Jesus and a Leper

Part 1

29^th September 2012

Matthew 8v2-4
A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.
Then Jesus said to him, "See that you don't tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."

In Greek, the man isn't described as "a man with leprosy"; he's described as "a leper". I suppose political correctness hadn't taken much of a hold back then. What must it have been like to be "a leper" in the Middle East 200 years ago? A leper was a social outcast. No-one wanted to risk catching the disease. And God had included regulations about the treatment of lepers and leprosy in the books of the Law. For example:

Leviticus 13:45-46
The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' 46 As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp.

and:

Numbers 5:2a
Command the Israelites to send away from the camp anyone who has an infectious skin disease

According to God's law, leprosy made a person unclean. And if anyone else touched someone unclean, they too became unclean:

Leviticus 5:2-3
Or if a person touches anything ceremonially unclean - whether the carcasses of unclean wild animals or of unclean livestock or of unclean creatures that move along the ground - even though he is unaware of it, he has become unclean and is guilty. Or if he touches human uncleanness - anything that would make him unclean - even though he is unaware of it, when he learns of it he will be guilty.

And if any other person even touched something touched by an unclean person, then they too became unclean:

Numbers 19:22
Anything that an unclean person touches becomes unclean, and anyone who touches it becomes unclean till evening."

What would it do to a person to know that no-one could ever touch them, or even touch anything they'd touched? Can you imagine the isolation? Can you imagine how lonely that person would feel? Possibly disfigured by their illness, possibly disabled by it, with the danger of infecting others, kept apart from the community, lepers could never experience the touch of any healthy person. Can you imagine what it must be like to have to cry out "unclean, unclean" as you walk along?

A leper in that culture was the ultimate outsider. As such, the leper stands for every one of us who feels excluded by society, or by church, or by our family or those we'd like to consider our friends. A leper represents for us the lonely, and the sick, and the damaged ones. He stands for those of us that others look down on, or that see themselves as unclean and unworthy. Many of us have felt the pain of rejection, often because of something that happened that wasn't our fault. Many of us have felt - or been made to feel - that our face doesn't fit, that we're not welcome. The church is here to welcome everybody who wants to seek God and worship Jesus with us, regardless of class, colour, wealth, education or background. Or, at least, it should be.

The leper wouldn't have heard the sermon on the mount; if he'd tried to go, the crowds would have driven him away. But he may have heard some stories about Jesus's baptism and the miracles he'd performed, the people he'd healed, and he must have known that Jesus was his only chance of getting the healing he needed to life a normal life.

He came to Jesus and knelt before him. The word translated "knelt" here is proskyneo, and it's usually translated as "worshipped". Surely that's how it should be translated here, too. The leper had come to Jesus because he knew that Jesus had power to heal. In all probability, the leper recognised Jesus as the Messiah, sent from God. This has been the cry of the church for 2000 years: "Come to Jesus and worship Him - He alone can heal your ills".

No matter how much we feel like outsiders, we can come to Jesus, and he will receive us.

Jesus Himself was an outsider, conceived by an unmarried woman, born in an occupied country, at one time a refugee in Egypt. He was persecuted by the religious leaders, abandoned by many of His followers, and executed. And they crucified Him outside the city. Jesus understands what its like to be rejected. And he promises:

John 6v37b
whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

To be continued...