Jesus has just begun His ministry, but already His fame is spreading throughout Galilee and the areas around it. According to the Gospel writer, Mark, He hasn’t even chosen all of His disciples yet and crowds are starting to gather around Him. The past several Sundays we have been reading from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, filled with stories of the healing power of God at work through Jesus; now, in this day, we read the story of the cleansing of the leper.
It seems that Jesus has a healing, transforming gift; everyone He touches is changed. People are coming from all directions, expecting that Jesus will respond to their desire for healing. They seek Him out, begging for His healing touch, for signs and miracles. It reaches the point where Mark tells us that Jesus can no longer go into a town openly.
As long as Jesus was the healer, offering cures to those who came, He remained a popular, crowd-drawing figure. But I cannot help but think about those who were not cured by Jesus. What did they think? He clearly heals some people, but there are others still left to cope with their illness and disease. Sometimes Jesus did not live up to people’s expectations of Him – back when He walked this earth and now in the year 2012 as well.
Like the people in the crowd that gathered around Jesus, we want this Jesus to give us relief, to remove the symptoms of our disease, to give us what we want. And that is precisely the problem that Jesus encountered back then and encounters today as well. As long as Jesus gives us what we want, there are many who are quite willing to gather around Jesus. But Jesus’ concern is not to merely heal our physical diseases or to respond to our requests on our terms. Jesus is God’s answer our needs, not our wants. That may be part of the reason why so many people don’t follow Jesus very far in their journey through life. They become disappointed because their expectation is that Jesus should respond to what they want and how they want it. There are many whose vision of God is limited to One who is a dispenser of favors to those who come bearing requests.
The Jesus of Scripture and the Jesus whom we experience in our lives never simply sees a disease that needs to be healed, but rather a broken person who needs to be restored to a wholeness of being. Take the leper, for example. Leprosy is a tragic disease. In Jesus’ day it not only had horrible physical consequences as it gradually ate away at the body, but there were tremendous social consequences as well. The person who was diagnosed with leprosy was a social outcast as well. He/She was prohibited from any normal contact with other people, was required to stay a designated distance away, and cry out warnings about his/her condition as a leper. There was no sense of belonging, no hope, no wholeness to life for those who were lepers. As an outcast, the leper was doomed.
It was in this context, then, that Jesus offered healing to the leper: not merely to cure his physical illness, but so that the leper might be restored to society, experience a wholeness to life that had been denied to him, and find acceptance among those around him. That is why Jesus told him to go to the priest. In those days only the priests could certify a person as being free of disease and restore that person to society.
Wholeness and healing are not necessarily the same thing, however. I suspect that all of us know someone who is suffering from a chronic or incurable disease, yet they carry it with a wholeness of spirit that gives comfort to others. I suspect that all of us also know someone who appears healthy and active and yet whose spirit is sadly limited. Jesus comes among us offering us the gift of wholeness, that our lives might be fulfilled and meaningful.
What does it mean to live with the gift of wholeness? How are the lives of those who are open to the touch of Jesus different from others? Does it somehow convey the sense that a person is able to resist temptation more easily, or that the person touched by Jesus will live a more pietistic life, or that person will be more perfect, by our definition of perfect, than another? When we speak of a wholeness to life, what precisely are we talking about?
Contrary to how many people might define wholeness, it is not holiness – the one who is touched by Jesus is not necessarily walking around with a halo over the head, spouting religious words and making all of us feel inferior. A wholeness to life reflects an awareness of one’s self in relationship to God and Jesus Christ. The quality of wholeness helps us to see who and what we are in relationship to God in Christ, in relationship to other people and in relationship with ourselves. I begin to realize that I am not the center of the universe, that I live only in the context of how I relate to that which is around me. I begin to accept responsibility for those around me, not only my family but the community in which I live, the community I call the church and the community of nation and world as well. I recognize my accountability to God in how I treat others – do I create walls and barriers that exclude, or do I build bridges and highways that include; am I as concerned about the welfare and the well-being of others, even strangers, as I should be; does fear control my actions, making me suspicious and anxious, or am I living in the love and mercy of a God who allows me to reach out to those who are somehow different -- seeking, at the least, to understand; is my energy being used to hold onto grudges and hurts of the past, only making me miserable, or am I free to forgive as freely as I know I have been forgiven? A wholeness to life, to be touched by Jesus, is to relate to those around me with a peace and a grace that seeks to bring healing and wholeness to others.
This wholeness, at the same time, is more than just a humanistic, “be nice to others”, attitude. For it brings me into relationship with God, the One whom I seek to serve. I recognize God’s continued wish to be a part of my decision-making, to guide me in the direction that leads to eternal life, to challenge me to push forward in ways that make me uncomfortable even though I know them to be right. I become less and less attached to material things, even though I may own much, and more and more aware of the spiritual aspect of the world around me. I can sense God at work in the universe, God’s creative power still fashioning and shaping and forming the world around me. I come to a new appreciation and feel my life blessed each and every day. Again, I am free from the burden of being happy only when things go my way each day – I can lift up my prayers in thanksgiving for each day that God has given me. I experience a hope and a trust in God that enables me to live free of an overinvestment in the things of this world.
At the same time, I feel a wholeness within myself. I am able to accept myself as I am, with all my faults and disagreeable qualities, with all my failures and all my sin; but I also recognize that as a child of God, I have been given strengths and abilities which need to be nurtured and allowed to mature. Since I am forgiven and freed from my failures and my sin, I don’t need to be defensive or compare myself to others. There is a measure of self-acceptance that cannot come by any other means than by understanding my relationship with God. I do not live in fear of God, for God is with me, and an ever present source of strength. I can be honest with myself and live with an integrity within myself.
We don’t know what happened to the leper who was healed in this morning’s Scripture. Maybe his healing eventually led to a wholeness in life; maybe it brought growth and understanding of how he related to God, to those around him, and to himself. Maybe he found something greater in life than merely healing of his leprosy. Maybe he recognized in Jesus the One who was sent by God to offer wholeness to life. And maybe not.
But let us pray that we will find wholeness in our lives – that we may receive the fulfilment of our needs, not necessarily our wants. And that we may recognize the wholeness that God makes available to us, if we will but just allow our lives to be touched by Jesus. May it be so for you as you continue your journey. Amen.
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