Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. [b] When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.
14 Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."
15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Dig Deeper
My wife is truly one of the most amazing people that I have ever known in my entire life. She works as a registered nurse in an ICU unit and I’m always amazed at what she sees and experiences on a regular basis at work. A few weeks ago she came home a little bit sad because she had a patient who had decided to have his tubes pulled which likely meant certain death for him. The patient was a quadriplegic and had basically decided that he no longer wanted to struggle through his medical care and he was, in essence, giving up. This saddened my wife because she truly cared about his welfare and had put a lot of effort into caring for him. The day before this was to happen he had someone come in and write down a note for my wife in which he thanked her for caring him. He noted that he felt like she was the first person in a long time that had actually paid attention to him and really took care of him. She had made him feel special and, in reality, feel human and alive for the first time in a long, long time. It was small little acts of love and humanity from my wife that so deeply affected him. In fact, in large part due to the hope that she had restored to his life, he later decided not to have his care pulled and fight on. He is currently doing well and will continue to live.
It is simply amazing when we think of how important it can be to treat someone in a humanizing and caring way, and how equally devastating it can be to treat someone in a dehumanizing manner. The simple touch of another human being, for instance, can have huge effects on a person. Studies among orphans in the 1970’s have shown that babies who were taken care of in every other way but were almost never touched and were never held, had many problems, including stunted growth and serious ongoing social and mental issues throughout their life. Some researchers even suggest that a baby who is cared for by being fed but who is never touched by a human will die within weeks. On the other hand, recent research has shown that premature babies who are simply gently rubbed on their head and their back will grow and heal much faster than babies who are not touched in that manner. I don’t know why human interaction and touch are so important and vital but I know that they are, and it seems apparent that God made humans that way. We cannot be fully human if we are treated inhumanly by others. We were made to live in community. We have a vital need to be accepted and treated like human beings by others.
The biblical word for “leprosy” could cover a variety of diseases but it was a much feared prognosis in the ancient world. Leprosy was considered to be highly contagious and thus, dangerous to the society around them. Because of this they were routinely ostracized and were not accepted in normal society, often being herded into leper’s colonies. What was even worse, in many respects, was that lepers during these times were considered unclean by the Jewish people. This meant that they were eternally unable to take part in any religious ceremony or ever go to the Temple. Even to appear in public was not really acceptable and those who had leprosy were expected to yell “unclean, unclean” to anyone that they were approaching so that those healthy people could avoid them. The harsh reality was that this man with leprosy that Luke describes in this account had likely been cut off from human contact for years and had probably not been touched by another human being for a long, long time.
As Jesus continued going through different towns he came along a man that Luke tells us was covered in leprosy. This was no doubt intended by Luke to let us know that this man was not just suffering from leprosy but had been suffering from it for a long time and was deep in the throes of the disease which also meant that he it was visibly obvious to others that he was leprous. This man had surely suffered some of the most severe effects of being socially ostracized that were possible at the time. At every turn this man would have been cast aside and dehumanized. Just coming into a social center enough so that he could come into contact with Jesus on any level would have taken either a great deal of courage or a great deal of desperation. But despite the disapproval of the culture around him and even the danger of making such a move, this man risked being rejected soundly by Jesus and made his way to him. Once there, the man threw himself at Jesus feet and took the position of submission and humility to beg Jesus for mercy.
It is quite interesting to note that when this man appealed to Jesus he absolutely had no question about Jesus’ ability to heal him and make him clean. The question was not if Jesus had the authority or power for this man believes already. Surely that is what Luke wants us to notice. It is equally significant that this man does not even appeal to Jesus to unleash the power of God. He apparently knew enough of Jesus to believe that Jesus possessed within himself the type of authority and power to alter the natural laws of the universe without having to appeal directly to the Father. Again, it is very unlikely that this man understood in any way the full divinity and theological significance of Christ, but certainly he understood that something was special about this man.
Jesus demonstrated that this man’s faith in his power was not misplaced. But Jesus did far more than just heal this man of his leprosy. He first “reached out his hand and touched the man.” This would have been technically against the law and would have, in theory, made Jesus unclean himself. But Jesus knew that love and mercy are often more important than religion and rules (this is the point of passages like Hos. 6:6). Jesus did something that no one had likely done in a long, long time. He touched this man. He humanized him. He took notice of him and treated him like a special human being. We may not have the healing ability that Jesus had but we can certainly all follow his example of loving the unlovable and bringing a much-needed touch of humanity to those who have been treated inhumanly. Jesus certainly had the incredible power of the Holy Spirit at his disposal to heal the sick, but just as importantly, he had the life-giving power of the love of God. He reached out with his heart in a way that others simply would not have.
But Jesus’ care and concern for this man went even beyond the initial touch. It went even beyond the fact that the minute Jesus touched him the leprosy left his body and he was made completely whole. Jesus’ concern for this man is also demonstrated in his command to the man to go show himself to the priest and offer the proper sacrifices. Leviticus 13 and 14 had laid out the lawful way for someone with leprosy to be handled but it also described how someone would be restored to the community in the event that they were healed of the disease. For someone who had been cut off from society and completely ostracized, simply making a claim of healing wouldn’t accomplish much in the way of restoring someone’s place in the community. In fact, a claim of healing would likely have been met with distrust and even persecution. So, the priests would serve as the ones who would verify that someone had been healed and along with the proper sacrifices, they could then restore them to their place within the community life. Jesus didn’t just give the man a moment of human concern and love and heal him. Jesus wanted to restore this man’s life. He wanted to make him whole. This is another reminder that the miracles that Jesus performed pointed to a spiritual depth and reality beyond just the physical impact of the miracle itself. They were designed to teach about the kingdom of God. Jesus wants to not just heal the broken lives of individuals but also to restore and create healed communities within the tent of obedience to the way of life of the kingdom of God.
The fact that Jesus was quite willing to have this man checked out according the customs and standards of the society so that the miracle could be verified and that the man could be accepted back into the society is quite instructive for many religious groups today. It is easy to turn the TV on these days and see “faith healers” all over the place. What is interesting about these so-called healers is that they are quite often hesitant to have their miracles verified. They claim that requests for evidence of verification of these miracles is a demonstration of a lack of faith but Jesus had no such hesitation. He wanted this man to go and have the priests examine him and be able to testify to his healing and allow him to be admitted back into the full life of the community.
Again Luke tells us that Jesus wanted to keep what was going on quiet to some extent but he doesn’t give us the precise reasons for Jesus’ hesitancy. He may have wanted the man to wait until the priests could verify his healing, he may have wanted to keep things as quiet as possible so that deadly opposition would not heat up until he could fulfill his vocation of preaching the coming of the kingdom of God to all the regions of Israel, or he may have had other reasons. What we do know is that despite his requests to keep things quiet, word about Jesus got out. Jesus did not seek fame or big crowds. He was merely trying to do God’s will, but the crowds came nonetheless.
But what allowed Jesus to deal with the constant crush of those in need and those seeking to hear Jesus, to see him, or to be healed by him? As a buffer and an explanation to that question Luke inserts a brief scene between this latest miracle and the one that he will turn to in the next passage. It was nothing more than the simple art of quiet prayer that allowed Jesus to meet the incredible demands that would be increasingly made of him throughout his life. He withdrew for time alone with God. It should really cause us pause to think of how often we try to face things on our own strength without truly going to God repeatedly in urgent prayer. If Jesus found it necessary why don’t we?
Devotional Thought
What do you need to most learn from Jesus through this passage? Do you need to take time to reach out and touch someone and make them feel noticed and humanized again? Or are you more challenged by his constant commitment to prayer? Which area is the Spirit challenging you to address in your own life today? Or is it both?
No comments:
Post a Comment