Mark 1:40-45
A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said.
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed.
Then Jesus sent him on his way with a stern warning: “Don’t tell anyone about this. Instead, go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.”
But the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone what had happened. As a result, large crowds soon surrounded Jesus, and he couldn’t publicly enter a town anywhere. He had to stay out in the secluded places, but people from everywhere kept coming to him.
Leprosy was (and still is, in some parts of the world) the worst disease imaginable. It smelled. It disintegrated. It killed. And there was no known cure. Once you contracted it, you were put out from the community, and made to live isolated and alone, letting everyone know that you were “unclean,” and that people had to stay far away from you. Even your family members would have to make wide circles around you if they passed you on the road outside of town. You were alone and literally falling apart. Death had gripped you, and it wasn’t going to let you go. It was going to eat away at you piece by piece until it completely consumed you. And there was nothing that you or anybody could do about it.
I can’t help but notice the response to Jesus’ instruction that the leper has. After Jesus did the unthinkable and TOUCHED this untouchable leper, notice that Jesus is “stern” with the former leper, and “warns” him to keep this quiet! Jesus instructs this man to obey the Levitical law, and report his cleansing to the priest only. Jesus tells him that this quiet report “will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.”
In other words, Jesus tells the newly-healed leper to keep it quiet.
But look what he does. Instead of obeying Jesus’ command to him, he runs around telling anyone he can. He is so amazed, and so blessed that he can’t help but blab his new condition to anyone that will listen. His life has just been changed! He has been pulled back from the brink of death and restored physically and restored to his family by one simple touch of Jesus. This encounter with Jesus has left him so radically changed that despite Jesus’ stern warning, he can’t help but tell everyone about it! He can’t hold it in! It sort of reminds me of the prophet Jeremiah, who said:
Jeremiah 20:9
But if I say I’ll never mention the Lord, or speak in his name, his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!
This is the Good News, isn’t it? We were once DEAD ourselves, with sin consuming us completely.
Colossians 2:13-14
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
Because of this radical life change that we have experienced, Jesus gives us instructions, too. But they aren’t the same instructions as the leper received. Some of Jesus’ last words while here on earth were to commission us to be his ambassadors to the world:
Matthew 28:18-20
…go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
In other words, Jesus instructs us to tell everyone!
but like the leper, we disobey, don’t we? We keep our faith quiet and we hide it? Why is that?
Could it be that we haven’t experienced the radical life change that the leper experienced? Could it be that we either don’t understand, or don’t really care that Jesus has pulled us back from the grip of death to give us new life? Maybe we don’t understand or appreciate the full measure of what He has done for us?
Maybe we should stop living in disobedience. Maybe we should live in the command of Christ and make disciples. That is what we’re all about. That is what HE is all about. It starts with telling people about what HE has done. If a leper can do it, so can you.