Struggling with Compassion

40?And a leper?came to him, imploring him, and?kneeling said to him,?“If you will, you can make me clean.”41?Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him,?“I will; be clean.”?42?And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.?43?And?Jesus?sternly charged him and sent him away at once,?44?and said to him,?“See that you say nothing to anyone, but go,?show yourself to the priest and?offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded,?for a proof to them.”?45?But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter?a town, but was out in?desolate places, and?people were coming to him from every quarter. (Mark 1:40-45 ESV) I want to examine two things this morning: first, I want to look at this passage in light of the leper; secondly, I want to look at this passage in light of Jesus. The reason I want to do this is because there is one thing that people hardly ever mention: in desolation there are people. If you don’t understand what I’m getting at, then it is okay, we’ll get there. Let’s read this passage again from the perspective of the leper.

1. The leper came…I want you to know that lepers don’t come around. They really don’t. Not in the first century and not in the 21st century. A leper in the first century, if you’ve heard the term prior is just a generic skin disease. While the Bible doesn’t specify what exactly it was medically—we know for certain that there was a definable amount of pain and social stigmatism associated with it. Here’s what I’m getting at. If this leper came to Jesus, it meant he was intentionally looking for help—there was the rock and the hard place and those places were enviable from where he was, it was something that he would have liked. The reason this is interesting is twofold:
2. First and most importantly, the leper took a risk in coming. He went out into society knowing full well the consequences of what would happen if he were to found out.
3. In the 21st century, we have social “lepers” that face serious consequences if they let out what was going on with them. But to go out and face it, that’s brave.
4. Secondly, lepers have a hard time being out and about because they are so ailed and sick that they just can’t do it. It hurts. It isn’t pleasant.
5. The leper implored… To implore is to beg. He was begging Jesus to heal him. He wanted it desperately. This is important because there are so many people out there in our life that are begging God for help. Guess what, you’re there and listening but it doesn’t seem like anybody is hearing and in the meanwhile, the leper is suffering.
6. I want to ask you, how many people do you know, are begging God for change, but you’re just sitting there ignoring the begging. It’s like a dog that’s begging for food and ignoring it. Eventually that dog is going fade away and die when you’re looking for it. Morbid illustration but true.
7. The leper knelt…I just want to point this out because I think some people beg, but in the Greek, they have a way of describing things in double positives and double negatives, just to make sure you know that what they did was actually, and quite literally an incredible act of begging. Mark said the leper was humbly begging like there is any other way to really beg.

The leper knew that Jesus could, but only if Jesus wanted. Look at the way the leper phrases his question, “If you will…” not “if you can…” The leper knew that Jesus had a choice. Just like the leper had a choice to come and seek Jesus and risk everything. He knew that Jesus had the choice to heal him. It is amazing when people come to church despite their struggling to find God and beg Him to do something. Here’s the amazing piece—The Bible says that we are the body of Christ. Its not you are Jesus. It is that we are the body of Jesus. We do as the head of the body thinks to do. Unfortunately, sometimes, I think we lose focus on what the head is thinking the body should be doing. I mean, have you ever experienced a time when you are driving and in your head you know you’re supposed to go right, but you go left? Or you go to lift something up and you put it down? Or maybe you don’t’ suffer from old man syndrome and really the problem is that you try to grab or keep hold and in your mind you know you should, but you just drop the ball… I think there are a lot of lepers in our lives—people who are shut out from society that are living in the fringes but are braving the world to come reach out to us, begging us to introduce them to the God who can clean them. Unfortunately, Christ’s body isn’t working right and/or picking up the signals from the head. Now let’s look at this passage from the perspective of Jesus. Jesus was moved with compassion…Jesus stretched and touched… I think this is a very valuable lesson we cannot miss. Jesus’ compassion caused him to do something that was paradoxical in Mosaic Law. Compassion is good. That’s fine. But look at what he did. He TOUCHED the unclean. In the first century, touching a leper would cause you to be socially ostracized. It put you in the same category as them by LAW. Why would Jesus, who is holy and pure suffer the impurity of a leper by touching him? More interestingly, if Jesus touched the unclean to heal the leper, what does that really mean to be unclean? I think some of us value cleanliness more than the lives of lepers around us. Jesus was not afraid to touch. His mindset was, “unclean” means nothing. We don’t want to mess up the categories and the things in our lives by reaching out to somebody who needs it. This is not the mind of Jesus. It’s very clear that the mind of Jesus was reaching to the unclean because only God could clean and without touching the leper, there was no hope… at all. The beginning and end of all change is acting in compassion like Jesus did. He is the head of the body, we all have a part to play in His body. Jesus gave more instructions… For Jesus, it wasn’t enough for him to heal the leper. The leper was instructed to show his neighbors that there was more that’s happened to Him than a miracle. This could not be an off day or a fluke. It had to be a demonstration. That was Jesus’ instruction to the leper—to go commune with God. I want to know whether or not we are communing with God like Jesus instructed. We were all lepers at some point or another in our lives. But some of us are still walking around and living our faith lives as if we’re still lepers. On the outskirts of everything. We need to stop that. We need to be where Jesus instructs and that is before God’s throne communing with Him and showing ourselves before the high priest, who is Jesus. Don’t miss it. If we don’t this, then none of the healing and none of the miracles and changes in our lives mean anything. It’s all worthless. We need to be out there communing with God. We need to bring the lepers in our lives, through our compassion for them—through Jesus’ compassion on them—to communion with God. We have this awesome platform and incredible social lives with large networks of people who happen to be lepers next door. I know they befriended you, why haven’t you willingly reached them? I want to conclude here. Jesus embraced people in desolation… This is really important. Mark says that Jesus couldn’t go anywhere without being noticed. So even when he went nowhere, there was Jesus being compassionate. It was this compassion that brought people to God. It was this compassion in desolation that allowed him to feed the five thousand. It was this compassion in desolation that changes people where they are. Guess what, we’re in that desolation and need to be willing to be compassionate about bringing people to Jesus. I started talking about last week. But seriously, we have the opportunity to be willing to be compassion for people who are on the outskirts looking in. We need to be the body of Christ and reach the very people begging for the knowledge of God. That is why we are here in this desolation. Let’s pray.