Jesus Wants To

Guest preacher Pastor Dan Ko from Seven Mile Road church in Malden preaches from Mark 1:40-45. Discussion points: What the leper truly needed was cleansing from his sin more than from his disease; we may know that Jesus is able to help and heal us, but we struggle to believe that he wants to; Jesus wants to heal us and give us life.

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  Scripture reader: [Mark 1:40-45] And the leper came to him, imploring him and kneeling said to him, if you will, you can make me clean. Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will, be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to any one, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them. But he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town but was out in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: All right, good morning, good morning. It's it's always great to be back here. Yeah, I've enjoyed my time with you guys. So I'm glad you guys return that favor and invite me back. So, thanks for having me. It's, it's just fun to worship with you all. It's a change of pace for me and my family. I love the vibrancy of this community. These lights are very bright. I can't, I can barely see your faces so I'm gonna do this sometimes. Yeah, if you don't know who I am, my name is Dan. I didn't know my resume was gonna come up. So thanks for that.

  But yeah, I, I have a beautiful family here father for, I think for about 13 years. Yep, 13, because the oldest one is 13, 4 kids. been married for 15. We just celebrate our 15th anniversary to my one and only Caroline over there. Let's see what else? 10 years planting a church in Malden. And for a lot of those years been doing B to B Sass. If you guys are interested in that, Not so much, I'm sure, but I, I'm really grateful for you all because I know that over the last couple of months, you have been worshiping together, continuing the mission of Jesus Church here in Somerville.

  And you've been giving a gift to Fletcher and his family as they go on sabbatical. I didn't know they were in Europe, but that's awesome. I love to hear all the fun things that happened in Europe. And I didn't know that he was gonna open up his email tomorrow. So I actually have a thought for you guys and a challenge maybe I would love for you guys to email him today, and flood his inbox and usually pastors get their, get emails that aren't so fun to read a lot of, issues and things that need to, you know, need to have some care. But what if you all just sent him an email? I don't know what his email is. What's his email? Fletcher at Fletcher at Coach church.org? I think that's right.

  Email him and just tell him that you're glad he's back. Maybe tell him something that the Lord has taught you this summer over the last couple of months or whatever, something awesome. Just welcome him back. And wouldn't it be great if he opened up his email? He just saw a bunch of emails from his as members about all the things that God has done and he just rejuvenated to, to come back and, and serve you all. So I would love for you guys to do that.

  So I wanna pray for you all. Thank you guys for giving that gift to him and his family. I wanna pray for our time together in God's word. So let's just pause and pray. Father, as we take this moment to, to be still, I pray that you would remind us that you are indeed God that you hold all things in the palm of your hand that you are indeed in control, that you are guiding all things for the good, those that love you. Pray that you would speak to us that in the still quiet room here that your voice would be the loudest that we'd hear you and hear you clearly. I pray all these things in Jesus'ss name. Amen.

  So I, I hate to do this, but I'm gonna bring you guys back to a time. So I'm gonna bring you guys back to March of 2020. OK. Get back there. Do you guys remember where you were when you saw news going wherever you were on social media, news channels about the world shutting down. so that we might curb the spread of this disease called Coronavirus. Remember where you were right? Remember the, the confusion that was settling in your soul, the fear that was settling in your soul in those early days.

  Remember the the the awkwardness of going to the grocery store that those first couple of weeks and you were masked up and face shield and gloves and I don't know, you probably had like a full on poncho or whatever you had and you had your grocery cart and you were, you were hugging the the walls to stay away from people to your left and to your right. And you, you tried your best not to sneeze or cough or any make any noise. Actually, you just wanted to be super quiet to maintain that safety. And as the months went on, you probably remember the overwhelming sense that nothing was ever going to be the same again that just everything changes.

  You remember the isolation you felt after months of being in quarantine, the loneliness, wanting to see your friends and family, this overwhelming sense that this wasn't supposed to be. I want you to hold that thought because as we get into the scriptures, as we hear about the events and the people of the scripture, sometimes they just feel so distant, right? They, they feel so distant from our present reality. It's hard to relate with the people and the events and the stories here because we just can't imagine what life was like back in Jesus's this time.

  But this morning in Mark's Gospel, as we come to a story about a leper and his healing, I think we have a bridge to feel what he's felt. I'm guessing none of us has had leprosy or has been around a leper recently. But if you've lived through the COVID pandemic, you actually have a lived experience that's hauntingly close to what it felt like to be a leper in that day. You see, because as a leper, you had to remain socially distant, it wasn't 6 ft, it was actually 50 paces from the next healthy person. You needed to maintain that distance from other people. For fear of you spreading your disease. You were quarantined in leper colonies to, to be with only the people that were affected to keep the rest of society at bay, which obviously meant that you weren't allowed to worship and gather with God's people in the temple. Right?

  There was a ban of meeting and worshiping God. Lepers were physically, socially, religiously isolated. It's because of how leprosy is spread. If you go to the CDC website as I did this week and I looked this up, leprosy spreads when a leper coughs or sneezes and a healthy person breathes in those water droplets containing the bacteria. You guys see the similarities, right? So as a leper in that day, you're required to cover your face, you, you were required to wear things that clearly show that you were sick, announcing your disease to the rest of the world so that everyone stayed away and you maintained that distance. You may, you kept in isolation so that you wouldn't contaminate others.

  You and I if you've lived through that can relate to the physical and social isolation, the loneliness and fear brought about by this disease of leprosy. But this miracle in Mark's gospel is, isn't actually about the disease of leprosy or even its eventual healing. You and I aren't supposed to read about this story and walk away believing Jesus is the true and greater dermatologist. Yes. Yes. Yes. There's a leper in the story. Yes, there's healing and yes, that fact in and of itself should leave us just astounded jaws dropped on the floor, amazed at what God is able to do.

  But that's not the point you see that because every one of Jesus's miracles points us to a far greater reality. All of Jesus's miracles point us to a far greater reality. The miracles of Jesus, in other words, is, are like a telescope, the telescope in and of itself is a marvel of engineering. Maybe some of you guys work with telescopes, but you can bend the light and magnify something that's miles away so that it appears meters in front of you. But if all you did was marvel at the telescope, you'd be missing the point because that's because the telescope is not something you're to look at and admire. The telescope is something you're supposed to look through. So you can see more clearly what it's pointing at.

  And so Jesus's miracles like a telescope are pointing to a far greater reality than what we might see on its surface. So I hope to highlight two things that I believe God shows us this morning in in the account of this leper and his healing in Mark's Gospel here. So if you're not there already mark chapter one, meet me there and we'll get into this. I want to show you two things first his heart and second our faith, his heart, and our faith.

  So first thing verse 40 and a leper came to him imploring him and kneeling said to him, if you will, you can make me clean. Moved with pity. He stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will be clean and immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. First of all, I want you to notice what the leper says to Jesus in verse 40. If you will, you can make me clean. Does anyone notice something off about what he's saying? This man is suffering from a debilitating disease and he isn't asking to be healed. He isn't requesting a medical miracle. He isn't asking for a cure. He under he is asking to be made clean clean.

  Why, why does he, why does he ask to be made clean? Well, it's because he understands the problem that he has goes far deeper than his skin disease. Jesus's miracles often have this physical element to them. It's, it involves the physical world, the body and such and it's a means to address a much deeper need. For example, if you keep reading in Mark's Gospel. The very next story in chapter two is about four men and their friend who's a paralytic and, and, and they're desperately trying to get their paralytic paralyzed friend to Jesus so that Jesus can make him whole and heal him and restore his his body to full health. But as they approach the house, that the place that Jesus is teaching in, the crowds are far too great and they can't get through. So what do they do? They, they climb the house, get onto the roof, they rip a hole into the roof. They lower down the paralytic in front of Jesus in hopes that he might be healed.

  But if you read what Jesus says, it's curious. It says when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic sun, your sins are forgiven. If you were one of the four friends who had climbed the roof or actually carried a friend, got to the house, climbed the roof, ripped a hole in the roof and dropped your friend in front of Jesus. If you went through all that trouble, wouldn't you be like? Whoa, no, no, no, no. Jesus. Jesus. I, I think there's been some misunderstanding and maybe you mistaken him for another guy. The reason why we actually did all of this and put him in front of you is because if you can't see he needs restoration in his body, he's paralyzed. We would like to go on a hike again with him.

  Now Jesus does eventually heal the paralytic, but it doesn't change the fact that Jesus is first thing he says to him, his son, your sins are forgiven. He is addressing the far greater need. This man's sin in the same way. This leper has a growing sense that it's not just my leprosy that's holding me back, but it's my sin. We know this because he says you can make me clean. He knows there's something deeply wrong with him because he uses this language of being made clean, right? You and I should be able to relate with this because when somebody curses with every word, every other word, what do we say about their mouth, they've got a dirty or filthy mouth, right? Or, or even more when we've done something wrong or bad or we know we shouldn't have done those things. We have this sense of feeling dirty.

  That's why there's this quintessential movie scene when the character, you know, has, has committed some obvious failing or committed a crime or realizes their actions are reprehensible. Where do we see them next in the shower? Right? Just, just letting the water wash over them because they feel dirty. The leper knew his deepest problem wasn't the sores on his skin. His deepest problem was a sin that was killing his soul. See this miracle through this miracle, Jesus wants us to see and realize that what we need isn't a cure. What we need is to be cleansed.

  Now, maybe you too realize this. Maybe you, you've already gotten there. You realize that your problems are far deeper than what we might see on the surface. But for some of us, our greatest barrier with God is this presumption that God doesn't really care. Yes, we believe and know intellectually that God loves us. God loves the world. God loves the church us collectively. Yes, of course. But the thing we have a hard time believing is that God loves me individually. And surely if he really knew me, he knew all the things that I hiding or going through you. He wouldn't love me.

  So I want you to notice the other thing that the leper says, he says, his question isn't dumb. Can you make me clean? No, the, the leper seems fully convinced that Jesus is able to, he can he, he says it definitively, you can make me clean. But the part that he's not yet sure about is if you will, if you will, you can make me clean. In other words, a leopard believes that Jesus has the ability to make him clean.

  But what he isn't sure of yet is if Jesus wants to, if Jesus wants to is Jesus willing to, does he have a desire to? I know he loves us, but I'm not sure he loves me. Can you guys relate with that? Maybe there's some darker dirty thing that you've never shared with anyone. Not even with God, try to hide that from Him, you keep it hidden. And because if, if anyone found out this thing about you or these this circumstance, if God brought it into light, you just know that life would never be the same again, life is over as you know it. So it weighs on you and it occasionally drags you into some dark places because it's so hard to imagine that God would ever forgive you or cleanse you or free you from this bondage. Intellectually, you know, that he could, but you have doubts that he ever will.

  Or it doesn't even have to be the deep dark secrets that we keep hidden from God and others. Some of us just have ailments. Some of us have things that are just weighing us down from everyday life. They are relational, uh, issues and friction in our marriages or stress at work or whatever it may be. But you think all of these things, they're just, you know what, they're too insignificant for God to care, you know what God's too busy. He's doing important things like healing the sick or he's saving people, you know, across on the other side of the world, he doesn't have time to deal with me and my little problems, you know, my problems, I'll just handle them, you know, eventually they'll work themselves out. I, I don't want to bother him with my problems because you know what he's dealing with bigger and better things.

  And whether you've been hiding things from God or you believe that he's, you know, preoccupied with bigger and better things. Your question is likely the same as the lepers. I know you can make me clean. But do you want to, do you want to? And if there's nothing else, you hear this morning, please. Just whatever you're distracted by right now, hear this with me, open your ears and hear this with me today, Jesus is not only able to heal you, he wants to heal you. Jesus is not only able to heal you. He wants to heal you. He desires to, he longs to, that's what he wants.

  Verse 41, moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will, be clean. No matter how big or small our problems are. They all matter to Jesus. And if you doubt whether or not he cares, please be reminded of this story about this leper. He was one lowly leper. Jesus was in the middle of Galilee doing ministry among the crowds. This no name Leper who was living in the shadows of society with this irreversible skin disease. He finds Jesus goes to him and Jesus is so moved by this one lowly leper and his, this skin disease that he touches him and cleanses him.

  This isn't some huge crowd of lepers. It's just the one. This leper wasn't some important dignitary. He had no name. The Leper had a contagious disease that could have been easily spread and transmitted with this type of proximity. But Jesus reached out and touched him. This is why the gospel is such good news. Jesus is not only able to heal you. He wants to, he wants to God is both mighty to save and full of love and compassion. The gospel isn't just about some cosmic God on the throne over the universe magically waving his hands to save everybody that would would follow him. The gospel is good news because this God comes down to us and touches each and every one of you to heal us for good. That's his heart. That's who he is.

  Now, let's look at our faith because I, if all of that sounds like good news to you, then I want you to see this one last thing about this leper. We see it in verse 40 it sounds like just some sort of narrative throwaway sentence. But I think it's important. It says that the leper came to him, imploring him kneeling before him, see the leopard disregarded all the social distancing mandates and that were placed on him and he booked all the social trends that were expected of him in his day because when you see someone that can change your life forever, you don't sit around and wait to see what happens if you see that Jesus is near and here you don't walk, you run.

  Lepers were supposed to keep the distance right? 50 paces get this. Leper came within touching distance, knelt before Jesus took every risk for him to do that. Why? Because he knew what James says letter later in his, one of his letters, he says faith without action is dead. And I believe that's what God is wanting us to see through this miracle. He wants us to have an urgency about our faith. He wants us to move to action. If you see Jesus don't walk, run, go to him. Wishful thinking will not heal positive vibes and positive thoughts will not heal. No. Instead we must come to Jesus fall on our feet before him imploring Him to heal us.

  So if you're here today and you believe that Jesus is not only able to heal and make you whole. And if you're convinced that he's willing to make you, he a whole. Would you go to him? Go to Jesus. Jesus even invites us in, in Matthew's Gospel. He says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. I I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. If you want to be cleansed, to be forgiven, to be made new, to be made whole, you must come to Jesus City on a Hill, seek the Lord today because the good news of the Gospel is so plainly laid out for us here in the Leper story.

  You see before the leper had met Jesus, he lived in isolation, separation, quarantine from the rest of the world, sick and sore with no hope. For a future, right? That was his reality. But then he comes to Jesus who is not only able to heal but willing to. Jesus cleanses him and what's his future? He is restored back to health. He is freed to go back into community, into life, into the cities. And so the great exchange takes place here, Christ gives freedom to the leper in exchange for the leper's isolation and curse, right? Jesus touches the leper. Lepers cleansed and freed to run and spread the good news even though he's told not to, but he does it anyway. He goes and gets into the city and goes among the people and is free to be who he wants to be.

  But what do we see about Jesus? But Jesus who once roamed the streets freely and freedom? What, what's the story now? He could no longer enter openly into a town. He had to leave to a desolate place like where the leper once was isolated from the crowds. The good news of the gospel is this, Jesus died, the death that we all should have died so we can have an eternal life that we did not earn nor deserve. Scripture says for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. So that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. Let's believe that together. Let's pray.

  Father. We thank you that your word is true. We thank you that your word is a light, it shines into the darkest places of our soul and gives us hope and freedom helps us to see our way out. And I pray today that your word would be that lamp unto our feet, that we would see the path to Jesus, that we wouldn't sit and wait. But we would run as if our lives depend on it because it does help us to come to Jesus and kneel before him so that we might be healed and made whole. In Jesus's name, Amen.