Mark 1

⁴⁰ And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” ⁴¹ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” ⁴² And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³ And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, ⁴⁴ 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.” ⁴⁵ 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.

In the latter half of the 19^th century, a missionary we now know as Damien of Molokai went to Hawaii to minister. His ministry became focused on the many lepers there and to them he gave his life. He ministered to the lepers, bathed them, helped to increase their standard of living, built better homes for them, dug their graves, and conducted their funerals. In a letter to his brother, Damien wrote, “I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.”

In December of 1884, Damien prepared a bath for himself. The water was too hot and when he put his foot in it, it instantly blistered. However, Damien felt no pain. It was then that Damien knew that he himself had become a leper. On April 15, 1889, Damien of Molokai died a leper at the age of 49.[1]

It is said that before he realized he was a leper himself, Damien would use the pronoun “you” in his sermons addressing the lepers. After the incident in the bath, however, he used the pronoun “we” when addressing the lepers. He had not only identified with them, he had become one of them.

It is a powerful story and one that has inspired Christians for many years. That a man would go among the lepers, identify with them, become one of them, then die with them is profoundly Christlike. It is Christlike in a grand sense, for Christ too came to us, identified with us, became one of us (yet without sin), and then died for us. Yet Molokai’s story is Christlike in its particulars as well, for Christ too touched the lepers and became for them their great and only hope. Yet, there are differences in the stories of Molokai and Christ, and these differences are not insignificant.

The Leper: A bold approach and a desperate plea for help.

Let us begin by seeing a leper come to the Lord Jesus.

⁴⁰ And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

One can hear the desperation in the man’s plea and one can see the desperation in his very coming. This can be attributed not only to the terrible disease itself, but also to the terrible stigma that the disease brought. In the ancient world, the lepers lot was hard indeed!

First, what are we to make of the term “leper.” New Testament scholar Ben Witherington has explained that “the term [lepros]…in antiquity covered a whole gamut of skin diseases, and it is difficult to say what this man had. The disease we know as leprosy appears not to have existed in Jesus’ time and region…Later rabbinic literature suggested that such skin diseases were as difficult to get rid of as raising the dead was to accomplish.”[2] It is possible that the exact disease we know as Hansen’s disease may not have existed in the first century, but, in essence, it is a distinction without significance, for the basic nature of this skin disease and, most significantly, of the stigma it brought is the same.

Consider, for instance, the Old Testament laws concerning those with leprosy. They are found in Leviticus 13.

⁴⁰ “If a man’s hair falls out from his head, he is bald; he is clean. ⁴¹ And if a man’s hair falls out from his forehead, he has baldness of the forehead; he is clean. ⁴² But if there is on the bald head or the bald forehead a reddish-white diseased area, it is a leprous disease breaking out on his bald head or his bald forehead. ⁴³ Then the priest shall examine him, and if the diseased swelling is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, like the appearance of leprous disease in the skin of the body, ⁴⁴ he is a leprous man, he is unclean. The priest must pronounce him unclean; his disease is on his head. ⁴⁵ “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ ⁴⁶ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.

What a devastating sentence!

• “he is unclean”
• “the priest must pronounce him unclean”
• he “shall wear torn clothes”
• he shall “let the hair of his head hang loose”
• “he shall cover his upper lip”
• he shall “cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’
• “He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease.”
• “He is unclean.”
• “He shall live alone.”
• “His dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

In other words, leprosy meant banishment, shame, social ostracization, and a lonely death. The treatment of lepers was not much improved in certain periods of church history. For instance, William Barclay has described the treatment of lepers in the Middle Ages as an application of the Mosaic law.

The priest, wearing his stole and carrying a crucifix, led the leper into the church, and read the burial service over him. The leper was a man who was already dead, though still alive. He had to wear a black garment that all might recognize and live in a leper- or lazarus-house. He must not come near a church service but might peer through the leper “squint” cut in the walls while the service went on.[3]

I do hasten to add that there have been exemplary examples of compassionate treatment for lepers in the Christian Church and throughout Christian history. I think it safe to say that it was Christians who led the way in more compassionate care of those inflicted with this dreaded disease. Even so, the leper of the first century and, tragically, lepers throughout time, have felt an incalculable sense of loneliness, of shame, of dirtiness.

This is what makes the leper’s actions in our text so very poignant.

⁴⁰ And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.”

The scandal is in the words, “And a leper came to him.” He came right up to Jesus and kneeled at his feet. In doing this, he was violating not only custom but also Levitical law: “He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.”

“Outside the camp” does not mean “kneeling at one’s feet.”

This leper, by any human reckoning of the time, came too close. He came too close.

By any human reckoning…but not by the reckoning of the Kingdom of God and not by the reckoning of the King.

He came because he was broken. He was broken and lonely and ashamed and defiled and dirty and sick. He came because the risk of being stoned to death was worth the slimmest possibility of receiving some small compassion at the hand of this one named Jesus. The reputation of Jesus had made it out there even among the lepers. This man had heard it, and so he came. He came in defiance of the rules and the shame and the strictures and the laws. He came in defiance of the bans. He came because it would be better to die violently after a brief moment of actual human contact than to die alone in one’s leper shack.

He came because there seemed to be something about Jesus that said, even to outcast lepers, Come! Come!

Are you ashamed this morning? Lonely? Outcast? Dirty? Unclean? Embarrassed? Alone? If you will but risk coming to Christ, you will find there a friend and more than a friend. You will find there a healer and a Savior.

Jesus: A complex and provocative reaction leading to substitutionary compassion.

Consider the reaction of Jesus.

⁴¹ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” ⁴² And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³ And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, ⁴⁴ 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.”

The Church Father Origen memorably and beautifully said that Jesus “touches him in his untouchability.”[4]

Behold the wonderful love of Jesus for the outcasts! Behold the compassionate tenderness of our loving Lord. Jesus is moved by this man’s plea. And then, Jesus does the unthinkable. He touches him. In touching him, Jesus renders himself unclean on the basis of the law as recorded in Leviticus 5.

² or if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether a carcass of an unclean wild animal or a carcass of unclean livestock or a carcass of unclean swarming things, and it is hidden from him and he has become unclean, and he realizes his guilt; ³ or if he touches human uncleanness, of whatever sort the uncleanness may be with which one becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and realizes his guilt; ⁴ or if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; ⁵ when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, ⁶ he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.

Unlike Damien, Jesus does not become a leper himself. He heals the leper without becoming a leper. The disease has no power over Jesus. Even so, in the eyes of the religious establishment and of the people shaped by it, Jesus took the uncleanness of the leper onto and into himself. He was now defiled and, if you listen to the wording of Leviticus 5, he had now sinned in the eyes of the priests. Jesus was now guilty before the establishment.

But Jesus knew this. Jesus knew that He had not sinned before God Himself, for there is a sin greater than ceremonially uncleanness and that is failing to show mercy and compassion to a hurting person. There is, in other words, a higher law that resides in the loving heart of God Himself. The law God had given in the legal codes was good, but it had become something it was not intended to be. Jesus came to reveal this fact and point us to the true intention behind all the divine decrees and commands. John Chrysostom said that Jesus, in touching the leper, signified “that he is not under the hand of the law, but the law is in his hands.”[5]

So Jesus healed the poor leper. He healed him completely and marvelously.

Even so, there is a challenge in our text, a textual problem that is a somewhat infamous conundrum in terms of how to interpret our passage. Hear again the text:

⁴¹ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” ⁴² And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³ And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, ⁴⁴ 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.”

The challenge comes in the first phrase of verse 41: “Moved with pity…” While many early manuscripts do contain the word “pity,” other manuscripts have the word “indignation.” “Pity” and “indignation” are not the same thing.

“Despite the massive external attestation for ‘filled with compassion,’” writes James Brooks, “internal considerations are so strong that ‘having become angry’ probably is the original.” Maybe so. The wording of verse 43 might support this idea. Brooks notes that the words “sternly charged him,” in verse 43, can also be translated “to be angry,” “to scold,” and “to warn,” and that the words “and sent him away at once” “usually means to cast out and is often used with reference to expelling demons (vv.34,39).” (William Lane says of verse 43 that “the language is very strong and seems more appropriate in an address to a demon than to a man whom Jesus has just healed” and suggests that the verse could be translated, “he inveighed against him and drove him away.”[6]) Brooks’ conclusion is most interesting:

Unless Mark used the verbs in this verse with milder-than-usual meanings, it appears that Jesus was angry with the man and that he cast him out (of a house or synagogue?). It is highly probably therefore that v.41 also indicates that Jesus was angry with the leper. If anyone except Jesus had been involved, few would ever have suggested any other interpretation.[7]

Perhaps this is so. What are we to make of it? First, let me say that even if the word should be “indignation” instead of “compassion,” compassion is all throughout this text and is found in Jesus’ healing action. He does indeed heal the man and the man rejoices over it!

Furthermore, if the beginning of verse 41 does read, “Moved with indignation,” and if the verbs of verse 43 do communicate the same, we still must ask why this is. For starters, it is extremely unlikely that the leper himself was the direct object of Jesus’ indignation, if indignation He felt. On the contrary, I would propose that the text immediately preceding this, Mark 1:29-39, offers the solution.

You will recall how Jesus’ healing of Peter’s mother-in-law in that text is not merely a story of healing, it is also a story of temptation. For as we saw when considering that passage, Jesus’ preaching ministry was in danger of being eclipsed by Jesus’ healing ministry. Indeed, Jesus’ retreat back to the desolate place, the wilderness, alone in the dark, suggests the ongoing temptation of Christ as Mark presents it. Finally, Jesus abandons his mother-in-law’s home, despite the disciples’ plea for him to return to the waiting crowds, because, as He reminds them, He came not only to do miracles but also to preach the Kingdom. He came, in other words, to demonstrate power and to proclamation.

So immediately preceding our text we find Jesus’ fleeing a scene of healing because it threatened to trap Him in one area thereby keeping Him from moving towards the cross. When Jesus healed, the word spread, the crowds came, and Jesus was faced not only with the threat but even the temptation of simply staying in one place, forsaking His ultimate mission, and becoming a faith healer. This He clearly would not do. He came to heal, yes, but also to preach and, above all, to move to the cross.

We might say, then, that the healing ministry of Jesus, while important, brought with it certain dangers. Even so, Jesus is a healer. Jesus loves people. Jesus does feel compassion. So when the leper comes to Him and presents himself pitifully before Christ for healing, Jesus, moved by love and mercy, heals him. Yet, even as He did so, Jesus understandably felt indignation, not towards the man, but towards the devil who was forever trying to sidetrack him. Perhaps Jesus even felt some indignation toward the man if the man was likewise caught up in the healing frenzy that was forever following Jesus. If so, even that indignation was focused ultimately on the human capacity for missing the main point.

I agree with Michael card who wrote, “Jesus is not angry with the man. He is frustrated by a situation in which he feels trapped.”[8] He feels trapped because He wants to heal and bless, but He knows that His healing opens the door for misunderstanding, for a mob mentality, and for the temptation for Him to miss His true calling.

That this is likely what is happening can be seen in the instructions Jesus gives the leper in verses 43-44.

⁴³ And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, ⁴⁴ 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.”

“Say nothing to anyone.” Jesus is not wanting a repeat of what happened earlier. He cannot always set aside His mission simply to stay in one place, thereby abandoning His journey to the cross, in order to heal everybody.

The Leper: A challenging disobedience arising from uncontrollable joy.

Though charged to be silent, the leper is anything but.

⁴⁵ 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.

I would like to use the leper as a kind of good example, but, in doing so, I do not want to overlook that there were very serious consequences for his disobedience. I am not commending the lepers disobedience, for, as the second half of verse 45 tells us, the leper’s missionary activity resulted in an undesirable shift in Jesus’ ministry at that time: “Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.” There were, in other words, real reasons why Jesus told the leper to be silent. William Lane noted that the leper’s disobedience “serves to terminate the preaching tour of the Galilean villages.”[9]

Again, I do not wish to commend the leper’s disobedience, but I would like to walk a fine line here and point out that his disobedience was indeed a missionary disobedience resulting from uncontrollable joy. It is hard not to tell others when you have met the King of Kings! Should he have obeyed Jesus? Yes. But can we yet learn and be inspired by the poor man’s well-intentioned act of disobedience? I think so.

What does it say, friends, that the leper, upon being charged not to speak, cannot stop speaking but the Church, upon being charged to speak, cannot find the courage to do so? What does it say, that the leper ignores Christ’s command to silence because he feels he must speak but we ignore Christ’s command to speak because we feel we must be silent?

Is there not a challenge for us in the leper’s disobedience? Is it not to our shame? If we, like him, have been healed by the touch of Christ, and healed of a far greater disease than leprosy, should we not find it difficult to be silent?

Would that we in our obedience were half the missionaries that this man was in his disobedience! Would that we spoke as he spoke and showed the courage that he showed!

He did so because he had been touched by Jesus and, having been touched, his life was forever changed!

Have you been touched by the healing hand of Christ? Yes? Then tell it! Proclaim it! Announce it! The King who has authority to vanquish sin, death, and hell, has come, is here, and is coming again! Let us blow the trumpets for the King and His Kingdom come and coming! Let us, too, refuse to be silent!

 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Damien

[2] Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), p.103.

[3] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark. The Daily Study Bible. (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1971), p.37.

[4] Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall, eds. Mark. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Gen. Ed., Thomas C. Oden. New Testament, Vol. II (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p.25.

[5] Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall, eds., p.26.

[6] William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark. The New International Commentary of the New Testament. Gen. Ed., F.F. Bruce (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), p.87.

[7] James A. Brooks, Mark. The New American Commentary. Gen. Ed., David S. Dockery. Vol.23 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1991), p.55-56.

[8] Michael Card, Mark. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), p.41.

[9] William Lane, p.89.