Mark 1:40-45: 40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 44 saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 45 But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

For the last three weeks now our schedule of readings has rushed us from scene to scene in these early sections of Mark's gospel, coming face to face with Jesus as healer. His, remember, is a ministry to the whole person. His is a wholly ministry. Jesus takes the body seriously.

Today in our story, healing is “cleansing.” The leper does not ask Jesus to “heal” him. He asks Jesus to “clean” him. This connection between healing and cleaning goes back to the Old Testament.

Disease, for the ancient Hebrews, was a dirty word, in more ways than one. Disease damned one, actually, socially and religiously. In the Old Testament, disease was often understood as a sign of God's disfavor. There is, in Old Testament thought, a strong theme of what is called divine retribution theory; that is, God blesses the righteous and curses the unrighteous. Disease was a sign of God's curse.

More important for our story today, disease was a dirty word because it made one ritually unclean. One had to be “clean” in order to be in a right relationship with God and God's people. Both sin and sickness made one unclean and so unable to be right with God.

Much of Israelite religion was centered on cleanliness: getting clean and staying clean. The Old Testament laws made it clear that Yahweh, the God of Israel, demanded ritual purity. In the book of Leviticus, part of the Law of Moses, we read “You shall not defile yourselves . . . For I am the Lord your God; be holy, for I am holy.” This meant that one had to stay away from certain foods, certain behaviors, and other things that make one unclean, including those people who, for one reason or another, were themselves “unclean.” Good news, by the way for those of us thinning on top. In the lists of the Holiness Code we find in Leviticus 13:40: “If anyone loses the hair from his head, he is bald but he is clean.”

This was not the case, however for lepers. Lepers were “unclean.” If one had a skin disorder, that person was brought to the priest, examined, and declared unclean if the diagnosis deemed it leprous. Lepers were made to live outside the community, wear torn clothes, leave their hair disheveled and cry out “unclean, unclean” to any who passed their way. Leprosy was very contagious. Contamination was a big concern. But what we need to appreciate is that the contamination threat was spiritual as well as physical.

No “good” Jew of Jesus' day would ever approach a leper. That would be “against the law” of Moses and risk physical and spiritual contamination. But that is what Jesus did. He approached the leper and, horror of horrors, touched the man! Jesus, at that moment, for the sake of the leper became unclean. Why?

“Moved with pity” our story goes, “Jesus stretched out his hand.” “Pity” is hardly a good rendering for the original Greek. It's about “guts, bowels” the spilling of the intestines, the organs, and as the ancients understood it, the seat of our deepest emotions, the seat of love and compassion. Jesus was, if you will, “gutted” by the sight of the leper. Jesus broke the law for the sake of love of the neighbor. Jesus did not see the leper through the lens of the Law of Moses, but the lens of love.

“If you choose, you can make me clean,” says the leper. Jesus replies, “I choose. Be made clean.” The word “choose” here is the same as “will”; “If you will, you can . . .” Jesus replies, “I will it. Be clean.” The clear witness of Christian Scripture is that God wills healing. “I will it. Be clean,” Jesus says to the leper. And yet, you and I know that this is not always the case today. How often have you and I, much like today's leper, gone begging and kneeling to Jesus that he might heal, a sister with cancer, a close friend with Lou Gerig's Disease, a former colleague dying from AIDS, yet, with no cure.

It is much later in Mark's story, chapter 15, when we find Jesus falling down in prayer to the Father in Gethsemane, before his arrest and crucifixion, “For you all things are possible, remove this cup of suffering, yet not what I choose, but what you choose.” It's the same word, “to will.” In other words, “God, if you will, take away the cross.” Jesus' prayer is met with silence and Jesus hangs. But not before Jesus cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”

God wills to heal. Yet, God does not always do so. How do we live with this? I'm not always sure. But, we take our cue from the Son of God. We ask for healing believing that all things are possible with God. And, in the absence of healing we do not slip into quiet resignation, but storm the gates of heaven in faithful grief, protest, and questioning: “My God, my God, why?” And we find in the process that God is big enough to take it, and often our faith becomes richer and more honest because of it.

Sometimes I stop praying for a cure and ask for healing: as the body fades and weakens with no cure in sight, healing comes as broken relationships are mended, families reunite, and faith is reborn or deepened.

I don't know the answer to this question. But this I know by faith: Jesus, stretched out his arms on a cross and died, and at that moment became unclean for the sake of the world. Why? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son,” reads John 3:16. And, so like the healed leper, I cannot, we cannot but spread the word even if told not to. AMEN

-Rev. Dr. Philip Johnson

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