heals this man? Inasmuch as the man seems to have disregarded Jesus and instead went around spreading the word of his healing, it is perhaps a way of saying that when Jesus tells the man what to do he fully intends for him to do it, but he suspects the man will do otherwise. It will be disturbing to Jesus’ mission, in fact, if he does not do what Jesus commands and instead goes around telling everybody. At any rate, it is described in the text before us as a “stern warning” to keep quiet . . . a warning frequently repeated in this Gospel.

This is a strange warning, however, no matter how one takes it. We are not told whether the man ever got to the priest to receive his certificate of healing, presenting at the same time the appropriate offerings of thanksgiving for his cleansing according to the Law of Moses. What we are told is this: “he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news.” We can surely understand how hard it would have been to restrain his tongue, can we not? To return to the thoughts with which we began, marvels and wonders like the health of our body are easily taken for granted until they are no longer available, and once they are taken away we greatly lament their loss. But when they are returned to us again, we come to such an appreciation that we must tell everyone of the miraculous restoration of health and well-being that has come to us. To keep quiet now is the most difficult thing imaginable.

The reason for asking him to keep quiet about this becomes immediately apparent, however. “Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.” What seemed so important to the man healed became the problem for the Healer! Have we not all experienced the problems that can arise from the actions of one who does things with the best of intentions on occasion? So here. The man’s exuberant testimony created a difficult situation for Jesus.

Of course, even if he had not said a word, was not his very re-appearance in the company of those among whom he had enjoyed life earlier not itself been such a testimony? How could he hide the marvel of this healing, even had he wanted to, when he returned to the life from which he had been exiled at an earlier time? Those who now saw him whole and well would have, themselves, been witnesses to the Healer even apart from the man’s words of rejoicing as he testified to all concerning his restoration!

The Holy Spirit saw to it, however, that this “detour” in the path of Jesus did not hinder his mission. Even when Jesus was “in desolate places, people were coming to him from every quarter.”

The Healing Word is Spoken To Us

While Mark most certainly is telling us about a leper who came to Jesus for healing and the word of healing that came from Jesus, we must recognize immediately that he is also talking about us. It is our leprosy that is at issue when we hear about this incident, for sin is, as has been evident through the ages, “a sickness unto death.” Like leprosy, it tears at us from the inside out. The disease attacks from the very bloodstream of unbelief and doubt giving rise to hatred and greed and lust and other such manifestations of our sickness. Granted that they all lie quietly within us, glossed over with our self-assurance that we would never act on such impulses; and granted that we frequently deny such inner expressions of sin as though we were immune to their worst appearances and as though they could and will never surface in their worst form, they all lie “crouching at the door. Its desire is for you,” as God warns Cain just before his exterior appearance of innocence gives way to the murder of his brother. And this leprosy of sin isolates us (just as it did the leper in our text) from our neighbor whom we do not love as we ought. Separated from all community . . . community with God and with our fellow human beings by this leprosy that will become our death . . . we are in a most desperate situation. Unless . . .

A Healer arrives to whom we dare make the simple plea, “If you will, you can make me clean.” And what a blessed relief it is to hear the words from the one who alone has the right and the power to utter them: “I will; be clean.” In speaking them he reaches out to touch us, and his arms are spread to embrace us as they were spread on the cross and his blood is mingled with the open sores of our leprous sinfulness and our hearts leap for joy! In touching our sinfulness he takes it up into himself and gives us the touch of his wholeness in return!

There we not only find God but we also find our neighbor restored to us. In making himself the sacrifice “offered for our cleansing . . . for a proof to them” Jesus has called on us also to give our life in behalf of those around us. That is what it means to “find our brother and sister.” It is not simply to have the pleasure of their company, but it is to be there “for them” as they, in turn, are there “for us,” and together the community of Christ is formed into a crucifix shape! Reunited with God, we are united with our neighbor in a whole new way. Once united with our neighbor only in a miserable community of lepers, we are now united with them in a community of healed ones worshipping the Healer.

That is the message our lips and our lives are to carry into the “desolate places” of this world where Jesus is waiting for the lepers of the world to come to him. For who is not such? To say, as all the gospel writers do, that Jesus is always very concerned about those who are socially marginalized and those who are out on the boundaries of life is only to say that he is concerned about us, one and all, the lepers of the world, and that he comes to seek and to save all who are lost wherever he may find them or from wherever they may come to earnestly plead, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

All of us fall into those categories. We have no claim on him. But wonder of wonders, glory of glory, he it is who makes the claim on us, saying, “I will; be clean.” And we can never be the same again!

Let us, then, renew our wonder at this grace regularly, kneeling at his feet as he speaks these words to us in and through the Scripture we read and preach and ponder and that lies at the heart of our worship together; at this table where he spreads before us “a foretaste of the feast to come” in his body and blood given for us in, with and under this bread and wine; before this baptismal font where he has called us through the water and his word to come and follow him. For he leads us rejoicing down the path of an everlasting life of wholeness, healed and restored to what God intends us to be – his very own children!

Hubert Beck, Retired Lutheran Pastor
hbeck@austin.rr.com

 


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