West Valley Presbyterian Church: Emmaus, PA

Something is very wrong here. 

Just the setting of this scene - it’s all wrong. 

 

v12- While Jesus was IN one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy.  

Jesus is in the city.  He’s in the one place where a leper was not to be.  That this scene even happened - it’s all wrong.  

 

Actually, in that society, it was a nasty, dirty, unclean kind of wrong.  Mothers would have huddled their children.  Passerbys would have diverted their course.  

This was all wrong according to the Law.

 

Leviticus 13.45 - The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out - UNCLEAN!  UNCLEAN!  He is unclean.  He shall live alone.  His dwelling shall be outside the camp. 

 

Total quarantine was the only response to the gross uncleanliness that had assaulted this human being in a very sad and  broken world.

 

It would have been a scene of legalized ostracism. Maybe it was cruel ostracism because of sinful hearts.  This leper was breaking the law at the risk of the health of others. It didn’t have to be cruel though, it was just a commanded ostracism and quarantine because of contagion.  

 

Josephus, the first century historian, wrote that they were treated as “dead men”.  Like the UNTOUCHABLES in the hindu caste system. Perhaps worse than the mandated announcement of UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN - leprosy was often visible - legions on one’s skin...  

 

Consider this man. Luke, the physician, says in v.12- he was full of leprosy.  So, beyond his torn clothes, ratty hair, and self-depracating mumbling of UNCLEAN - this man likely had open skin legions.  He was full of leprosy. 

 

I. FULL of defilement.  

 

Now, what do you think his self-assessment was?  

The assessment of the law - full of uncleanliness.  

The assessment of the people - get away from me.  

The assessment of Luke - full of leprosy.  

What was this man’s self-assessment, do you think? 

 

Do you think that he would try and argue that he really wasn’t that defiled?  He really wasn’t that unsociable.  He really wasn’t that gross.  Could he have any of those thoughts left after years of isolation?  

 

I would guess not.  Look at his actions.  He was full of desperation!  There is no defense here.  He doesn’t long for a different law - for a different declaration (I just don’t want to have to say unclean anymore) or for different living conditions.  No, he casts off all restraint, runs through town, and to Jesus he confesses what?  His full defilement.  

 

Lord, if you will, you can make me CLEAN.  

 

He didn’t ask to be healed.  To be respected.  To be less embarrassed.  To not hurt so much.  To be restored to his family/community.  He asked to be made clean.  He knew his root problem.

 

See that for him to even try to go into the city, to even try to get to Jesus - his desperation had risen to a HEIGHT, a FULLNESS that matched his reality.  He was full of leprosy!

 

There is a direct correlation.  Full defilement leads to fullness desperation.

 

This is a real story, but isn’t it quite clearly like a living parable of our lives?  Because don’t we know that full desperation before God, about anything, will not come unless we are full of need.  

 

So... Phil Ryken - Leprosy is an ugly but accurate illustration of our spiritual condition..  Our depravity is a disfiguring disease. 

 

Whether you would call yourself a Christian or not, have ever read this story or not, have a clue why you’re here today or not - let me ask all of us: For what reason(s) could you/I this morning have walked through those doors rightfully shouting - UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN?   I am not talking about a scandalous societally labelled scarlet letter on your chest.  I am talking about an honest awareness of self. 

 

-Some of you know what I am talking about, because your present life is UNCLEAN!  UNCLEAN! in a way no one knows but you.  The things you are saying, thinking, doing this past week, maybe planned for next week - UNCLEAN!  

-Some of you carry around a defiled past, always afraid that the mud from your past is still sticking to your shoes and will dirty your present.  Your past is UNCLEAN.  Lies.  Betrayal.  Unfaithfulness.  Wounding others.  Covering it all up.  Sexual sin.  Alcohol.  Abortion.  Drugs.  Addictions.  Hypocrisy.  UNCLEAN!

-Some of you have been the victim of gross sin in his world.  Taken advantage of.  Hurt.  Touched, raped.  Because of that for which you have been an object of... you have felt, and continue to feel and can’t imagine not feeling ... UNCLEAN!   

 

Seriously, for what reason(s) could you this morning have come through those doors rightfully shouting - UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN?  Most days you forget about it... you’re a practiced suppressionist.  But have you dealt with it? Because you won’t unless you feel it - like this man felt his fullness of defilement.  Because fullness of defilement leads to fullness of desperation.

__________

 

Now I did that pretty quickly, didn’t I.  Long jumped from this text about a man with real, physical disease called leprosy to a mucky spiritual communal acknowledgement that we are desperately unclean like lepers.  Can I do that with this text?!  

 

Yes [it’s just not the only thing we are to observe from this text].  

 

Leprosy is recorded in God’s Law as a societally effecting condition that must be dealt with carefully in a broken world.  An entire chapter of the Law is devoted to it leprosy - Leviticus 14. 

 

Now, take that and understand that most things in the history or environment or ceremonial life of Israel mirrored (revealed) internal realities among the hearts of God’s people... that’s how God showed them themselves.  Leprosy not withstanding.

 

So, generations after the law was written, how did God reveal the desperate problem of sin in the lives of his people?!  He said - You’re unclean like spiritual lepers.  You walk around the camp, you live in your cities, you carrying about your lives - and yet your condition is one of desperate defilement.  You are like unclean outcast lepers to me.  

 

Isaiah 1... Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity... They are utterly estranged.  From the sole of the foot to the head... bruises and sores and raw wounds - not pressed, not bound up, not softened with oil.  

 

Through Isaiah, God said to his people, you are like unattended spiritual lepers, and its advancing grossly and you don’t even know it.  Because you are all stricken with it at the same time!

 

So its not such a grand leap for us to think about how maybe we ought to have walked through those doors yelling UNCLEAN!  UNCLEAN!  We just don’t feel it or see or call it what it is because we are all in the same culture, stricken with the same strand... hardly feeling the fullness of our defilement, and therefore having such little desire for change.

 

But THIS is NOT a story of little desire... 

II. Fullness of desire.  The leper was full of desire to be clean.  But this text is mostly about the desire of Jesus. 

 

There Jesus stood with this begging leper at his feet.  Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.  Do you hear that?  You could, if you would. 

 

That is so backward from our cultural views on God.  My god would do this or that... or he’s not my god.  And this man flipped things right-side up.  Jesus, you could, if you would.  He TOTALLY submits himself to the desire of Jesus!  For all of his desire to even be there in the middle of that city - his desires mattered nothing as regarded his cleanness.  

 

This is the gospel!  Would that we get this! It’s the desire of God in Christ, not our own that brings change and cleansing and life. 

Ephesians 1.11 -our redemption and all things in this world have been secured, because they were predestined according to the desires of whom?  Him who works all things according to the counsel of his desires!

 

So this leper came to Jesus, fueled by his own desires only to abandon them that he might submit himself to the authoritative desire of Jesus!  His desires could do nothing for which he really longed.  So he said:

 

Jesus, if you desire - make me clean.

 

And Jesus TOUCHED him. 

 

Jesus desired what no one else in that city dreamed of doing.  To connect with and touch that disgusting man.  

 

I desire [I will], be healed.  

 

In an instant the fullness of his leprosy left him.  In that collision of desperate desire and authoritative desire - something happened that had never before occurred.

 

Ryken - Ordinarily when something touches something unclean, it becomes unclean as well.  But here, for the first time in history, things ran the other direction.  The cleanliness of Jesus healed the unclean leper.

 

Man!  The desire of God to move into this broken world with the goodness of his gospel in the person of his Son - for the healing of the nations, for the restoration of broken people, for the reconciliation of the disengaged, for changing of a city, for the forgiveness of sinners ... do you see this!!! It’s like a river of purity flowing upstream.  

 

What things in your would say that there is no chance for cleansing, no chance for healing, no chance for relief, no chance for change UNLESS there is some river of hope that begins to flow upstream.  So impossible does it seem in our world.  But look at the gospel, look at Jesus.  That’s what this is.

_____

 

Well, it wasn’t a done deal yet.  Jesus told the man to tell no one.  

 

WHY - why silence this man who had such overwhelming desires?  Doesn’t seem very nice!  I think the main reason is in the text.  The leper’s excitement and apparent change would not bring him the fullness of change for which he longed.  By Law, he had to go to the priest - a sort of public health inspector.

 

And so Jesus sent him down the proper path of (what I would call) III. full disclosure.

 

[Interesting to note: following this story, a series of conflicts will arise between Jesus and the Pharisees. But what do we see here?  Jesus honors the Law, he didn’t come to abolish it but to fulfill it.]

 

Now, what did full disclosure look like before a priest?

Leviticus 14.  It was a week long process.  The cleansed leper calls for the priest, who shall go out of the camp to take a look.  If the case of leprous disease is clear - the leper would bring 2 birds - sacrifice one, dip the other in its blood and set it free.  Death and life. Just like the lepers story.  The healed leper would be sprinkled 7 times by the same blood. Then on the 8th day, a sacrifice for sin would be made and then, restoration to God’s people, to family, to the city... because the priest now could speak for his purity.  

 

See - then there could be full disclosure to all regarding what he had been - to what he was!  It would be proof for all, the text says.  It was an experience of full disclosure that could withstand full societal scrutiny - which meant this man could again be fully human.  Yep, this man once was a leper.  Yep, he once was nasty.  But now he is not.  We cannot treat him as such, so says the Lord.

 

Does that terrify you, or excite you... the thought of the grossness, uncleanness, defilement of a person having to be fully disclosed to his community before he could celebrate life in that community?  It’s one thing in the case of physical leprosy, but what of our condition of spiritual leprosy?

 

Do you ever have this thought: I don’t want anyone to know who I once used to be.  What I once used to do.  What I did last week.  Who I am when I am not here.  I would rather generically, costlessly shout UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! and so be alone and unknown than tell anyone what I have really suffered and who I really am... even if I could be set free from my old self in the process.

 

See, full disclosure of sin and all of its disgusting, disfiguring effect on our lives - we don’t want that!  It’s too high a price to pay for our healing, for our being set free, for our being accepted as we are in a community of grace/truth.  We prefer to keep ourselves hidden, thank you very much.  No full disclosure for me.

 

Do you know what the gospel is?

The gospel is that Jesus stood in our place before God and before man, and he experienced the full disclosure of our sin which had been placed on him.  It was not his sin that he had to disclose!  It was not his uncleanness.  It was not his grossness.  It was our spiritual leprosy placed upon him.  He had to fully disclose THAT to his Father, who in his holiness but out of mercy for us totally forsook his Son due to our nastiness.  

 

The Father forsook him where?  At his point of death, on a cross, outside of the camp, in torn clothes, because he was unclean!  unclean!  unclean!  

 

Jesus touched this leper and healed him.  Just he would touch us with cleansing forgiveness.  But it cost him!  Because of who and what he then became...  

Full disclosure about Jesus our beautiful Savior:

He became full of all of your and my gross, unmentionable defilement.  

He became the one full of desperation (take this cup from me Lord... but not my desires, your desires)

He became the one quarantined to die an isolated death outside the camp.

 

Why?

Because he loves you and knows you and your desperate need.  

Because he loved this leper (Mark 1.42) and he knew him and his desperate need.  

Because he made it such that even in this life, right now, today, our full disclosure before God of how gross and unclean we really are ... he made it so it has already happened.  Death in isolation due to uncleanness has already happened outside the city.  That we might be clean, and acceptable, and sociable, and alive within the city.

 

Such that those who rest on Jesus, who pray - just like this leper - if you desire it Jesus, you can make me clean - those who have done such - do NOT come through those doors shouting (or even thinking) UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN!  But in our brokenness we celebrate our only hope - which is Christ, by whom we are CLEAN.  CLEAN before God.  CLEAN and unafraid of disclosure before men.  CLEAN.  Is that you?  

 

If you are not a Christian... Or if you have been generally unchurched and haven’t looked at Jesus in some time... If you have bought the sad thought that the church is just a place where people rehearse this condemning mantra: You’re guilty and unclean, change! You’re guilty and unclean, change!  No - that is not it.   

 

The gospel we celebrate is the truth that you’re not.  Though by our actions every one of us could walk through those doors shouting, stand back I am unclean.  The gospel is that by Jesus’ death for our sin’s disclosure before God, and his righteousness conquering that death by resurrection... we are declared CLEAN by God.  That is heaven’s disclosure!  

 

Do you come this morning believing that - I am clean, clean, clean.  

If so, let me ask: now, to whom are you moving toward in this world?  If the river of life in our world is flowing this way toward pain and misery and uncleanness and hopelessness... are you flowing that way?  With news of cleansing in Jesus for those outside the camp, the lepers, the needy, the untouched, the unheard, the misunderstood, the alone... If your are CLEAN in Christ, do not settle for moving toward other cleansed lepers as if that was the point.  

 

I wonder how this guy viewed lepers from this day forward... did he run from the unclean (as was culturally acceptable), or was something changed, such that he now moved toward them, free enough to fully disclose who he had once been,  and unafraid because of how clean he had now been made.  See, that’s the test.  Amen.