What Can Jesus Do For Me?
Can There Really Be Good News? • Sermon • Submitted
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Open your Bibles to Mark 1:39-2:12. In the last few weeks we have been walking together through the Gospel of Mark, learning that Jesus is the Good News we are looking for. We have seen each little vignette laying a solid foundation of Jesus’ authority… his authority to speak into our lives and invite us to follow him, his authority to heal, and his authority to send us out to minister to others. This is a different kind of Kingdom, a different kind of leadership, from a different kind of Rabbi. Today we will see how Jesus does things that only God can do. Listen as I read starting in verse 39.
39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. 40 A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” 41 Jesus was deeply moved. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. 43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere. 2:1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Let’s pray.
Last week we learned through Peter’s mother-in-law that Jesus heals us so we can minister to others. We heard Charles testimony of how God has preserved his life from infancy and has done a continual work of healing him from numerous allergies so that now he can minister the Good News to others. We learned that the Good News is for everyone, and in today’s passage we see that everyone includes outcasts known as lepers.
It’s hard to find a leper equivalent today. The way people with leprosy were treated back in the first century is almost unimaginable. The skin disease is highly communicable, and back then it was untreatable and always resulted in death. According to Jewish laws and customs, someone with leprosy was just as unclean or impure as a corpse. Can you imagine how it must have felt to know that if you had leprosy, you might as well be dead and everyone is going to treat you like a walking dead thing?
Because it was impossible for leprosy to be cured, being healed from leprosy was synonymous with being raised from the dead. Jews believed that healing leprosy was something that only God could do. With that in mind, very strict rules were set up around those with leprosy so that the disease would not spread. One of those rules, was not getting close enough to have a conversation with someone. Anyone with leprosy had to stay far away from others, and if they went into town they had to yell “unclean!” at the top of their lungs so that no one would come near them. This man with leprosy we read about in Mark 1:40 took a remarkable step of faith to get near enough to Jesus to speak with him, and Jesus also responds in a remarkable way.
The man comes to Jesus on his knees and begs him by saying “If you are willing.” This is not a meek, timid request. The man is not supposed to be within earshot, and here he is on his knees close enough to not only be heard but be touched. That is outrageous boldness. The wording he uses: “If you are willing” is the same kind of wording one might have used at that time to petition God in prayer, but it is not necessarily timid. The man with leprosy recognizes that Jesus, like God or as God, has the ultimate authority to choose how he answers requests. Jesus can say no. God is not required to give us what we ask for. He is GOD! Saying “if you are willing” is like saying “You have all authority and power to say yes to me. I am putting my request at your feet and trusting you with the answer.”
Jesus was deeply moved. Now some translations of the Bible say “Jesus had compassion” while others say “Jesus was indignant.” The word is rather difficult to translate because it only appears in this verse, so we have no other occurrences to compare it with. We do know from other ancient Greek writing that it has something to do with feeling very very deeply. In this context, whether Jesus was feeling deep compassion or deep indignation, we can see from his actions that he was not angry at the man. Jesus would not heal someone out of spite! So we can safely assume that if Jesus is indeed angry or indignant, it is at the fact that leprosy exists at all. It seems more likely, however, that Jesus is deeply moved with compassion because the next thing that happens is that Jesus touchesthe man with leprosy.
This was unfathomable. NO ONE in their right mind would touch someone with leprosy. It would be almost as ridiculous as taking a bath in poison ivy, except it’s a kind of poison ivy that will eventually kill you. No one willingly does that to themselves, no matter how much compassion they might have. But there is something different about this Rabbi Jesus. Perhaps the man with leprosy saw it already. The authority Jesus had already shown over sickness and demons was enough for the man to believe that it was worth breaking the religious lawto get close to Jesus. It was worth declaring Jesus has a will to choose how to use his power. This man believed it was worth challenging all his religious upbringing to be healed. And how does Jesus respond? Jesus matches the outrageous faith of this man with his own outrageous action: Jesus breaks religious law by touching the man with leprosy. How could the Holy One of God do that? How can Jesus act in such a way, breaking religious law?
Because Jesus is God. That is not to say that “God can do whatever God wants” and so God can break laws with no consequence. No. Jesus can touch the man with leprosy because that is something that only God can do. Only God can heal leprosy. The Jews believed that. So if Jesus touches the man and he is healed and becomes clean instead of unclean…then Jesus must be God…because that is something that only God can do. THIS is why Jesus instructs the man to go show himself to the priests. If the man had done what Jesus asked, the priests would have had to acknowledge that Jesus was indeed God. We don’t know why, but for some reason that man didn’t listen to Jesus. Even after approaching him with faith in His power to heal as only God can, the man who once had leprosy disobeyed Jesus. How often are you and I like that too? God shows up in our lives in a powerful way and it doesn’t take long for us to put our own agenda and our own desires ahead of His. Now, it’s possible that this man who was healed of leprosy didn’t want to take the time to go to the priests. The procedure for proving one was cleansed and healed from leprosy was long and involved. It would have taken days before the man was declared to be truly healed by the priests so that he could enter back into community again. Maybe he was too excited, he couldn’t wait to tell everyone what Jesus had done. Whatever the reason, his actions actually made ministry more difficult for Jesus. Rather than getting to go from town to town to preach the good news as he said he came to do in verse 38, Jesus now had to stay outside of towns in the lonely countryside for a while until some of the excitement had abated.
Jesus did what only God can do. He touched and healed someone who was considered a walking corpse. Is there anything, anyone in your life right now who seems like a walking corpse to you? Any situations that seem hopeless? Any relationships that feel dead? Are you courageous enough to go to Jesus on your knees and invite Him to bring his healing touch to that situation? If He is willing, Jesus can do what only God can do.
When he was finally able to get back into a town without too many people mobbing him, he went home to Capernaum. It didn’t take long, though, for everyone to hear that he was there and fill up the house to overflowing. A decent sized house might have held 50 people with standing room only, and more gathered outside the door, listening to Jesus preaching the good news. Houses at that time were built of stone and with roofs made of timber and grass covered in mud. Quite often the roof was used as a second floor or type of patio, with stairs up the outside of the house to access it. This is why the four men could carry their paralytic friend up to the roof and dig a hole in it to let him down right in front of Jesus.
Can you imagine how outrageous that would have been? Think of yourself standing in that house, full of people, trying to listen to Jesus when all of a sudden you hear loud banging above and the roof starts to crumble. With dust and dried grass falling all over you, you shield your eyes until it settles and look up to see someone being lowered down with ropes. Jesus looked up and saw faith. Theirfaith; the faith of the four friends. It wasn’t even the faith of the one who needed to be healed that caught Jesus attention: it was the faith of the friends.
What happens next is just as shocking, if not more so, than Jesus touching the man with leprosy and healing him. Jesus speaks a sentence that brought a stunned silence. “Your sins are forgiven.” You see the Jewish belief at that time was that sin was the cause of suffering. This paralytic was essentially cursed to be this way because of sin in his life. It was ok for a human to forgive another human for sins they had done against one another. I can forgive you for injuring me. But no one could forgive someone for sinning against God. Only God could do that. The religious leaders who were sitting there were too stunned to say it out loud, but they could still think to themselves “Who is this? Only God can forgive sins of this consequence!” Their conclusion was that Jesus must be blaspheming. They could not bring themselves to connect the dots. Jesus healed a man with leprosy. Only God can do that. Jesus forgave sins. Only God can do that. So since they could not bring themselves to accept this, Jesus had to spell it out for them crystal clear. It’s like Jesus is saying, “Why is your conclusion blasphemy instead of deity? Why do you think I am trying to pretendto be God? I am doing things that only God can do because I am God. Get up. Carry that thing that has been carrying you and go home.” And everyone was amazed and praised God.
Jesus heals a man who might as well have been dead – something only God can do. Then he forgives sins, something that also only God can do. At this point in the Gospel of Mark, just barely into the second chapter, we are already confronted with the truth that Jesus has authority. He has authority to speak into our lives and invite us to follow Him. He has authority to heal us and send us out to minister to others. He has authority to do what only God can do: forgive sins and restore to life those who were as good as dead. Jesus can do what only God can do.
In many ways the world is like that man with leprosy. It is sick with sin and longing to be healed and whole. The question is, will we run away from the world out of fear of being contaminated? Or will we respond to the desperate cries for healing by being the loving hands of Jesus? Will we be moved with compassion for the hurting and broken? And when they come towards us will we back away? Or will we open our arms to receive them even before they are completely whole?
The world can also be like the paralytic who needed his friends to be the ones who had the faith to carry him to Jesus. He was unable to do anything until Jesus spoke the words to him “Your sins are forgiven.” Sometimes we need to carry our broken friends, neighbors, and family members to Jesus. And sometimes that work requires tearing down roofs or walls that might be in the way. What are you willing to do to bring your loved ones to Jesus?
Finally, who are you in this story? Are you the leper who is longing to be healed as only God can do? Are you the paralytic who can’t seem to get to Jesus on your own? Are you a friend who is crying out to God for your paralytic loved one? Are you like one of the people watching, wondering or denying it’s true? Whoever you are in the story, Jesus is really and truly offering a life-changing gift to you: forgiveness and healing as only God can do.