Sermon: St. Mark 1:40-45

A COMPLETE PICTURE OF WHAT GOD IS LIKE

Dear people loved by God in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In Isaiah 6, we are confronted with God’s glory. The prophet Isaiah is brought into the throne room of God and he sees God in His glory. He sees angels flying around God, singing “Holy” to the Father, “Holy” to the Son, “Holy” to the Spirit. The whole room is shaking. It’s full of God’s glory.

This is a picture of what God is like. God lets Isaiah see this. But Isaiah knew he didn’t deserve to be in God’s glorious presence. He confessed his sins and said: “I am a man of unclean lips.” He too was shaking – but with fear. He said, “Woe is me! For my eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts.”

But this isn’t a complete picture of what God is like. If that’s all we have, we could only be afraid of Him and want to hide from Him. But then Isaiah sees an angel bring a live coal from the altar. The angel touches Isaiah’s lips with it and declares: “Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged.” Isaiah wasn’t unclean anymore, but clean and holy! God took away His guilt, He made it so he does deserve to be in God’s presence. This is God’s grace. It takes away fear.

This is the complete picture of what God is like. It includes His undeserved love, His grace. It includes His compassion.

St. Mark 1:40-45. 40 Now a leper came to [Jesus], imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” 41 Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” 42 As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. 43 And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 45 However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places; and they came to Him from every direction.

Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. By these words of Your truth, give us true knowledge of You. Amen.

Jesus meets this man who had the disease of leprosy, the first leper to meet Jesus. Long before Jesus came through his village in Galilee, one day the man saw white spots, say, on his arm. Then his hair became shockingly light, lost its color. The disease spread with alarming quickness from body part to body part. Then he didn’t just have white spots, but his skin turned abnormally white and shiny. His hair began to fall out. Sores broke out all over his body. The disease started to eat his skin away: on his head, lips, ears, all over. When he speaks to Jesus, his voice is probably raspy because he’s losing that too. We know he would’ve been at this stage of leprosy because in Luke it says he was “full of leprosy.”

Jesus and His disciples were seeing a man who was decaying and dying more each day, vile to look at, full of sickness inside and out. Leprosy is a powerful way to picture our sin. As this leper was “full of leprosy” inside and out, we’re full of sin inside and out. Not only do we see sin pictured in this leper, we see death. He’s a walking death. We hear that “the wages of sin is death”; now we see it.

But we don’t see how completely ugly our sin makes us. We’re good at hiding it. Nobody can tell if you have uncaring thoughts about someone’s misfortune. Nobody sees your jealousy and envy, and how ugly it is as you resent others. You can belittle someone in an e-mail or lose your temper at home, just so no one hears about it. But what terrifies us is to have this ugliness come into the open.

The Bible threatens that one day it will all be out in the open, on the last day. When Jesus comes again, “He will bring to light … and reveal the counsels of the hearts” (1Co 4:5). It says: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2Co 5:10). You might think it’s far off, but I just heard of a man who was baptized as a baby, hadn’t gone to church anywhere for a long time, and suddenly died in a traffic accident at age 36. We don’t know how soon death will come.

But even in the present, we go around like it’s hidden. However, Hebrews 4:13 says: “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” God sees what we really look like, in our sins. He sees the ugliness of our evil thoughts, words, and deeds. We suddenly see signs of aging and freak out, but God always sees that we’re headed to the grave, our bodies decaying, even if we ignore it.

This reality of God, who is holy and righteous, who judges us for our deeds, is true. But this is God in His glory. This can’t give comfort to a troubled conscience. We must say with Isaiah: “Woe is me!” We don’t deserve to be in His presence, in fact we can’t stand in the presence of God in His glory, God as our Judge.

But that’s not the complete picture of what God is like. In fact, God doesn’t want that to be all that you see. When you’re troubled over your sins, you feel unworthy, you’re afraid of death and judgment, God is using that. God uses the condemning Law to put in you a desire to be saved. He doesn’t want you to know Him according to His glory. He wants you to know Him according to His grace.

This is what we see in the story of Jesus and the leper. What happens here? The leper ran up to Jesus, threw himself at His feet and said, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Yes, as God, Jesus is able. But the important part is the “if-You-are-willing” part. This is about God’s heart.Does He want to cleanse you of your sin? Does He want to save you? Does He care about you?

Listen to what Jesus says: “I am willing; be cleansed.” Just like when the angel said to Isaiah: “Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin is purged,” Jesus is saying – not only for the leper – but to you:

· First, He wants to cleanse you of all your sin – “I am willing,” He says, “this is the very thing I want to do for you” – so never doubt it! – and:

· Second, He does cleanse you of all your sin. He did it by dying on the cross for you, and He does it by His Word. When Jesus, through His servant, says, “I forgive you,” He is saying, “Be cleansed!” In other words: “You are clean!”

This is the complete picture of what God is like. When Jesus says, “I am willing,” He is speaking for the Father and the Holy Spirit too. This is what God is like. He wants to cleanse you of all your sin, to make you worthy to stand before Him. And He actually does it. This means that on the last day your sins will not be out in the open – because they don’t exist anymore. God removes them from you. Jesus took all your sins to be His own. He was punished for them and not you. This grace, this undeserved love, takes away fear.

Not only did Jesus do everything required for your salvation, but in His Word and in His Sacraments, He actually has it brought to you. This is where He cleanses you: in His word of forgiveness, and in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

This is reflected in this story too, when Jesus touches the leper. Recall that people wouldn’t let themselves be touched by lepers. If that happened they would become unclean. But Jesus touches the leper and not only does Jesus not become unclean, but He makes the leper clean, takes all the uncleanness away!

So the important thing here is Jesus’ touch: He “stretched out His hand and touched the leper.”You have a God who wants to be that close to you. Notice that as He did that, it says Jesus was “moved with compassion.” It’s the kind of compassion that doesn’t stay in His heart but shows itself in His touch.

Even though He “dwells in unapproachable light” (1Ti 6:16), God so loved the world that He sent His only Son, Jesus. In Him God is approachable. The Bible says Jesus is “not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (He 4:15) – He can be touched by our weaknesses. He’s showing us what God is like, when He has compassion, and touches the leper and heals Him.

Jesus first touched you in baptism through the pastor’s hands and the words from the pastor’s lips. He continues to do so in His Word that comes into your ears and into your heart, and in His Supper where His body and blood touch your lips and immediately you are cleansed. He’s showing you what God is like.

The true God is approachable. He is touched with the feeling of your weaknesses, so He touches you to heal you of your sin, bless you with His love, and make you worthy. He is the God who wants you to know Him – and know yourself – by His compassion and by His grace. Amen!