Man on a Mission: If You Are Willing...
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Matthew 8:1-4 (NIV)
1 When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” 3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
Completing the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has already verified himself as an unparalleled moral teacher within the annals of men. However, He is not content to simply be known as a sage or another spiritual guru. Matthew now begins to record the miracles of Jesus, which authenticate His divine origin and subsequent mission. In doing so, Jesus addresses the stumbling block of suffering, validates our need for healing, and clearly ratifies the inclination of God toward our condition.
The Stumbling Block of Suffering
Our response to God isn't always so much an intellectual one as it is an emotional one, trying to comprehend and process the realities of life that we endure. This, undoubtedly, includes suffering of various types that we see around us, including, but not limited to, the incessant weight of physical or emotional distress.
This leprosy was not the man's choice.
We often get trapped in the discussion of why suffering exists in the first place. We enter into the philosophical debate, which either says that, "If God is good and unable to heal, then He is not all powerful," or, "if God is all powerful and does not heal, He is not good." What Jesus came to demonstrate is that God is both omnipotent and benevolent. Over and over Jesus demonstrates that there is a meta narrative far beyond our reasoning capacities, and God will not resign to fitting into a box of the cursory interpretation of life's circumstances.
What we can not say is that God enjoys suffering, because He entered into human suffering to put an end to it. He asked to be relieved of it in Gethsemane.
What we can not say is that He is a god who does not care or understand, because He promises a now present and coming kingdom where He destroys death, suffering, and pain.
Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4 NIV)
Our Need For Healing
“One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.” ― John Lennon
The lepers in Jesus' day
The word used for leprosy was one that referred to a variety of skin diseases. Many of the skin disorders were considered highly contagious and made it necessary for those suffering from the illness to be examined by the priests. According to Levitical law (Leviticus 13-14), for the protection of the rest of the community, if found leprous, the infected individual would be isolated from the community, be required to wear torn clothes, cover the lower half of their face, and be forced to cry, "Unclean, unclean!"
The form of leprosy with which we are most familiar is Hansen's disease found most often in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Pacific Islands. It results in skin sores, nerve damage, and muscle weakness that escalates over the course of time. It was most debilitating, because, with this illness, because of the internal nerve damage, you could not tell when you were being hurt or burned. This led to injuries which would get infected over the course of time and lead to the loss of parts of the body. What a parallel this is to our spiritual condition.
“Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
This is not so with Jesus, because He sees it all.
Many of us are good at hiding our suffering, yet the things that drive us in life are many times not only our ambitions, but our pains. Many of these were picked up along the way and play themselves out as insecurities, an inability to find peace in the quiet of our own company, or an inability to relate without a co-dependent manner with the world around us. Whether we admit it or not, we are in need of healing, much like the leper. More often than we'd like, we wear our need on our sleeves. Whether we like it or not, we show our deficiencies. These things do not make you altogether weak, they make you human and in need of a savior. Jesus reaching out to touch the man after years of isolation and disgrace shows His ardent pursuit of each one of us and His heart to touch both our bodies and emotions. As in the case of AA, you have to admit there is a problem before you can get help.
When we are honest with ourselves, we know that we are, or at least the world is, in need, and we want there to be a god who can help. At this point, it is not simply about theories or philosophy; we need a real encounter with a living god who can save. Yet the question still remains with us, "Is He willing to help?"
The Inclination of God
Many of us have become so used to the unhealthy or crippled state in which we find ourselves that we dare not approach God for a change. Some of us realize our brokenness and, like the leper, cry out "Unclean, unclean!" not because we want to get well, but because of the attention that it garners us. Others of us are unaware of our disease, but see all of the indicators of it by the way that others treat us. Instead of always blaming someone else for your condition, it may be time to take ownership and responsibility, and come to Jesus to be made whole. The leper had enough of the isolation.
The word that Jesus uses for "willing" in the Greek was transliterated "Thelo," which means to wish or desire, implying an active volition and purpose. It means endeavoring in love, to be inclined towards something, what one chooses, likes and presses on to perform.
Eventually we must understand that it is not a matter of whether or not Jesus is willing to heal, but whether or not we are willing to approach and believe Him for a miracle, if YOU are willing.
There is an interesting parallel in John 5:1-15:
To verify the healing, the leper would have had to show up in a place that was potentially loaded with traumatic memories and pain. It is possible that the last time that he was vulnerable enough to go to the temple was the same time that he was turned away, diagnosed as unclean, and sent into isolation. Last time, he only met the servant of God, but this time, he has met Jesus, the healer, and He tells him to go back and reengage that which previously put him on the outside, because now he has been pronounced clean by Him.
Jesus, in saying "I am willing," is communicating His place in the aforementioned narrative. This is not a self-help program, rather it is the living God who comes to restore you in relationship to Himself and has supernatural power to heal.
One thing that can not be overlooked is that Jesus sends the leper immediately back into the community of believers as a part of his healing. Many of us are used to isolation or the sin of radical individualism, but, it is time, if you are going to be a part of Jesus' story, to let that go. You see it as a constant theme in Scripture that to walk with God is to walk with His people: to know and to be known.
After the healing, Jesus commands that the man go offer the gift prescribed by the law as a testament to the healing. To re-enter society, the priests had to confirm that the healing took place and would offer thanks to God from whom the healing came. His desire is the same for us today in a three-fold manner. We are to know that God wants His work in our life to be tested and verified, whether physically, emotionally, or relationally. He does a real and complete work. Secondly, he wants us to offer our gifts in a response of thanks for all that He has done to restore our lives. Finally, we are to reengage community through which we walk out our healed life while giving testimony to others that God can have mercy on them as well. The Christian is an envoy of this message, because they have first experienced this reality.
“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering. 'The cross of Christ ... is God’s only self-justification in such a world” as ours....' 'The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak; they rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.” ― John R.W. Stott, Cross
Second City Church- Man On A Mission Sermon Series 2013