From Leprosy to Life
I. The Grim Discovery.
He knew something was wrong...very wrong. But he
hoped that if he waited long enough, it might go
away. But it didn’t. In fact, it got worse. Soon,
others started to notice that the man was beginning
to be pale and sick looking; and soon he realized that he would have to take a journey to a far away city where he was to receive instruction on what he should do. And so, the next morning he left for the city and took that long and tiring journey. After several days, he reached the city and made his way to a room where he had never been before, inorder to speak to someone he did not know. When he finally got there, he entered the room, and he waited.
After what seemed to feel like several hours, the door opened and a person with a uniform entered. The man stood up and said to the stranger, "It’s here", and he rolled up his sleeve and revealed an open, runny sore. He said, "It’s here", and he slipped his collar to the side, exposing another open sore. "It’s here", he said, as he removed his shoe, where the priest was able to see yet another infectious sore at the top of his foot. And with that, the priest jumped back with a wild look in his eyes and said to the man, "I declair unto you that you are unclean. Now hear the words of the law. "A Leper must wear torn clothes, and his hair must be unkepted, and everywhere he goes, he must cover his mouth with his hand and shout- out, ’unclean, unclean’." May God have mercy on your soul!" And at once, the door slammed shut and the priest was gone.
The man’s worse nightmare had just come true. As he slowly picked himself up, he stood there in that dark room for several minutes in a state of shock. Then, with determination, he started ripping his favorite robe that his wife made for him. Then he bent down and gathered the dust from the floor in his hands and rubbed it all over his face and hair until he looked like nothing more than a wild-man. And when he stepped outside and squented at the brightness of the light, he slowly covered his mouth with his hand and choked out the dreaded words, "UNCLEAN...I’M UNCLEAN!!!" And for the first time in his life, people shreeked when the saw him. A mother in the street quickly grabbed her children and said, "Don’t touch that man! Stay away from him!" And a vender of vegtables on the street corner threw something at him and shouted, "GET OUT OF HERE!"
Quickly the leper made his way outside the city into the open countryside and started for home. But he knew that the worst was yet to come, because when he gets home to his children, he must not touch them! Later, when his wife saw him coming from a distance, she and thelr children ran to their father with joy and excitment, only to hear the man growl at them and say, "KEEP AWAY FROM ME! I AM NO LONGER YOUR FATHER! I AM A LEPER!"
The wife fell to the ground, in shock, and the confused children turned to their mother and cried, "WHY? WHY?" Then, with a broken heart, the Leper turned and walked away. And as he was leaving, he looked over his shoulder for the last time, and saw his wife and three children huddled tightly together, weeping and sobbing uncontrollably. That final memory would be etched in his mind forever.
A memorial service will be held for him in his village by the local Rabbi. His wife will be free to remarry, but he knows that she will not. And everyday the Leper spends apart from his family, all alone, he asks himself, "What is to become of my children?"
II. A Leper meets Jesus.
Mark 1:40-42
A man with Leprosy came to Jesus and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean". Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing", he said. "Be clean!".
Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
We can not read this passage and understand it’s real meaning unless we hear a story like the one just now, because everyone who became a leper, had to leave family and friends behind. Every leper was a father or mother, a sister or brother, a son or daughter. We do not know who this man was from this story in the Bible, but we can know that he was somebody’s son. Perhaps he was someone’s husband, or father, or someone’s best friend. Because of the nature of this infectious disease, lives were lost, relationships were severed, and families were destroyed.
III. His Leprosy is alot like my sin.
Now listen very closely, in the Bible, leprosy is closely related to sin. Notice these similarities:
1. Both were incurable.
People still get leprosy today, even in the United States, where 6,500 in the U.S. have the disease. Worldwide, there are 2 million who have it today. The same is true with sin. Everyone has it. No one is immune. Likewise, your good deeds will not make your sin go away any more than taking a bath will make leprosy disappear. Isaiah 64:6 says, "All of us have become like one who is unclean..."
2. Both have a numbing affect on its victim.
Once a person shows signs of having leprosy, the areas of their body affected by the disease are completely numb because the disease destroys both tissue and nerve-endings. In the same way, sin also has a numbing affect on a person’s conscience. What was once considered evil by an individual becomes normal, and soon the person becomes completely unaware of the horrible effects sin has on their life. This explains why many have become desinsitized to evil and "although they know God’s righteous decree, that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do those very things, but also approve of those who practice them." Romans 1:32
3. Both leprosy and sin destroy lives.
In the Bible days, and even today in third-world countries, people with the dreaded disease become disfigured, almost beyond recognition. If you were to ever see someone with advanced stages of leprosy, you would be horrified by the sickening sight. Sin also does that to people. It destroys them physically, emotionally and spiritually. All you have to do is see someone in advanced stages of sin and you will see all forms of corruption, wickedness, lust, hate, and selfishness. It is also a sickening sight, because sin also has the ability to disfigure the victim’s life beyond recognition. "For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23.
4. Both leprosy and sin cause seperation.
People with leprosy as recently as the 19th century were forced to leave their families and loved ones and live out the remainder of their lives in loneliness and isolation. In Jewish law, a leper was not allowed to enter a walled city. It was also illeagle to greet a leper, even out in the open country. If a leper did enter a city or village, people often threw stones at them to get them to leave. They were shunned and despised. In much the same way, sin causes loneliness and isolation. Today, sin is responsible for the destruction of marriages, families, friendships, individual lives and society as a whole. It is a disease we must learn to reject, without rejecting the person who suffers from it.
5. Both leprosy and sin have a new name.
Today, leprosy is called, "Hansen’s Disease" in an attempt to eliminate the stigma associated with this word. In the same way, we have renamed sin. For example, if a person cheats on their spouse and commits adultry, it is called an "indiscretion". Unless, of course they continue to commit adultry with the same person. In this case, we say, "They are having an affair". Perhaps one reason for the moral decay in our society is due to people failing to call sin what it is--SIN! Today, homosexuality is called, "another life-style". Today, people don’t lie, they merely exaggerate or "stretch the truth". Pornography is now called "Adult Entertainment", greed is now viewed as ambition, lust is "love and affection", and profanity is "salty language". The U.S. offically changed the term "leprosy" to "Hanson’s Disease" or "HD" in an attempt to avoid public shame or even panic. That’s OK. However, when we call sin by another name inorder to avoid the stigma, we begin to promote evil and allow it to grow and live among us.
"For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23
IV. The Leper is alot like me.
1. The leper in our Bible story found himself living in a body of death.
There wasn’t anything he could do to cure himself. Things were just going to get worse, and over time, he was going to become more and more disfigured and disabled, until finally he died of an infection or some other complication caused by the disease. In the same way, because of sin, we too live in a body of death, going from bad to worse. There is nothing we can do to cure ourselves. Eventually, we too will die and be seperated from God and love forever. "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" Romans 7:24
2. Jesus is the only answer.
In Mark 1:40, that leper came to Jesus on his knees begging him because he
knew that the only thing that stood between him and a new life of health and vitality was Jesus. The same is true today. Even though the wages of sin is death, the Bible says that, "the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord", Romans 6:23. When Jesus heard the leper say, "If you are willing, you can make me clean", Jesus had compassion on him and reached out his hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing, be clean."
3. Jesus is still willing.
If we will humble ourselves and, like the leper, come to Jesus on our knees, begging him to make us clean and save us from the disease called sin, Jesus promises that he will also have compassion on us. It does not matter what you have done. For the Bible promises, "That if you confess with your mouth, ’Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9. There’s good news. Today we have a cure for leprosy. It requires taking a specific kind of antibiotics for six months to two years. And there’s more good news, the disease of sin also has a cure. The only cure is to have Christ in you, but not just for six months to two years, but for the rest of your life.
The truth is, we have alot in common with that man who had leprosy. We both need a touch from Jesus in order to go... from leprosy to life.
Jesus is willing...are you?
Personal note: I was inspired by this sermon when it was preached in the Fall of 1982 by Dr. Terry Bell in Abilene, Texas, at the Hillcrest Church of Christ.
