2 Kings 5.1-14

The Healing of Naaman

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favour with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. ²Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ ⁴So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. ⁵And the king of Aram said, ‘Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. ⁶He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.’⁷When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’ ⁸ But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’ ⁹So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.’ ¹¹But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! ¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage. ¹³But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?’So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

1 Corinthians 9.24-27

24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. ²⁵Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. ²⁶So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; ²⁷but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. 

Mark 1.40-45

Jesus Cleanses a Leper

⁴⁰ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ ⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ ⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.⁴³After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, ⁴⁴saying 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.’ ⁴⁵But 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.

My text this morning is written in Mark 1.41:

⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ 

In Jesus's day, leprosy was a dreaded disease because there was no known cure for it. Some strains were highly contagious. This had been the case for hundreds of years as we were reminded in our Old Testament reading this morning. The best way for us to understand what leprosy meant for the people of that day is to compare it with AIDS in our time. Drastic measures were required to monitor leprosy because every precaution was needed to ensure that the disease never spread. The priests banished the infectious cases to beyond the city boundaries, in order to avoid its spread. They also remitted lepers whose disease was in remission. So great was the dread of this disease that Jewish law required all sufferers to call out 'unclean' so that passers-by could give them a wide berth. Lepers had no way of earning a living and so were totally dependent upon charity. The psychological effects of this disease were as serious as the physical. The people felt defiled, dirty and constantly ashamed, even though it was not their fault.

People can feel excluded for many reasons. In our Old Testament reading we come across a young servant girl who had been captured in wartime and taken captive into Syria. Naaman, her master alienated himself from others by considering himself to be better than others. He was so filled with pride, that he almost robbed himself of God’s blessings as a result. The Assyrian king too completely misunderstood the way to find God’s blessing; he thought that he could order things and they would just happen as he wanted them to happen – thinking that the things of God could be bought. But notice the example of a young, in the eyes of the world at the time, seemingly unimportant, yet remaining faithful to God in the ordinariness of the daily life. And she was the source of great blessing to the people at the time, and still us today, as we are reminded of her example.

In our Gospel reading, the man who approached Jesus was suffering from an advanced case of leprosy. In Luke’s account the man is described as being 'covered with leprosy'. He had more than likely lost a great deal of bodily tissue. Leprosy destroyed nerve endings and so people unknowingly damaged fingers, toes and noses. But still, he believed that Jesus could heal every trace of the disease. Morris writes: ‘He had no doubt about Jesus' ability to heal, but he was not sure whether He was willing.’ And so the man said to Jesus: ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’

Notice what Jesus did for this most despised and rejected of people. Verse 41 records: ‘Jesus touched him ...’ Jesus must have been the first normal non-diseased person to have touched the man in years. Barclay writes:

That is what Jesus did and does ... it is the very essence of Christianity to touch the untouchable, to love the unloveable, to forgive the unforgivable. Jesus did and so must we.

Quite often we consider people who are diseased or handicapped to be repulsive and untouchable. We need to touch them with the love of Christ. Often we also feel repulsive about ourselves. We too need to know the comfort of the touch of Christ's love.

Verse 41 continues: ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’

Notice how the leper did something in order to receive Christ's touch. He took himself to Jesus, probably ringing a bell and shouting "unclean, unclean" and facing the revile of the people. He did what he needed to do to come to the Lord, receive his touch and be made whole once more. How often do we deny ourselves God's blessing because we do not take the opportunities available to us to come to Christ with our needs. How often do we find excuses for not coming to church, for not attending bible studies, prayer meetings and other channels whereby God administers his love and grace to people. If we too want to be cleansed and made whole we need to take every opportunity to come to our Lord to receive his grace.

Jesus was not yet ready to have his true identity revealed because he knew the people would not understand and so, like the demons and others earlier in his ministry, he told the healed man not to tell anybody about what had happened. Jesus also told the man to go through the prescribed procedure of being declared healthy by the priest. Here too, we learn and important truth. Jesus still heals people today. But he also uses others to assist in the healing process, people like doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. We need to trust God to use whatever means He chooses to make us well. We also need to go through the correct procedures to get confirmation that we are well. You might remember the case in America. It was televised in dramatised form. A diabetic child's parents believed that he had been miraculously healed. They stopped his insulin doses and the child died. The Christian who believes that God has healed them needs to get a doctor to confirm that this has happened before doing anything irresponsible - or else only they can be blamed for further suffering - not the doctors, and especially not God.

But who could remain silent? How many of us are able to contain good news? When something like this happens we want to tell the whole world about it. And now we should - because our Lord has been revealed and is risen and we take every opportunity to give all the glory to Him.

The following are a few closing thoughts to meditate on from this passage:

Notice the man's request - it was not to be healed - it was to be made clean. It is important to note that leprosy also symbolised sinfulness in Jewish culture because Isaiah the prophet had made the link in 1:4-6:

Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the holy one of Israel, who are utterly estranged! Why do you seek further beatings? Why do you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the soul of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they have not been drained or bound up, or softened with oil.

Leprosy made a person isolated, not only from other people, but also from worship. Some even went so far as to suggest that leprosy was a sign of divine judgement for the person's disobedience[1] and so they were outlawed from worship because they were believed to be cut off from fellowship with God.[2] Yet Jesus was prepared to touch him - an action that automatically meant that Jesus made himself unclean.[3] Over Easter we remember yet another time when Jesus was willing to become unclean for the sake of those whom he loved - when he took upon himself the sin of the world and was cast from the Father's presence. The leper had his priorities right - he wanted to be restored to God, he wanted to be cleansed so that he could enter God's presence in the temple and synagogue. Do we always have our priorities right or do we come to our Lord with selfish motives? Is our relationship with God and our growth in that relationship the most important thing in our lives - or do we worship other Gods because other things are often more important to us.

We often rob ourselves of blessing upon blessing because we do not come to our Lord; we do not avail ourselves of his grace, especially as we neglect our quiet time with him in silent, private prayer. We need to follow the example of the young servant girl and the man with leprosy and take every opportunity we can find to come to meet with our Lord and when we do we know that he will be ...

⁴¹... moved with pity, Jesus will stretch our his hand and touch us and say to us too: ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’

Amen.