Jesus, Eager to Get on the Mission Field, Heals Leper

Take Every Passage to Prayer - Volume 2, The Gospels
^{Thursday June 20, 2024}

Matthew 4:23-25, 8:1-4, Mark 1:39-45, Luke 4:44, 5:12-16

Father, I do not want to take Your Word out of context or to misinterpret the meaning of text. However, something does strike me from this passage. If people merely touched Jesus, they were healed. What does that look like today? Where can I go to touch Jesus since He is not walking the earth today? Father, I believe the answer is prayer. If I come before Jesus in heartfelt prayer, with faith, I will be blessed in some significant way. Perhaps He will give me insight or understanding. Perhaps He will give me direction. Perhaps He will answer my prayer in a way that I might not clearly see right away. Perhaps He will comfort me, give me peace, or give me joy. Maybe He will answer my prayer miraculously. However, Jesus will touch me in some fashion. Help me to touch Jesus every day of my life. Father, Jesus Christ is my Lord. He does own me. Help me to be humble and submissive to Him. Help me to live my life understanding Jesus has His own plans for me and that often those plans will not agree with mine. Help me to surrender my will for the far better things He has planned for me. Help me to believe that Jesus has cleansed me of all of my uncleanliness. Father, help me to be a man who does not fear the “leper”. Help me to be a man who is not afraid of people’s messy lives. Help me to be a man whose heart is driven to save, comfort, and heal those whom society rejects. Amen.

Father, Jesus, who has a heart for missions, and the disciples packed only the basics that they needed and traveled throughout Galilee (Acts 1:7-9). What did they do?

1. Preached in the synagogues.
2. Drove out demons.
3. Proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom.
4. Healed every disease and sickness among the people, including those with severe pain, seizures, and paralysis.

Word of the miracles Jesus performed traveled throughout Syria, down to Judea, to the lands across the Jordan River, and down to the Decapolis. Large crowds stopped what they were doing in life to find Jesus and follow Him.

Jesus, and His newly trained core of disciples, went back down the mountain to a flat area where the crowds from Matthew 12:15-21 and Mark 3:7-12 had gathered. Jesus healed people of their diseases and demon possession. In fact, Jesus’ body was emanating so much power that if people simply touched Him, they were healed. Therefore, people were scrambling to touch Jesus.

One of the people who came to Jesus was a leper. Lepers were outcasts from society because of the belief that their illness was contagious. This man was not just suffering from physical symptoms, but he also most likely felt profound loneliness and estrangement from people.

“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. (NIV),” said the man as he knelt before Jesus.

This man had incredible faith.

1. He called Jesus, “Lord”. This was the Greek word ??????, which refers to surrender to a superior, such as a servant would say to a master. It is the word for “ownership”, that Jesus owns the man’s life. It is also a title given to the Son of God, the Messiah. This man believed Jesus was the Son of God and he was humble and submissive before Him, as evident in his posture.
2. He said, “if you are willing.” This reminds me of Mark 14:36 and Luke 22:42 when Jesus asks You if the cup, the suffering, and death He was destined to experience, could pass from Him. In other words, Jesus was asking if there was a Plan B that didn’t require so much suffering. However, He said “not My will, but Your will.” Jesus is saying that He will humbly submit to whatever Your will was for Him. Similarly, this man is stating the same thing. If Jesus healed him, great. If Jesus doesn’t heal him, that was great too. He was confident that whatever Jesus would decide it would be alright with him. Father, who among us in the 21st century has that kind of faith?
3. He said, “you can make me clean.” The leper did not put any limitations on Jesus’ power and authority. There was no uncertainty about Jesus’ ability to heal him. He had complete confidence that Jesus could do whatever Jesus felt was appropriate to do – thoroughly and completely.

The text tells us that Jesus was willing to heal the man. I could attribute Jesus’ willingness to heal this man to his faith in Jesus. However, that leads to the false belief that we will get anything we want in prayer, including a new wardrobe or an Aston Martin, as long as we have faith. There have been many people of great faith throughout history who did not have their prayers answered as they had hoped. I am sure Dietrich Bonhoeffer prayed to be freed from the Flossenbürg concentration camp. However, he was executed at that camp on April 9, 1945. Paul asked three times to have the thorn removed but his prayer request was denied (2 Corinthians 8-9).

Jesus was willing to heal the man because the man’s healing served some purpose in Your sovereign plan. Had Jesus declined to heal the man, that too would have served some purpose in Your sovereign plan. Every prayer is answered in accordance with Your sovereign plan. However, Jeremiah 29:11 assures us that whatever is Your response to our prayer, it is for our good, it is for a future purpose, and it is meant to give us hope.

Jesus touched this unclean man, and the man was immediately healed. Jesus had no fear of catching a contagious disease. Ministering to the needs of this man took precedence over self-preservation. The act of healing a man of leprosy is an act of cleaning, washing away the invading bacteria and the unclean wounds on the body. This is symbolic of the spiritual cleansing we receive from Jesus. He washes away the sin, and the resulting wounds, that has corrupted our souls. Jesus is willing that everyone would be cleansed of the disease of sin by coming to Him and asking Him to heal their souls.

Jesus instructed the man to:

1. Not tell anyone he was healed. Once more evangelical students of the gospel bump into this seemingly contradictory command by Jesus. He has come to share the good news that He, the Son of God, offers forgiveness of sins. It would seem the miraculous healing of this man provides additional evidence that Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. However, He instructs the man to remain silent. Why? I believe the answer to this can be found in the difference between an idealistic response to the healing and a realistic response. Ideally, the man would laser focus the telling of the story of his healing on the forgiveness of sins that can be received through this same Jesus. The people would then come to Jesus, not for healing, but for forgiveness of their sin. Realistically, the man would laser focus on his physical healing, ignoring the message of forgiveness. His healing would inspire people to come to Jesus not for the forgiveness of their sin, and the obtainment of eternal life, but for the healing of troubles in this life. I believe Jesus instructed this man to remain silent knowing, realistically, that the people he was going to tell wouldn’t get the true meaning of the man’s healing.
   
2. Go to the priest and fulfill the law’s requirements for cleaning (Leviticus 13). Jesus has not come to eliminate the law but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17). He had not yet died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for sin. Therefore, the Old Testament sacrificial system was still applicable at the time of this healing. The text tells us that Jesus intended the man’s healing to be a “testimony to them (NIV).” Sending the man to the priest with the news of the healing was more than fulfilling the letter of the law. It also had something to do with a message Jesus was sending to the priests. The testimony of the healed man was most likely evangelistic from Jesus’ perspective, with Jesus’ wanting the priests to come to faith in Him.

The man must have been ecstatic. Not only was he healed of the disease, but he was also healed of the social stigma. Eager to be accepted by a society that has rejected him, eager to be embraced by friends and family who had kept their distance from him, the man wanted to tell everyone he was no longer a leper.

The man disobeyed Jesus, perhaps more concerned with his standing with friends and family than with any implications of his actions on Jesus’ ministry. The man’s reaction may explain why Mark described Jesus’ response as “indignant” in Mark 1:41. The man not only disobeyed Jesus but he made ministry more difficult for Jesus. Jesus became imprisoned by His celebrity, having to avoid population centers where He would be accosted by “groupies”, so to speak, who merely wanted to have the “selfie” moment with Jesus. Jesus kept Himself to remote and isolated places outside of towns so that He could fellowship with You. However, people from all over the region who were desperate for healing still found Jesus. Amen.