The Bride of Christ: He is Willing
I wonder if that was something like the reaction under the circumstances in the passage that was read to us just a few moments ago when a leper came to Jesus Christ. The passage tells us that when the Lord Jesus had come down from the mountain, he’d been teaching at a certain place, great multitudes followed him. And Matthew, the man who’s writing this story, may have in mind that those multitudes still are there when “Behold!” “Look at this!” A leper came and worshiped him. Perhaps around the man Jesus Christ there are these crowds starting. And there’s a commotion toward the back, there’s sound and there’s movement. And the people can see and they can hear and they can smell this leper as he comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t tell us that it had to be that way. It may be that there were crowds that followed him. But he might be in a more isolated environment. And it’s just him and perhaps a few of his followers. And this man comes toward them. “And look, it’s a leper”. All the marks and all the symptoms of this disease are upon him. And I want to look with you this evening at the exchange that happens between the leper and Christ Jesus, the man to whom he comes. Let’s look first of all, at the leper’s condition:
1. He is an unclean man.
If there are people around, he’s obliged to shout that in this society. It would be like that person with Ebola running into the hall and telling us, “I have this disease! You need to keep away or you too will be contaminated!” This story is told not just in this part of the Bible, but in Luke’s gospel as well. And Luke tells us that this man is full of leprosy. It is an undeniable reality. It’s written into every part of his humanity. His whole flesh, his fingers and hands, his face, his voice, the stench of rotting flesh. Everything is communicating his condition. He is tainted throughout and this condition has real consequences on any number of levels. Socially, he is entirely cut-off. But, spiritually, he is also to be considered under the curse of God. He is an outcast. He can have no dealings with other people and he can have no dealings with the God of all the earth. He’s an unclean man.
2. He is an isolated man.
This man comes alone. In other parts of the Bible, you sometimes see lepers acting together, the unclean gathering with the unclean. But on this occasion, this man is isolated in his misery and in his hope. There’s no indication here that he’s got anybody to direct him to come to Jesus Christ. We don’t know why he comes. We don’t know if anybody encourages him. We don’t know if anybody assists him. Some tell us that up to this point here has been no indication in the life of Jesus Christ that he can or will do anything for lepers. This man has got no example to work on. There have been no promises, as far as we know, that have been particularly mad to people like him. But he has, it seems alone, somehow marked the conclusion and is now pursuing the actions that he needs to come to Jesus Christ. Perhaps you have been invited here this evening. But perhaps you still feel alone. You’re not quite sure why you’re here. You don’t really know anybody else. In fact, you might quite hope that nobody else that you know, knows that you are here. You might feel very much cut-off. It might even have been a slow decision to come. A hard decision to come. And though there may be, in some senses, a crowd around you, you feel on your own.
3. This man is desperate.
He’s broken every imaginable boundary to be here. This is for him, if you like, the last roll of the dice. He is, as far as everybody else can tell, beyond human help. He is full of leprosy. There is no ordinary cure that can be offered to him. At this stage in the disease, it’s quite likely that he is near death. And on what may be the rotting stumps of his feet, he comes stumbling and shambling through the crowd or across the field or down the road because the only place he’s got left to go is to Jesus Christ. This leper provides you with a general picture of sin.
In the Bible, leprosy is an emblem or a picture of spiritual rottenness. It is a reminder to us. It is a communication for us that we are spiritually unclean. That we have sin in our souls. Sin is a relationships wrecker. It’s sin that causes your relationships with family and friends to break down and it’s sin that establishes the great barrier between you and the Holy God who has made you, who rules over you and all things. It’s your sin that means that you cannot in yourself draw near to God. It is a condition that is incurable and miserable, humanly speaking.
The fact is, you may be sitting there this evening saying, “Does this guy really believe that? I mean, I’m fine. I’m sitting here fairly well and fairly happy, as far as I can tell.” You might be one of those young ladies and everybody knows that you’re good-looking as well. A little look in the mirror and the makeup is right and the hair is good and the clothes are fine and you look fine. You might be one of those young men who likes to wink at himself in the mirror before he goes out for the evening. “Yeah, lookin’ hot tonight!”
How would you look if the sin of your soul was visible on your face? What would you see if the sin of my soul was visible on my face? You may be close enough to think maybe it does. I tell you, it hasn’t begun.
The mere prospect that the sin that is in us, our disobedience to God, our rebellion, our lusts, our pride, our lies, our blasphemies, our rages, our anger, our arrogance, our disobedience. That that could if possible bubble up somehow out of our souls and work itself out so that when you and I looked at one another we would see written into our humanity, the sin that we carry around in our hearts. No one would be looking at themselves in the mirror and flicking their hair then. No one would be winking at themselves, “Looking good tonight!”
Do you know the story, “The Picture of Dorian Grey”? It was written by a Victorian, a Briton, a main who himself, hid many sins from society. It tells the story of a wealthy and an impressive young nobleman in Victorian Britain. A gorgeous-looking man, you might say, and he has painted for himself a portrait. It’s a wonderful likeness and he takes that portrait and he carries it up into the attic space, the loft, it’s hidden away. Dorian Grey goes out and begins to live as he pleases. He does what he likes when he likes with whom he likes, but you see, there’s some kind of connection between Dorian and his portrait. All the effects of his wickedness, all the impact of his sin is not felt by him but it is somehow transferred to that portrait, hidden away somewhere beyond human sight, until the fateful night, when that portrait is destroyed. And all the accumulation of wickedness that is stored up in the picture, the portrait of Dorian Grey, floods out in a moment, takes up residence in him. What howl of horror and anguish would there be if perhaps this night, in a moment, all of your sin was suddenly visible in your humanity? There’s not a one of us here, who’d be able even to look another person in the face. “Dear God, what is that creature?” “It is a sinner”.
Some of you may like your “Walking Dead”, your zombie apocalypse films; those movies where the infection sweeps across the world. There’s nobody here, nobody anywhere, who has not succumbed to the sin virus. But this leper is not just providing for us a general picture. It may also be that we have here a specific picture. You see, this man is full of leprosy and he cannot any longer deny his condition. Maybe to begin with, there were just a few marks, a few spots, a few blemishes on his skin. But there’s no point pretending any longer. He’s come face to face with the awful reality. He knows and feels his condition and its consequences. He’s a hopeless case but he’s looking for hope. He’s in a helpless condition and he’s hoping against hope that there might be help somewhere for him. I was speaking a couple of weeks ago to a young man. I was talking to him about sin about what it means to be distant from God. And he said to me, “When I feel like this, there’s nothing I can do. When the temptation comes in, it is not possible to stop it. And when the guilt follows in, after the temptation, and the act, there’s no way to get away from it. I cannot do anything. I am not a clean man. He didn’t use all those words, but that was the sense. The sinner is a spiritual leper. You, by nature, are a man or a woman, a boy or a girl in whose humanity, this disease dwells. You just sang, “a guilty, weak and helpless worm”. Is that poetic license? Is that some old-fashioned guy’s exaggeration? Is that a man with some kind of psychological complex about himself? He’s got some kind of downer on himself to the nth degree? Or is that the confession of your heart? I’m guilty, I’m weak, and I am helpless. Have you ever faced that? Do you even begin to feel that? If so, you’re much like this leper, the day in which he came to Jesus Christ. That’s his condition. And it is or has been the condition of everybody here this evening. But look with me also at the leper’s spirit as he comes to Jesus Christ. “Behold, a leper came and worshiped him”. Mark, another writer telling the same story says he kneeled down and began to implore him or plead with him. Luke, the same man who said, “He was full of leprosy” says he’s on his face, pleading with Jesus. Matthew tells us in this version, that he worships him. What does Matthew mean? Does he mean that the leper recognizes that in this man Jesus of Nazareth, God has come to earth and is standing in front of him, able to do something for him? It’s difficult to say. But, I suggest to you, the action and the words that follow show something more than ordinary respect. Something that is beyond mere desperation. When you put it together with what he says, he is now coming to this Jesus because he thinks there’s something that is special about him. We don’t know how he found that out. He is a Jewish man, this leper. So it is very likely that, at some stage, he had been well-instructed in the Old Testament, the first portion of our Bibles. And perhaps he’s begun to hear about this prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, a man who goes around doing good and teaching with authority that other people don’t have. And he’s begun to put together some of the connections. That the Old Testament talks about a champion who’s going to come into the world from God, someone who can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Someone who can help the helpless. Someone who has hope for the hopeless. And he’s begun to compare and contrast and he’s begun to discern, to see that perhaps this Jesus is the promised Savior of sinners. He may have heard some of the stories that are beginning to filter around about people who have been sick and they came to Jesus and he made them well. And he’s begun to have hope dawn in his heart. And he’s alone, I can’t remember who it was that said it about which sports team, who said I, it is not the losing that I mind, it’s the hope that I can’t stand. “(Unintelligible noise) I can’t bear the hope! Is it possible, that there is someone who can help me? I I I barely dare to hope that that could be the case”. He may not understand everything. Almost no one understood everything at this stage in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. It may be that he really doesn’t understand that God in the flesh is standing before him. It may be that he really doesn’t have much appreciation of the fact that here is someone who is not only human but truly and fully divine, with all the power of divinity in him to heal and to bless. But, however much he does not know, he knows enough to come and bow down before him. I don’t know how much you know about Jesus of Nazareth. I imagine that for many of us, we know a whole lot more than this leper did. Because we’re not here at the beginning of the life of Jesus Christ trying to piece together the pictures and the promises and the prophecies and groping our way slowly towards some understanding of who he might really be. We’re here looking back. We’ve all, I imagine, heard what’s usually called the Christmas story. We know that the Jesus that we’re reading about here is the one who was born of a virgin, the one who was put together, knit together, woven together in the womb of his mother by none other than the Holy Spirit of God. That he was born of her, but had no sin. We know not just what he’s done up to this pint in the history, we know the rest of the history. We know the miracles. We know the teachings. We know the sinless, spotless, perfect existence of Jesus of Nazareth. We know the death that he died, hanging on a cross, suffering under the curse of God on behalf of other people. And we know that after death and three days in the tomb he rises again from the dead declared to be the Son of God with power by the Spirit of God. We’ve got all that to go on, and all the teaching that follow the history, that explains who he really is, and what he really does. We’ve got everything we need, not just to fall down before him with some vague hope or expectation, but to bow down and plead as true worshipers. My friends, you and I have no excuses when it comes to our dealings with the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that we need to know to bring us to him has been set before us. You might say, “But I don’t know much!” This may be your first time ever in a church building or your first time in a church building like this. You may barely if ever have cracked open a Bible before in your life and you say, “Well, ok, I’m starting to hear about this man, Jesus, but I know almost nothing”. I would urge you, find out more. If you don’t know much tonight, take away a Bible. I’m sure there are people here that would gladly give you one. And start reading in these books: Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. Start learning about who this Jesus is. Come back to this place on Sunday or some other church where the Bible will be opened and explained. And listen and ask and tell the person who preaches or the people who are sitting next to you, “Will you tell me more about who this Jesus is? “ But, I hope that even as you begin to see what this leper sees that you might now be able to say, “I don’t know much.” But my friend, do you know enough? Do you know enough to know what this leper began to understand? “That I think this man may be able to help even me”. So you see, then, the leper’s request. He comes and he worships him and he speaks, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean”.
1. It’s a reverent request.
He calls him Lord. You might say he calls him sir or master. Again, how much does he understand? We’re not sure. But he’s certainly conscious that he’s in the presence of authority. And I suggest to you, the fact that he says if you’re willing, you can make me clean means that he understands more than that this is an important man.
2. It’s an honest request.
“I need to be clean because I’m not. I am foul and filthy and full of sin”. It’s an acknowledgment of his condition and all its consequences. “I am an unclean man. My sin stains me. My wickedness is upon me. I cannot forget it. I cannot get round it. I cannot bury it. I cannot turn my back upon it”. There was a man in the Old Testament called David. And when he came to understand his sin, he said it always before me. You heard about the new Macbeth film? You know the story, the Scottish king who goes and kills his rival? No matter how hard he tries, the blood’s always on his hands. He sees it ever before him. Do you wake up, get up, go around and lie down, and you know God is against you? And you have a perpetually guilty conscience. You actually don’t need me to tell you that you do bad things. You already know it because your conscience tells you, that even if nobody else knows what you are doing, either in public apart from the strangers who see you there or in secret where no one else seems to know, that there is a voice inside that keeps saying, “You know and God knows”. This man is honest: “I am not clean”. And he is humble: “If you are willing…” Ya’ feel the tension? This isn’t doubt. This is dependence: “I have no claim upon you. I have no real argument to make except the fact that I’m not clean. I cannot bargain with you. I cannot purchase from you. I do not deserve anything. But if you are willing, you can do something. Here’s the faith: “You can! You can make me clean!” There’s total confidence in the ability of Jesus of Nazareth to take away this condition and its consequences. That’s incredible! That’s like the man or the woman with Ebola walking into a doctor’s surgery and saying, “Gimme a pill and everything will be fine!” That just doesn’t happen. Not in this world and not in this man’s life. He’s full of leprosy. Death is perhaps days away, week or months at best. And yet he’s here before Jesus of Nazareth and he says, “If you’re willing, you can take all this away”. But it’s urgent, isn’t it? Is this a luxury? Take it or leave it? Maybe the crowd is around and they don’t want him anywhere near them, because he’s the contaminating man. Being contaminated, he contaminates other people. As he shuffles forward, croaking out his cry that, “I am unclean,” they’re scattering. The circles growing around as he shambles toward the Lord Jesus Christ. This is plain dealing. This is no great Shakespearean speech. This is some man and his life, and his happiness hangs upon the outcome of his dealings with Jesus Christ. This is it. If you are willing, you can make me clean. But if you are not, I’m lost. I stumble away to die alone. He’s casting himself upon Jesus’ mercy. I am at your disposal. I am altogether needy. And you’re the only one who can help me. My friend, have you ever come to Jesus like this? Have you come conscious of your sin, feeling your condition and its consequences? Perhaps trembling but full of need to Jesus of Nazareth to cast yourself upon his mercy? Are you confident of his power? You should be. And you can be. He is the Son of God. He is the Savior of sinners. There is nothing that he cannot do. There is no one that he cannot save. He can make the foulest clean. Have you come to him? Have you come to him? This man did. A leper came and worshiped him saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean”! And there is silence for a moment. Is he still on his face in front of Jesus? Or does he look up, “Is this the moment?” Are there crowds around and they’re there waiting with baited breath, “What happens next?” Or perhaps it’s just Jesus, this man and a few others standing by? And you can hear the breeze in the olive trees. “If you’re willing, if you’re willing you can make me clean”. What is the Lord’s response? It comes in a touch and in a word. You’ve got to remember this man has faced rejection. No one has ever wanted to deal with him since this leprosy first became apparent. Perhaps for years no one has ever come near him. No one has ever looked at him with anything other than distaste that over the years has turned into disgust. He’s been cut-off from all human interaction and he’s been distant from all divine worship. No one has had anything to do with him. He’s had nothing to do with anyone. He’s never been able to worship his God. He’s never been able to draw near. No one would have wanted to have anything to do with him. Most of you like being touched, don’t you? You children? Daddy or Mommy comes home from somewhere you like being touched, don’t you? Some of you run up, ya get a hug? What if no one ever touched you? Ya like holding hands, husbands? Wives? Ya got friends, shake hands, give the guy a hug, put your arm around them, human contact. You’ve never had it. Not for years. To touch this man is to be defiled. To touch this man is to become unclean like he is unclean. You don’t touch this man. You don’t go near this man. You don’t go close enough to risk touching this man. And, Jesus put out his hand and touched him. He didn’t accidentally brush against him. He stretched out. He close the gap. He reached across that relatively short but absolutely huge barrier between him and the leper and he touched him. Compassion closed gap. The Lord looks on this man and he has pity upon him and he reaches out and this man feels the kind and the loving and the tender touch of one whom the Bible calls the Great High Priest. And his defilement is not transferred but power goes out and cleansing takes place. Jesus speaks: “I am willing, ‘Be cleansed!’” The closest translation probably in English is, “I will. Be clean,” confirms the message of the touch. The man feels the hand of Jesus. He hears the words. He does not need to doubt either his heart of pity or his hand of power. “If you are willing”, “I will”. “If you will, O Lord,” “Yes, I will. It is my heart to do you good. I am entirely ready. I am well pleased. I am fully inclined. There is nothing in me that resents this moment. I am delighted to do for you what you cannot do for yourself and what no one else can do for you. I am willing to bestow good upon you. Be clean!” Divine power is in operation. This is the Lord and he is the one who is to be worshiped. God is present in Jesus of Nazareth to bless this poor leper. And here is the demonstration of his identity. And here is the confirmation of his role as the one who has come into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. And here is a lost man, and he’s cut-off and he’s foul and everything in him is shouting about the horror of sin. And the Savior of sinners looks upon him in pity and reaches out and speaks in power, “I am willing. Be clean.” God’s son is among us to bless us. And immediately, without a pause, not a moment between the touch and the word and the reality. Immediately, his leprosy was cleansed. This condition and all its consequences are in a moment carried away. The condition is reversed, the consequences are removed. All the ravages of this disease are undone. Did you know that doesn’t happen with Ebola? There’s a nurse in the UK who was treating victims of this disease. And she contracted Ebola. Several months ago, she’s back in hospital now because apparently there are reservoirs. That’s what they call them. It sounds, sounds quite neutral doesn’t it? “I’ve got a reservoir, ‘Of what? Ebola.” “It’s in my eyes”. Or in one of those other places in the body where it lingers on. There are no leprosy reservoirs left in this man. He is clean, entirely and utterly. And he is able now to go to the priest. This is what a leper would’ve had to do under these circumstances. He goes to priest, he shows himself, the evidence is there, it is very verifiable. Someone can look at this man, can check his flesh and say, “Ya know what, he is clean.” “Everything’s changed”. “Everything is new!” He has been restored to life. Restored to communion with God. He can worship again. He can draw near to the God who saves. Why? Because the God who saves has already come for him. Ya see what he’s longing for has already happened. It’s not because he can now come to God, but because God has come to him. The Son of God has come into the world. And this poor man has come and cast himself upon his mercy and found that in Jesus Christ is pity joined with power. And my friend, if you are here this evening and you understand what it is to be a spiritual leper. If you have begun to understand the ravages of sin in your humanity. If you’ve begun to look no into the mirror on the wall but the mirror of the Bible, and to begin to see and to recognize the horrors of your iniquity, transgression, law-breaking, the Bible calls it, sin. That which is offensive to God. That which is distasteful and disgusting in itself. And you may be here saying, “There is no hope for me”. It’s not true! There is hope for sinners like you and like me. Christ has not changed. There is pity in his heart. There is power in his hand. Sinners may yet come to him and cast themselves upon his mercy. And say, “Lord, if you are willing. You can make me clean”. And he’s never said, “I’m not!” Not once. No sinner has ever come to him full of guilt and shame and sorrow and misery and emptiness and said, “Lord, can you help me?” And he’s either said, “I won’t” or “I can’t “. “I will” and “I do”. Will you come to Jesus now? With all your brokenness, come to Jesus in order to be made whole. Whatever guilt there is upon you, come to Christ in order to have the burden removed. Whatever sorrow there may be on account of your sin, whatever its consequences may be in your life, will you come to the Lord Christ in order to receive forgiveness and cleansing and go away clean? I can’t see it on the outside. But if you feel it on the inside, you come to Jesus now. You come to the Christ who came to save. You come to the Lord who is worthy of your worship, worthy of your trust, one who has his arms outstretched to receive you. And you will feel the cleansing touch and hear the mighty word of the Son of God and you can walk away this evening clean. Pure in the eyes of Almighty God. And you can begin to worship him and you can know what it is to be restored to fellowship with his people. But how will you come? Ya gonna scrub up first? Gonna brush you hair? Put on the right clothes? A little perfume to hide the stench? A little makeup to hide the palor? Or will you come like the leper? “Lord, I am a guilty, weak and helpless worm. I have nothing is commend me. I have everything to condemn me. I am a sinner through and through. I am worse than I know. I am more wicked than I imagine. I am more needy than I recognize. But O Lord Jesus, if you are only willing, you can make me clean”. My friend, if you will come, you will hear his word, you will feel his touch. “I am willing. Be clean and go in peace”. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, you have never turned your back upon a needy sinner, you have never failed to show pity. Never failed to show power. No one has ever come stumbling, shambling, croaking, foul and filthy and found you unwilling or unable to save. O God, if there is such a one here this evening. Anyone, any number of people who have privately even begun to come face to face with the awful reality of sin. Begun to long for the salvation, the peace, the joy, the cleansing, the renewed fellowship with God that comes only through the healing power of the Lord Jesus Christ, we ask, O God that you would now bring that person to yourself. That you would come to them and draw near and make yourself know to them in your saving mercy and might. And that they, O God with their hearts operated upon by the Holy Spirit, that they would come to you. And that they would call out to you with faith, with humility, with that daring hope for the hopeless. That they would hear you speak and feel your touch and go away clan. O God, hear our prayer and do again for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We ask it for our Savior’s sake and in his name, Amen.