Mark 1:40-45

So tomorrow I am teaching Sunday school and I am going to post my lesson. Its a small parable that I somehow stumbled on when thinking and praying about what to teach on tomorrow and this is what I got.

The story is of a man with leprosy being healed. It's 5 verses and yet the meaning of it today and what was revealed to me is so much more.

First what is leprosy? yes I know its a skin disease with many emotional and social problems along with it. So I broke it down into physical and emotional/social.
Physical: A lepor may lose sense of touch, develope skin lesions, ulcers, it can cause eye damage and facial disfiguration. It mainly effects the hands, feet, face and knees.
So this wasn't a disease that could be hidden or denied. If you had it, everyone could see it and it wasn't something pretty. It was something that made people cringe because of how discusting it was. Because of the disgust of the disease and the fear there were many emotional/social problems associated with leprosy.
Emotional/Social- The individual would be an outcast. They would be rejected by everyone, friends and family. They were isolated away from anyone that didnt have leprosy. They most likely had a low self-esteem. No one could touch them without being deemed unclean themselves therefore they weren't touched. They had lost all human interaction with those without the disease.

So let me get this straight. This poor person was living with this disease that they didnt bring on themselves. Induring the physical pain and ugliness of the disease and what did we as a human race do, we told them they werent worthy to be around us. They werent worthy of touch or even interaction. They were deemed unclean and those that interacted with them were unclean as well. All of this out of what. . . fear?

And I thought about our sin. Christians hide their sin, thats what we do. We dont broadcast it and some of us even judge those that do show their sin. Sometimes we even shun, reject or outcast those that display their sin.
I tried to think of sin in our world that Christians shun . . . homosexuality, transvestites, prostitutes or excorts, exotic dancers, adultors, child molesters, those that view child pornography or pornography. Then there are those with actual diseases that are shunned HIV, aids, STDS (or STIs whatever they want to call them now) and the list goes on. We cringed when we run into someone in one of these sins. We keep our distance, I mean we don't want to catch it right. Like homosexuality is contagious.

But when did we decide to put a value on sin. How is sin that is shown and displayed different in Gods eyes than my sin I hide? A sin is a sin no matter what human value we put on it. Sin seperates me from God, done deal . . no matter the "value" of that sin. Hmm . . .

Now I do realize and know that when being around others sin, I have to guard myself. Of course. When a doctor is healing an HIV patient they dont walk away from them because of fear of catching it but rather puts on gloves to guard or protect themselves. The same way, we should be guarded and protected but I dont believe we should stay away.

In this healing the leper saw Jesus as His rescue and Jesus has compasion on him. Jesus didnt run away, or hide, or shun him but rather responded out of emotion for him. Jesus broke the social norms by touching him, by just being around him. Can you imagine the boundaries we would cross if Christians responded to the those listed above with compassion, rather than jugdement. If we reached out to them as Jesus did. I bet some views on Christians would be reversed.
Jesus' touch alone had the power to heal. The man reached out to Jesus out of desperation but Jesus reached out, when no one else would, out of compasion. And with that touch healed not only the phyical but the emotional and spiritual as well.

I think we sometimes forget that we are all unworthy of his touch, of his healing. We are all unclean and need his touch. Like the leper who reached out to Jesus believing that there was no hope for him, no cure, others believe that too. They live their life in sin because they don't believe that their is hope for them. They are too far gone. They are too deep in. They don't think their is a cure. As Christians we are to be the hands and feet of Christ and that means showing them that he is the cure and using our own healing as a testimony. It goes for our sin as well. Some of us are in a sin we can't seem to escape, we are too addicted to it. But Jesus is the cure.

The healing ends with the man not following Christ's instructions and according to vs. 25 caused Jesus to not to be able to enter the cities and therefore might of hindered some of His ministry. But I can't stop thinking about how happy this man was. He wanted people to know that he was healed. He probably wanted to shout it from the rooftops. He now was part of society again able to talk to people, interact with people, touch others. Things we take for granted, he could now go to worship or have lunch with his family. He could hold a new born baby and the list goes on. He was a new man both inside and out.
The only reason I could think that Jesus didnt want him to tell is because he didnt want to be bumbarded with those seeking physical healing. I dont know why Jesus said this (knowing that the man was going to go tell everyone anyway). Maybe he did it out of humility. He told him to show the priest because this was part of the time. To return to society he had to have the blessing of the priest. And it never says whether the man showed the priest or not. Oh well, we may never know.

I told you . . . 5 small verses said so much to me. Leprosy is not that big of a deal anymore because of modern medicine and even then its not something we see in America. But we do have lepors in our lives. We have people that are shunned for their sin. I think I have a new view on those I shun for their sin. I do say shun but in many ways its "judge" them for these sins.

Well I dont know how to end this so I am ending it with . . . Thats all folks! Please comment I would love to hear any insight you have on these small 5 verses.