July 24, 2000
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Luke 5:12-15 Jesus Heals a Leper
A Lesson from a Leper
Luke 5:12-15
In this passage we see Jesus do a miracle for a leper. "It came about that while He was in one of the cities, behold there was a man full of leprosy and when he saw Jesus he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, 'Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.' And He stretched out His hand and touched him saying, 'I am willing, be clean,'" or be cleansed. "And immediately the leprosy left him and He ordered him to tell no one but go and show yourself to the priests and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded for a testimony to them. But the news about Him was spreading even farther and great multitudes were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray."
The time sequence for this encounter with the leper is unknown to us. It occurred some time in the Galilean ministry of Jesus, as He was moving around the lake. Somewhere in one of those cities around the lake of Galilee, Jesus had come into some synagogue to preach the gospel and to attend that preaching with His miracle power so that He could attest to the fact that His message was true. In one of those occasions He encounters a man, a man with leprosy and He heals the man.
Luke writes about this and many other miracles because miracles are essential to the scriptural record to identify Jesus as God. He does what man can't do. He does what doctors can't do. In fact, the miracle record of Jesus is essential to the Christian faith because these are the proofs of His supernatural divine nature. If He is not supernatural, tear up your New Testament. The Christian faith becomes inexplicable on any legitimate grounds, it's fantasy or it's outright deception. But because the miracles did happen, they are true, He is God, and He is our Redeemer.
Lepers were confined to the outskirts, but this man comes into town. Matthew tells us that he came to Jesus. He wasn't just wandering, he knew exactly to whom he was going. They were forbidden, actually, to come near anyone without the disease because of its contagion, because of its disgusting and tragic effects.
This man, Luke, had leprosy in its maximum form, he was full of leprosy...visible, frightening, ugly, isolated, destitute. They became beggars. They had no connection with anybody in society who wasn't a leper. It was a kind of living death. This man could be stoned for violating the quarantines that surrounded leprosy which were based on the Old Testament law. But at this particular point, stoning may have been relief. Jesus offered to him the only hope.
Leprosy was a very common problem in Israel. In Leviticus 13 you have long and careful prescriptions for diagnosing leprosy. God put it in His law as a way to preserve His people. Outside of Leviticus 13 there are a number of other places in the Old Testament where God says lepers have to be kept apart from other people because this is such a terribly disabling and disfiguring and deadly and contagious disease. The worst situation caused for the person to be stamped "unclean." In Leviticus 13:46, this person shall remain unclean all the days in which he has the infection, he is unclean, he shall live alone, his dwelling shall be outside the camp. Immediate, permanent isolation unless in some rare conditions the disease abated and disappeared and they could be introduced back into society.
In ancient times even God said to Israel in Deuteronomy 5:2, "If you find anybody with leprosy, put him out of the camp." And David, you know, when he wanted to curse the house of evil Joab, he said the worse thing you could possibly say in 2 Samuel 3:29, David said concerning the house of Joab, "May it never be without a leper." Being a leper was the worse imaginable condition, horribly disfiguring, horribly ugly, pockets worn into your face and your head, clawed limbs worn away, open sores, religiously isolated, socially isolated, economically isolated, no family, no job, no friends, no worship, no hope. Pretty good illustration of sin, isn't it?
In Leviticus 14 when somebody through whatever means was cured of the disease, there was a process by which the person could enter back into society. They had to go back to the priest and it was an eight-day procedure that involved amazing rites of cleansing and sacrifice. And God through the machinations of all that ceremony that lasted eight days and all those sacrifices and all those purifications and blood was put on the right finger and the right ear of the individual, and all of that, all that was showing that as serious as the disease of leprosy was, a far more serious disease existed in the heart of man and that was sin. All that whole ceremonial system, all those sacrifices for all the various reasons that they were prescribed in Leviticus were pictures of sin and the need for the cure of the heart. So even in the Old testament leprosy was a picture of sin. And there were times when God actually gave people leprosy, Naaman the Assyrian, Uzziah, the king 2 Chronicles 26, Azariah. And so, if you had leprosy not only did you have the most socially stigmatized disease possible, but you could also bear the stigma that maybe you had that disease because God had cursed you.
This is a poor, sad, tragic man, all alone and the word is going all around the Galilee that there's a great Healer here and that He's healing various diseases. That's what it says back in verse 40. Anybody with anything is getting healed. And somehow the word was spreading from leper to leper to leper. The story is pretty simple. Verse 12, "When he came...or when he saw Jesus," actually Matthew tells us he came to Jesus and saw Him. He was looking for Him. Now this was a serious breach of appropriate behavior for him, but he was desperate. That's the first point I want to make, he came with desperation. I mean, what could he lose? So he was stoned to death, that would be a relief. What could he lose? He had no more shame. He did what was unthinkable. He did what was shameless. He did what was fearless. He did what was dangerous. He did what was bold. But after all, he was desperate. He was full of leprosy. He was past his fear, he was past his shame. He was past his embarrassment. He was past his reservations.
Josephus says that lepers were to be treated as dead men. And the rabbis said that next to touching a dead body, getting near a leper was the rankest form of defilement. In Palestine in Jesus' time lepers were barred from the city of Jerusalem and any other walled city. And if a leper ever came into a synagogue, in a town or a village, he had to go to a small isolated room called a maketza[??]. He couldn't come near other people. The rabbis said they could come no closer than six feet upwind and 150 feet downwind. One rabbi said he wouldn't even eat an egg after he took the shell off of it if it was bought on a street where a leper had passed by, fearful of its contagion. Another rabbi wrote that he would throw stones at lepers to keep them away.
This man came to Jesus in desperation. He was also reverent. It says, "He saw Jesus and fell on his face." Matthew says, "Worshiping," proskuneo, that's a word used in the New Testament only for worshiping God. It doesn't tell us whether he believed Jesus was God. The body language here is the language of worship. He does call Him "Lord," it could mean "Sir," but it seems that attached to the worship here it could be more than that and perhaps he had been convinced that this man was from God. But he came with reverence. He fell on his face. He knew he was unclean filthy, wretched, ugly, disfigured and deformed. He prostrated himself acknowledging Jesus as you would a king or God.
He came with urgency. Falling on his face he implored Him, it says, that's the word for begged. Again this is irresistible to the heart of a compassionate Jesus. This man is pleading for his life. He has endured this shame, this alienation, this isolation, this suffering, this disfigurement to its maximum point. Who know how many years? He's got nowhere else to turn. He is crying out. He is pleading. He is begging.
He came with humility. He says, "Lord, if You are willing..." He didn't have any doubt about His ability, that was becoming legendary. But he was not in a position to demand anything either, that wasn't his heart. He was aware of his wretchedness, perhaps of his sin. He may well have attached his wretchedness to his sin. He doesn't come with any rights. He doesn't come making any claims on Jesus' healing power. He wouldn't have belonged to the "name it and claim it" group. There's no presumption in this man. This man has a beatitude attitude, he's hungry and he's thirsty for something he doesn't have. But he's meek and he's broken and he's poor in spirit. He understands his bankruptcy. He knows Jesus doesn't have to heal him. He has profound needs but he has no rights.
He came with faith because he said, "If You're willing you can make me clean." You can do it. No doubt You have the power. He had faith in the power of the healer. This man is a graphic illustration of how a sinner comes to Christ. He comes desperate, the end of his rope. All shame is gone. All fear is gone. There is a desperate boldness. Nowhere else to turn. No hope anywhere. The worst that can happen is maybe welcomed. If you don't heal me, I'll die. That would be better than this. This is the sinner's extremity. This is the sinner's desperation. This is the sinner pounding his breast in Luke 18.
He comes reverently, the sinner does. He comes reverently, falling on his face with no rights and desperate needs. When I talk to people about coming to Christ, I simply tell them, "You need to ask the Lord to be merciful and save you. That's up to Him." All I can tell you is if you understand the gospel, in your heart you believe it, you cry out to Him to save You. He is the sovereign and you bow humbly as that man who beat his breast wouldn't lift up his eyes but fell prostrate. That's how you come. This man is a classic analogy to the penitent sinner.
So he came. And verse 13 says, "And He being Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him saying, 'I am willing. Be cleansed," or "Be clean and immediately the leprosy left him." Mark 1:41 adds that Jesus felt compassion. And when somebody comes in true penitence to the Savior, He feels that compassion as well. That compassion came out of that man's genuineness. Jesus could see his desperation. He could see his reference. He could see his urgency. He could see his humility. He could see his faith. And He healed him. That's like the desperate sinner.
He healed this man. He heals him, stretching out His hand touched him. He did this very often. When Jesus healed, He healed with a touch. Contrary to Leviticus 5:3 which says never touch a leper, Jesus stepped right past that law because when He touched him he wasn't a leper anymore. The touch was compassion, yes, but it was also connection because it was very clear when the healing came whose hand was on him. It was also clear who the Healer was.
Jesus not only healed with a touch, we'll see that again in Luke 7:13 and in chapter 18 and finally in chapter 22, and other places in the gospels where Jesus touched people...not just compassion but connection to make sure that people knew where the power was flowing from. And He also healed not only with a touch but with a word. "I am willing, be cleansed." That's all it took. "Be clean...be cleansed." Sovereign love responded with sovereign power and He spoke that healing into reality.
The miracles of Jesus were creative. We talk about them and perhaps we think of them as restorative, and there is certainly a restorative element, but essentially the miracles of Jesus were creative. If, for example, the forehead was worn away and there was a great cavity in the head, there was a new skull, there was new tissue. And if the eyes were sunken or rubbed away, there were new sockets created. And if the brows were gone, as they do in the initial stages, and the eyelashes were gone, they were created in that instant. And if the bloody limbs were clawed and worn off, there were new arms and legs, fresh skin. Whatever was wrong on the inside disappeared and healthy organs replaced them. And maybe even had gotten some new teeth which could well have been ground down to almost nothing.
It says at the end of verse 13, "And immediately the leprosy left him." Jesus' miracles are by a word, by a touch, instant, complete and works of creation. And now it was a new day. Like the sinner who comes and is cleansed, this man could reenter society. There would be new relationships, all those lost relationships, and now he could go back to family, friends, make new friends, meet new people and he could reenter a social world, a world of his people.
But before he did that Jesus had something to say to him, verse 14. "And He ordered him to tell nobody." That is tough. There's a reason. "But go and show yourself to the priests, make an offering for your cleansing just as Moses commanded for a testimony to them." There is in the Old Testament, Leviticus 14, a prescribed way for the leper who is cured to get back into society clearly laid out by Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God when He gave the ceremonial law to Israel. Leviticus 14 says this is what you have to do, it was the priests in chapter 13 who did the diagnosis and it is the priests in chapter 14 who have to affirm the cure. So He says, "Before you just go running off telling everybody, you need to do what's right so that the healing can be affirmed and that you can have the certificate that was given at the end of the eight days." It may well be that he had to go to Jerusalem for this, that would take a few days, a few days down, eight days there, a few days back. Not only would he be doing what the law of Moses prescribed and making a very important testimony to the priests about the power of Jesus, but he would be buying Jesus some time because a miracle of this massive kind would just generate more crowds, more people and become potentially debilitating for Jesus. So He says don't tell anybody, that's so hard.
You go to the priests, you go through the prescription indicated in Leviticus 14, and it was a quite interesting one. Two birds were taken and killed over running water and there are some cedar and scarlet and hyssop and the bird, the dead bird is wrapped in that, and it's a very interesting cleansing ceremony. The man washes himself, he washes his clothes. He has to go in and get everything shaven so they have a clear view of all of his head. He has to offer certain sacrifices. There was two male lambs, there was a ewe lamb, there were at least three animal sacrifices and other offerings that he had to give, flour mingled with oil and then the blood was sprinkled on him and so was the oil. All of this and leprosy was this graphic illustration...I mean, if you had leprosy you had to go through all of this cleansing and God was saying...and you've got a much deeper problem that requires a much more profound cleansing. So all the ceremonial system and sacrificial system pointed to the need for the cleansing from sin. But the man had to go through this and it would be a testimony to the priests. "Them" at the end of the verse, I think, refers to the priests. "For a testimony to them." Go down there, let them do this and when you get all through this and they say, "You don't have leprosy anymore, it's gone," and, of course, he could give them the story of his life and what it had been like and all of that, and then they would say, "How did you get like this?" And he could say, "Jesus did this," and this would be a great testimony also of Jesus to the priests. Also, as I said, it would buy Jesus a little time.
I don't know whether the man even made an effort to do what Jesus told him because in Mark 1:45 it says, "But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and spread the news about." The Galilean grapevine was very efficient and word spread rapidly. And He couldn't go into any town, He was literally, totally overcrowded, couldn't function. "So He stayed out...it says in Mark 1:45...in unpopulated areas and they were coming out to Him from everywhere." The city was just too much. The buildings, He had to stay out in the open areas where they could get around Him. Luke doesn't tell us what Mark tells us about the man's disobedience. But Luke does tell us, back to verse 15 of Luke 5, the news about him was spreading even farther and great multitudes were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.
In order to sustain His power and His ministry, verse 16 says, "He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray." That too is wonderfully human, isn't it? Wonderfully human. "He was in all points tempted like as we are." Though He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, He was in every sense touched with the feelings of our infirmities. And He needed communion with the Father.
"Pray" here is kind of a habit of Jesus. He kept His connection with the Father. Astonishing power, tantamount to ending the AIDS epidemic by healing everybody who had the disease. That's what He did. Now could you imagine...people think, "Well, if the Lord would just come and heal everybody, everyone would believe." Really! He banished disease from the land of Israel and they killed Him. But some did believe and they came spiritually, like this man came, not to be healed of a disease but to be healed of sin. Salvation is so vividly illustrated here. The man had the worst human condition, wretched, disfiguring, incurable, dominating, isolating, deadly. He knew his condition. He knew there was only one person who could change it. He came desperately. He came reverently. He came urgently. He came humbly. He came trustingly. And the sincere heart was met by the compassionate Lord and grace and power exploded upon that man's life so that he was recreated. And then he was called to obedience, and to witness. As I said, that's a pretty irresistible analogy of salvation, isn't it? The sinner is far more desperate than that who has a far more deadly disease than that, far more disfiguring. The Savior comes to save sinners.
If you've come to that point in your life where you're like this man, in the spiritual sense, you've reached the level of desperation where you will fall on your face reverently before the only soul-healer, and urgently and humbly ask Him to cleanse you, believe me, with a word and a touch He'll recreate you. That's it, sinner. Jesus could heal physical diseases, but only really as evidence that He was the soul healer who cleanses from sin. He'll cleanse you if you come like this man came.
