Love in Action, Episode 1

Too desperate to care
In Matthew 8:1-4 we see Jesus ministering to the marginalized. He reached out to an outcast, one who was shunned. The leper himself was too desperate to care what others thought or said or did. He had no right to be around, no standing, and no worth. He came to Jesus (Mark 1:40-45) and worshipped Him (John 9:38). Leper comes from the Greek word lepros which means scaly. Commonly known as Hansen’s disease, it was the most feared disease in the ancient world. Lepers were outcast, shunned, avoided like the plague. What this man had was the horrible, disfiguring, debilitating disease which was extremely repulsive. It caused pain, numbness, sores, ulcers, foul odor. A person would gradually waste away. Lepers were believed to be under a curse. They were ostracized and quarantined. They were required to have unkempt hair and clothes, to cover the lower part of their face when near people, and cry out ‘unclean, unclean’ in order to keep the community from pollution by getting too close. Of all people in Israel they were the most shunned, the most ostracized. As long as they had the disease they had to stay outside the camp, away from others. They were excluded from all walled cities in Israel, and therefore absolutely kept out of the holy city and its temple of worship. Lepers were the classic outsiders. Lepers were the living dead, dead men walking. Can you imagine the scene? People moving quickly away from him, running, sneering, jeering, maybe throwing rocks to keep him at a distance? But he came boldly, with confidence in Jesus. He knelt before Jesus, the same word used for worship. He came humbly. He said to Jesus, “if you are willing you can make me clean”. His words express some doubt, but not the kind you’d think, He did not doubt that Jesus could heal him; he doubted whether Jesus would want to. He did not doubt Jesus’ power; he doubted His will – why would He want to heal me? Being rejected by everyone else, his insecurity revealed how worthless he felt. Jesus revealed to him how much he was worth to Him.

Willing to Touch the Unclean
Jesus was love in action. He didn’t run from the leper. If you touched a leper you would become ceremonially unclean (Lev. 15:7), but here the leper is healed when Jesus touched him and becomes clean rather than Jesus becoming unclean. Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him. Jesus responded with compassion to the request, sympathetic to the man’s plight, He acted by His own sovereign will; so inappropriate to the establishment, so right in God’s sight. Compassion not revulsion. In Palestine at the time of Jesus as soon as leprosy was diagnosed, the person was absolutely and completely banished from human society. The law identified 61 different contacts that could defile a person; contact with a leper was 2nd worst only to touching a dead person. If a leper put his head in a home, the home became unclean. You had to stay 18” away from a leper. If downwind you had to be 150 feet away. It was illegal to greet a leper in public. Rabbis kept 6 feet away at all times. But Jesus touched the leper. To a Jew there might not have been a more shocking or revolting scene than Jesus stretching out His hand and touching him. Jesus, on the authority of God, did what no one else was willing or able to do. His life-altering, world-changing, paradigm-smashing truth in action. He touched someone no one else would touch; someone who was ostracized, shunned, avoided; an outcast. His healing power flowed to that man and he was restored to health. What a testimony of the power of God. Jesus came to set the prisoners free, to restore sight to the blind, to make the lame walk, to bring the good news that those who were formerly outcast can be lepers no more. Praise Jesus.

A leper no More
The good outcome God brought about was that the leper was a leper no more. He said to him, “I will, be clean”. Immediately his leprosy was cleansed (Luke 4:27). He who was cursed was now cured. He was once as good as dead; now alive. Once ostracized; shunned, avoided, now accepted. Jesus met him at his point of need. He gave life to the as good as dead. The average time a leper would live after contracting the disease was 9 years; the body was affected, then the mind would go, then they’d go into a coma and ultimately death. To the rabbis the cure of a leper was a difficult as raising a person from the dead. The supernatural cleansing of lepers was expected as one of the signs that the Messiah had come (Matt. 11:3-4). Healing a leper was thought to be the equivalent of raising someone from the dead. He would be able to rejoin society (Lev. 14:1-32). Jesus gave him his life back. Jesus restored him to fellowship with God and man.

There are lessons for us here.

Just like the leper, we need to be desperate enough for Jesus not to care what others think. Our need for God must overcome our fear of man. God wants us to approach Him boldly – come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Heb. 4:16. It affects our devotion to God, home life, friendships, work, and ministry. Do you ever feel like that leper? Are you ever unsure if Jesus wants to do for you what He has said He will do? If you believe that Jesus the only way to be saved and your only hope, then take Him at His word and come to Him, you who are weary and heavy-laden with sin. Come boldly to God in Christ, to His throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. I want to be like the leper who worshipped at the feet of Jesus. Too desperate for Him to care what other's think.

Just as Jesus was willing to touch the unclean, we need to be willing to do what others won’t. Be willing to reach the unclean; the hidden, shunned, rejects, the banished. No one should be excluded from experiencing and hearing of God’s love in Christ. Jesus touched & healed a person no one would come near. Consistent with His other actions while on earth. Jesus lived to please God not man. It is easy to get caught in the web of respectability; thinking no sensible person would reach out to them. Everyone understands why you just don’t go there. But God incarnate did things respectable people never would. We must do likewise if we would walk in His steps. Frederick Dale Bruner said, the church that takes Jesus seriously will not only teach and seek to put into practice Jesus’ great commands; it will also regularly pray and care for the sick. We may be misunderstood due to compassion.

Above all, Just as Jesus met the leper at His point of need, it is about Jesus meeting us at our point of need. Jesus gives life to the dead. It is about us being lepers no more spiritually speaking, no longer excluded from fellowship with God or man. Jesus IS willing to meet you where you are at. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit (Ps. 34:18). He will not leave you to fend for yourself. Jesus gave life to the as good as dead. He still does (Eph. 2:1). In Christ we who were dead in sin are alive. We are alive in Christ, accepted in the Beloved. What did Jesus do for us? Heb. 13:12-16 Jesus went outside the camp for us. Jesus allowed Himself to be an outcast for us, allowed Himself to be shunned to set us free, so that we could be called His friends. He took our revolting sin condition upon Himself so that we might be restored to fellowship with God; changed and reintroduced into society as salt and light; a pure influence for good. What Jesus did that day was a sign of Christ’s love over this fallen, broken world; a foretaste of the ultimate healing and restoration and renewal that shall be brought about one day in heaven for all who believe.