Wash and Be Cleansed

2 kings 5: 1-14
Mark 1: 40-45

Who are you? The answer you give depends on what is important to you at this point in your life. The answer to the question changes with what takes up the largest part of our life at the moment it is asked. Perhaps you have just finished your degree and consider yourself a graduate. Perhaps you have just retired from your job and consider yourself permanently on vacation. Perhaps you just had a baby and consider yourself a mother or father. Or maybe you had a grandchild and your mind is on being a grandparent. We also define ourselves by the things that have been part of our lives the longest such as our careers, our family, and our hometown.

For the man in the book of Mark, when asked who he is, his answer would have been, “An outcast, a man with leprosy, a nobody.” Because of Jewish purity laws, a person with any kind of disease or infirmity was cast out of the town and out of the synagogue. They were no longer allowed to mix with those who were clean in case they contaminated them.

Logically, this makes perfect sense. If someone has a cold, we want them to stay away from us. I don’t want them sneezing or coughing by me because I don’t want their cold. If we know someone has something contagious or a disease or condition that could be dangerous to OUR well-being, our first instinct is to ostracize them. We do not want them in our presence so that we will not suffer as well.

Do you remember 25 years ago when HIV/AIDs became really well known? Remember how afraid everyone was of the disease? Anyone who contacted the disease was no longer welcome in their friends and families homes. They often lost their job if it became known they had it. Getting medical and health benefits while having such a disease was an uphill battle with very little luck of actually getting the help they needed. No one wanted to touch them, to sit by them, to breathe the same air as anyone with HIV or AIDs.

There are some people who still feel this way because they are not educated on how the disease is contracted and how it is spread. Thankfully, educating people became the number one defense in helping people with HIV/AIDs to get back the rights that were taken from them out of fear and ignorance. Unfortunately for those who lived 2000 years ago, they did not have the same chance.

Once you were pronounced unclean from whatever condition you had it was really hard to get accepted back into society. No one wanted that person near them because they did not want to be outcasts either. Once again, we see Jesus breaking all the rules of proper society to right a wrong.

The man with leprosy comes up to Jesus and falls to his knees. This man has no pride left. He has lost everything and pride is a poor substitute for clothing, food, and family. There he is on his knees before Jesus, breaking the rules by being in the presence of someone clean, and he begs Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

This man is not just asking for Jesus to heal him of his skin condition. He is asking Jesus for his life back - his family, his children, his friends. He is asking for the right to walk down the street and not have people shun him. He is asking for the right to be able to get a job and pay for a roof over his head and food for his belly. He is asking for the right to be an active and participating member of society, one who can once again walk into the synagogue and worship God without having people spit and hiss and run from him.

Different bibles translate the next line in various ways. This one says Jesus was indignant. Some say Jesus was angry, or it has been translated Jesus was moved with compassion or Jesus had mercy upon him. Compassion and mercy sound like Jesus, don’t they? But the idea of Jesus angry or indignant is much more interesting because of how human it sounds to our ears.

What was Jesus indignant or angry about? Was it this man who has broken the cleanliness law? Is it the question the man asks, as if Jesus would be unwilling? Is Jesus mad at the situation, the social injustice that is before him in the presence of a man ostracized from his community because of a skin condition? Is Jesus mad and indignant because even though he does have compassion upon the man, even though he is about to show him mercy, soon their roles will reverse.

What happens here is a reversal of fortunes. Jesus tells the man, “I am willing. Be clean!” but before he says these words he reaches out and TOUCHES the man. This was expressly forbidden. Jesus has now broken the purity laws by touching someone considered unclean. This makes Jesus unclean. But Jesus does more than that when he touches the man. Jesus offers himself, his presence and his comfort in the form of his hand upon the man. Who knows how long this man has gone untouched by everyone, even the other outcasts. No one but someone who has been relegated to the outside of their community would understand what this felt like to the man.

Here was Jesus, powerful and authoritative, looking the man in the eye, speaking with him as a human being and then touching him as an equal. This is the first sign of respect shown to the man with leprosy in what we can imagine was a long time. Respect. Jesus respects human beings and their feelings. God respects who we are and what we are.

Once the man is cleansed, Jesus tells the man to go to the priests so that they can declare him a part of society once more. Jesus tells the man to not tell anyone what he has done, but the man cannot remain silent. He has witnessed a miracle, one that has changed his life forever. There was no keeping silent on this! His joy knew no bounds and he became a messenger – one that spread Jesus’ goodness far and wide.

However, the result of his disobedience is that now Jesus has become the outcast. He could no longer enter a town openly, but had to stay in lonely places. Jesus gave the man his position and power in that one moment when he touched him, and Jesus took the man’s place as an outcast in society.

It gives me shivers to think about this. Jesus loves us all so much that he takes our place, takes our suffering as his own. Whatever is going on in our lives; the good, the bad, the ugly – Jesus walks it with us. Helps us through by shouldering the burdens for us. Sometimes we ask people, “if you could do it differently, knowing now what you didn’t know then, would you?” Jesus’ answer would be “No, I wouldn’t do it differently”. We all know it. Jesus would give up his place for us any time we ask.

The man said, “If you are willing..” Jesus, moved with compassion for the man’s situation, angered at the injustice perpetrated upon the man, indignant that the man even had to ask the question – gives his place to him without looking back. And if you think Jesus wouldn’t do the same exact thing for you, then you’re wrong.

Jesus proved that when he willingly went to the cross for you. He refused to defend himself, refused to call upon the angels or His Father in heaven for help. He allowed himself, one totally pure and clean from life’s sinfulness, to take our place, to take our punishment. Jesus loves you that much. Jesus respects the person you are that much.

Now, how much do you love and respect Jesus? Jesus swapped places with us. That means he took our punishment so that we could have his reward. We now stand at God’s side because that is where Jesus belongs. We now have God’s ear because Jesus does. We now have eternal life because Jesus does.

But do you act like you are always in God’s presence? I wonder what it will take to make us change our ways and see that God is not up in heaven waiting to judge us, but is by our side and helping us through each and every moment of our lives.

Amen.