Jesus Heals Many

As soon as Jesus speaks the Word, the leprosy left Him and He was cleansed. Don't miss the significance of the power of the Word of Jesus. Just as He would raise Lazarus from the dead, the means by which He raises him is by His Word, by His command. Lazarus come forth, just as God brought the world into existence by the sound of His voice, by the divine imperative, so Christ exercises that same divine imperative on this disease. We can struggle to imagine what it must have been like to live with leprosy in Jesus' day, and then to dramatically be cleansed by Jesus. But whatever that experience would have been like, it pales in comparison to the sinner, you and me, being declared just before a holy God. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind, where each week we feature the preaching ministry of R.C.

Sproul. We're spending several weeks in Mark's Gospel, looking at several moments in Jesus' healing ministry. But before we turn to this account of the leper who was cleansed, I do want to remind you of two things. Please subscribe and turn on notifications for the new Renewing Your Mind YouTube channel, so that messages like today's can reach more people. And also, if you'd like to study the gospel of Mark line by line until midnight, you can request Dr. Sproul's hardcover expositional commentary when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org in support of taking mind-renewing truth to the nations.

Well, here's Dr. Sproul in Mark chapter 1. Mark tells us that immediately after Jesus left the synagogue in Capernaum, He went with Andrew and Peter and James and John to the home of Peter, which was clearly close by to the synagogue. Last week I mentioned the excavations of the synagogue in Capernaum and how that in the fourth century, this magnificent limestone edifice was built upon the foundation of the first century synagogue, which was obviously the one in which Jesus preached and where He exercised the demon possessed man. Well, later excavations have discovered a building very close to that same synagogue, and dating back to the latter part of the first century and into the second century, there is all kind of sacred and religious graffiti written on the walls of this structure that was uncovered. It was a home but was unusually built in that the doors opened into a large area where people could gather, and historians and archaeologists are certain from their excavations that this home served as a church in early Christian times.

And again, with almost complete certainty, the verdict of the historians is that this excavated building was the very home of Peter. But in any case, we are told that evening after the sun had set that they brought to him this massive multitude of those who were sick and those who were demon possessed. And we're told that the whole city, now this is hyperbole of course, but it means a huge throng of people came to the door of the home of Peter and Andrew, and that Jesus healed many who were sick with various diseases, cast out many demons, and did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him. And so just Mark mentions in passing that after this event of the healing in the home of Saint Peter, after the sun had set and darkness came upon Capernaum, this huge multitude of people were brought to Jesus. Those who were sick, those who were possessed by demons, and obviously He spent some time ministering to them into the late hours of the evening. Then Mark tells us that in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, Jesus went out, departed to a solitary place, and there He prayed. So that our Lord labored long the previous day, nevertheless awakened quite early in the morning, well before sunrise, so that He could distance Himself from this pressing mob of people and go to a place of solitude to refresh Himself by prayer. Three times Mark tells us of the prayers of Jesus.

Now obviously Jesus prayed more often than three times during His earthly ministry, but Mark gives specific reference to three occasions, and all three occasions take place at night and in a place of solitude where Jesus got to be alone with His Father. And then we are told after Jesus departs to pray that when Simon and those who were with Him woke up and they found that Jesus was absent from Him, they set out to find Him. And the force of the verb here is that they were on a hunt. They were searching high and low. It was not easy for them to find out where Jesus had isolated Himself for prayer. But when they found Him, they said to Him, everybody is looking for You.

It's a thinly veiled rebuke. Where have you been, Jesus? You don't have time to seclude yourself here in prayer. You have ministry to perform. Your fame is spreading everywhere, and the place is filled with seekers. Everybody is trying to find You. Everybody is coming to You. How did Jesus respond to that? Did He say, Oh, that's fantastic. Why don't we plant a church here?

Well, you have this wonderful multitude of people that are so excited that I'm healing their diseases. In fact, Jesus is saddened by the news. And He said, Let's go to the next town, that I may preach there also because for this purpose I have come. The multitudes were pressing to the door looking for healing, not for truth. They didn't come to Jesus to hear the announcement of the breakthrough of the kingdom of God.

They didn't flock to Him so that they could listen to Him preach the gospel or expound the Word of God. They came looking for improvement to their health and their suffering. Now there's nothing wrong with people coming to Jesus out of their needs of the flesh. But Jesus makes the point here, that's not the chief end for which I've come. I didn't come to this earth to heal everybody's diseases. I didn't come here to perform miracles for everybody that was in need. I came to preach the truth that my Father has sent me to declare to these people. And Jesus could tell that people were not coming out of faith to receive Him and His kingdom, but they were coming looking for relief from their physical pain. Sometimes we're just like that, that we come to God in prayer when we're sick, when our bodies hurt, and yet at the same time we don't have the same kind of pursuit of an understanding of His Word. And so Jesus said, these people are so caught up now in My power, they don't want to hear My Word.

So let's get out of here. Let's go to the other cities of Galilee, where I can resume My ministry of preaching because that's why I came. Isn't that interesting that Jesus was not going to be diverted from His mission because everybody was screaming with popular applause for His power.

That's not what I'm about. So Mark tells us that He went preaching in their synagogues throughout all of Galilee and casting out demons. Now we come to this portion that I find most moving in this section that we've read this morning, where Jesus cleanses a leper.

And let's look carefully at this. We read in verse 40, a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him, and saying to Him, If you are willing, you can make Me clean. In the ancient world, there were 72 distinct diseases of the skin that were defined under the broad heading of leprosy. Which variety of leprosy this poor man had is not explained in the text. It may be Hansen's disease, the worst form of leprosy that we read about with leper colonies and that sort of thing in the modern day.

But any form of leprosy was tragic and disastrous for people in the ancient world. I'd like to take just a minute to go back to the Old Testament to a passage in Scripture that I simply do not have the time to read in its entirety, but I'd like you today when you go home after church if you will take the time to read the entire chapter 13 and chapter 14 of the book of Leviticus. I'm just going to give you a taste of it this morning. I don't know how many times I've talked to people and I've asked them, and I've asked them, how many of you have read the whole Bible and not very many have? I said, how many of you have read Genesis and most have? How many have read Exodus and most have? How many of you have read Leviticus?

And that's when the hands start going down. Because Leviticus is so strange to our ears, so foreign to our understanding, because in the book of Leviticus you get a detailed description of all of the fine points of the ceremonial laws that defined Jewish worship and behavior. And here's the kind of thing that we run into when we're reading through Leviticus.

I'll just read a little bit of chapter 13. Verse 1, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or one of his sons the priest, and the priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body. And if the hair on the sore is turned white, and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it's a leprous sore, and the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean. But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and its hair is not turned white, then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore for seven days. Then the priest shall examine him on the seventh day. And indeed, if the sore appears to be as it was and has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him for another seven days. Then I'll examine him again on the seventh day. And if the sore has faded, are you with me? And if the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean, it's only a scab.

Okay. Well, this goes on for two chapters, and that's where people start to go to sleep when they're reading this. Is this the Word of God? This sounds more like a manual of dermatology that we have here in the Bible. Have you ever gone to the doctor and had a biopsy and then waited for the lab results? How scary it is when the doctor says, yes, it's malignant, and we're going to have to deal with that. How relieved you are when the lab report comes back and says it's benign.

But you remember if you've had this experience, the anxiety that you went through waiting for the lab reports to come back. Well, if you were a Jew in the ancient world and you woke up one morning and you had a different sensation and appearance on your skin, it would strike terror into your heart. And the first thing you would do is you would go to the priest, because it was the priest's job, using the guidance of God's Word Himself to determine whether this outbreak in your flesh was a harmless skin affliction or whether it was leprosy. Because it was leprosy, then that verdict would not only mean a dreadful physical malady that you would have to deal with probably for the rest of your life, but it was also the worst possible announcement you could hear with respect to your fellowship in your home, in your community, and in your church. Because if you were found to have leprosy, you were determined not only to be unwell, but you were pronounced unclean.

Leprosy was not healed in the ancient world. It had to be cleansed because the leper was now cast out of the covenant community, was not allowed near the temple, could not enter into the gates of Jerusalem. He had to live alone by himself, of course, without the fellowship of other lepers or anybody else under normal circumstances. He had to wear clothes that were falling apart and have his hair in a ghastly mode and cover the lower portions of his mouth so that he could be noticed from a distance that he was dressed like a leper. He was not allowed to come within fifty paces of another human being, and if he saw anybody else approaching, he had to cry out in the distance, unclean, unclean. Because if a leper were standing under a tree, and I walked past the tree and didn't know he was there, I wouldn't be allowed home or to go to church, because now I would be expelled from the covenant community because I'd be contaminated by coming that close to a leper.

To be a leper was to be the ultimate pariah in the household of Israel. And this man had been to the priest. He'd been examined.

The sore had turned white, and the verdict was leprosy. So he left his family, his wife, his children, his home, and lived like a homeless person, isolated from all human contact. And he hears the shouts, the acclamations. Somehow the Word comes to him of this miracle worker named Jesus. It's his last name. It's his last name. It's his last name, Jesus.

It's his last hope. And he hears that Jesus is in the neighborhood, and he runs up to Jesus. He breaks the law of Moses. He breaks the law of the ceremony.

He approaches more than fifty paces. He comes right up to Jesus and cries out to Him, if you will, you can make me clean. I know you can do it. I don't know if you will, but please, Jesus, make me clean. In verse 41, then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out His hand, and He touched him.

What? Hear the Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless One, whose meat and His drink is to do the will of the Father, to fulfill all righteousness, here violates the ceremonial law. Because not only was the leper not allowed to touch a non-leper, but the non-leper was not allowed to touch a leper. But Jesus touched him, anticipating the controversies that would come after that. Is it lawful to do good?

And it also indicates that Jesus is the Lord of the ceremonial law, and that He has the authority to set it aside for His own redemptive processes. You know, sometimes you get into a traffic jam, and maybe there's been a minor accident, and the cars are on the side of the road, and the policeman shows up to direct traffic. And you come to the street corner, and the traffic light is red. But the policeman is standing there, and he's waving you through.

What do you do? The officer is telling you to disobey the sign. But we have this written into our laws that when the law enforcement officer is present, his presence supersedes the written law.

And so we must obey the embodiment of the law that is found in the traffic officer rather than the red light. And Jesus is the embodiment of the law and is the enforcer of the law. And in His compassion, He touches a leper.

He says, yes I can, and yes I will be clean. And Mark tells us instantly, as soon as Jesus speaks the Word, the leprosy left Him, and He was cleansed. Again, don't miss the significance of the power of the Word of Jesus. Just as He would raise Lazarus from the dead, the means by which He raises Him is by His Word, by His command. Lazarus, come forth. Just as God brought the world into existence by the sound of His voice, by the divine imperative, so Christ exercises that same divine imperative on this disease. You know there's a question about the Word that is translated here. He had compassion upon Him. It could be translated, He was angry. Not angry because the man violated the ceremonial law and came up to Him, but Jesus' righteous indignation against the ravages of the fallen world.

Jesus' anger against disease, He hated disease, and He cared for the person who was afflicted by the disease. I can do it. I will do it. Be clean. And then He strictly warned him. He gave them several instructions. First He said, see that you say nothing to anyone.

Go on your way. Show yourself to the priest. Make your offering for your cleansing of those things which Moses commanded as a testimony to them. Jesus is not just throwing away the law of Moses.

He says, you know the law. Go back to the priest. Make your offering and have the priest declare you clean.

Do you realize how rare that was? The rabbi says it was harder to heal leprosy than to raise somebody from the dead. That was the rabbinic tradition.

And yet Jesus said, obey the law. Go to the priest. Give the offering and keep your mouth shut. Don't tell anybody about this. Now remember He told the same thing to the demons to be quiet.

Why? Much has been said about the so-called messianic secret of Jesus where Jesus frequently will say to those to whom He's ministered, tell no man. And we can guess why that was, but I think the context of what we've read this morning gives us a good insight into it. Everywhere He went, people completely misunderstood His mission, completely misunderstood what the Messiah would do. They were still waiting for the champion that would deliver them from Rome, not for the suffering servant of God who would deliver them from their sins. And so Jesus was loathe to make public His true identity, particularly early on in His ministry. Not only that, but if this leper goes out and tells everybody in the countryside that he was just cleansed by Jesus of Nazareth, every leper within the sound of his voice is going to rush to Jesus, and Jesus is never going to have time to do the mission that He has been called to do. And so Jesus said, I'll take care of you, but be quiet about this.

He couldn't, and He didn't. He went out and began to proclaim it freely to spread the matter. Here is somebody who is an evangelist in disobedience. Jesus told him not to do it, but He went and did it anyway to such an extent that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places, and they came to Him from every direction. They came to Him from everywhere. I hope that people today will come to Him from everywhere, but not just simply to get released from their pain, but to come to hear His message.

God has come into the world, and unto us is born a Savior, who is Christ our Lord. This is the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and that was R.C. Sproul, the founder of Ligonier Ministries, preaching from the Gospel of Mark. Dr. Sproul's sermons in Mark formed the basis for his expositional commentary, and until midnight you can request the hardcover edition of that commentary when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. This daily outreach has been made possible for three decades, because listeners like you give generously day after day, week after week. So thank you for making Renewing Your Mind possible by giving your donation today at renewingyourmind.org, or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Continue this journey in the Gospel of Mark when you join us next Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind. .