Thoughts - Mark 1:40-45

"Moved with pity, He stretched out His hand and touched him and said to him, 'I will; be clean.'"
- Mark 1:41

I've been remiss in this lately, and that's not going to be fixed in any great way here. I read this passage last night, though, and thought it worth sharing.

Mark is the earliest of the four gospels, and it starts off in a much simpler way than the others. Luke begins with a formal introduction, as befits the research project his gospel was. Matthew, written to the Jews, starts off with Jesus' ancestry, in that culture His bona fides. John has my favorite introduction, a mystical and philosophical description of all that the incarnation meant, borne of a special nearness to Christ and long years of reflection afterward.

In contrast, Mark just starts. It's all very brief - what takes Luke 3 chapters, Mark gives 11 verses. The general impression is of a whirlwind of activity - about the only individual He has time to talk to one-on-one is a demon-possessed man, and that's mainly to tell the demon to shut up.

In verse 40, however, that changes, and what made, and makes, Jesus different came to the fore. In that verse, the activity stopped. A leper came to Jesus, "imploring Him, and kneeling," (v. 40), with a faith and insight greater than many of his contemporaries, and yet with a humble request for healing.

Jesus could have ignored the man. He could have just spoken a word. But, as He looked at this poor man, He saw a deeper hurt than just his body. Leprosy was both physically destructive and highly contagious, which meant that those who had it lived in a perpetual quarantine. The leper lived as an outcast, human in theory but barred from any participation. You can imagine the hurts and longings within the man, far deeper than the physical disease. Not imagining that there could be any cure for that while his disease persisted, he sought out the One who could at least heal his body.

Jesus, however wasn't satisfied to just go half-way. He wanted to show the man that he was loved as he was, in his "unloveable" state. So, what did He do? He gently, but deliberately, reached out His hand, and touched the man. At that touch, dried skin crinkled and flaked off, and the man cringed from the pressure on his diseased flesh. But in that moment, his physical brokenness was replaced with spiritual wholeness, the overwhelming love of God flowing into his soul and washing away the years of hurt and loneliness. Then, only then, was Jesus ready to address his body.

If Calvary shows the love of God in power, this scene, to me, shows it in stillness. The savior of the world, God Incarnate, for a brief moment gave the most outcast of humanity His attention and acceptance, for no other reason than that He loved the man. To the crowd, it probably made little impression, but to that man, it meant everything.

In this is the essence of the Incarnation. Christ didn't choose to redeem us in a sterile environment, He didn't try to play things safe. Instead, He became a man so He could be right here in our gutter with us, to show us His love on a level we could understand and respond to. He made sure we knew that He saw the filth and squalor of our sin, and loved us anyway. Then, and only then, was He ready to pronounce the words, "I will; be clean," and save us. O that we might know the power of His touch, not just as God, but as man!