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02/16/2003 Entry: "Sunday devotional (Mark 1: 40-45)"
(A few thoughts on Mark 1: 40-45)
Jesus is met by a leper who kneels down and says, "If you want to, you can make me clean." Most Bibles have that Jesus "was moved with pity", but in some manuscripts there is an interesting alternative reading. They read, "Jesus was moved with anger", which seems like a very strange choice. Pity makes sense. Here is a man with a terrible illness; of course Jesus feels pity for him. But anger? How could that fit?
One answer is that Jesus was angry at being made to be "up close and personal" with an unclean leper. I mention this possibility only to discount it - there is no evidence anywhere else that Jesus was angered by inconvenience, so let's set that one aside.
Another possibility is that Jesus was stirred to anger by the question, "If you want to...""If I want to! Of course I want to!"If this is the case what we're seeing is a very human reaction from Jesus. He is irritated because he has been misunderstood. Whilst this seems unlikely, it does prompt the thought that it is always true that Jesus is more ready to offer his gift of salvation than we are to receive it. The leper at least had the excuse that the ministry of Jesus was only just beginning. We who have known him longer have no such excuses. Whatever the history may be, when the unclean kneel before Jesus they always find restoration and peace.
More likely is that Jesus was angry at the exclusion of the man. As a leper, the law demanded that he be kept at a distance. He has no place in his society. For the pollution of his body, he is reviled and rejected. If this is so, Jesus' anger is not directed at the leper, but at those who have cast him aside. The leper's broken, disfigured body still bears the image of his Creator, an image which requires a respose from those who share it. Whenever we put respectability and purity before compassion and mercy we risk the anger of Christ.
But though his first rection might have been anger, his action is compassionate. Jesus reaches out and touches the man. Even in his uncleanness, Jesus is prepared to touch him. With that touch, the man is moved from exclusion to inclusion, even before the curing of his disease he is healed in every respect that really matters. Jesus could, of course, have healed with a word. But the man needed a touch, real physical contact. He needed to know that he was accepted and acceptable.
Millions like that leper still live among us. The task of Jesus' followers is now and always to take his healing touch into the world:
In the streets of every cityWhere the bruised and lonely dwell,Let us show the Saviour's pity,Let us of his mercy tell.In all lands and with all racesLet us serve and seek to bringAll the world to render praises,Christ to thee, Redeemer, King. Hugh Sherlock
