Mark 1:41

STRENGTH AND SYMPATHY

‘And Jesus … touched him.’

Mark 1:41

There is a terrible disease of which we, in England, happily know nothing, the disease of leprosy. The leper can only be described as a broken, helpless, hopeless man. A leper came to Jesus. He had doubtless heard of Him and of His wonderful cures, for he kneels down before Him and says, ‘If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.’ He had cured others. He had cast out devils, He could, if He would, cure the leper. It is easy for us to say so; it was a very different thing for a leper to say so.

I. Look at the man’s faith.—People puzzle over this word ‘faith.’ What does it mean? How are we to get it? Have we got it? See this leper. ‘Jesus has cured others,’ he says; ‘He can cure me. I will go and ask Him.’ That is faith, to believe in the power of Christ and to go and ask Him to help us. It was a wonderful faith, and yet, observe, it was a very imperfect faith. ‘If Thou wilt, Thou canst.’ He was sure of the power, but he was not sure of the will.

II. The Lord’s touch.—What does the Lord do? The very last thing that the leper would have hoped or dared to ask. He touches him. No hands but leper hands had touched that man for long years past. His own mother dare not touch him. What did that touch mean? It meant that the Lord’s will was as ready as His power. He touches him; then He is willing. Before He speaks a word, He touches him. He changes the man’s whole faith towards Him. He completes his faith. He believes now in His will to help him as well as in His power. That touch has told him already what the words go on to explain to him, ‘Be thou clean.’ And straightway the leprosy went out of him, and he was made clean. It was the same power come into play again, and with the same result. It carried everything before it; but observe the new lesson which this story gives us. He must get into perfect sympathy with the man. He must, as we say, come into touch with him before He can help him.

III. Strength and sympathy.—This narrative reveals to us a new feature of the character and work of Jesus Christ. It shows us that His strength was equalled by His sympathy. Mere power never yet reached the heart of man. Strong characters are often unsympathetic, just as gentle characters are often weak; but here is strength, perfectly blended with gentleness, arousing in hearts that have long been dead to hope the response of a living trust. The power of Christ had been enough to stir the hope in the leper’s heart, enough to bring him to exercise faith and kneel before the Lord, but his faith was not the full confidence of perfect trust. It brought him to the feet of Jesus, and then the utterly unexpected thing happened. He touched him. So his faith was completed, and a new life raced through his blood and drove disease before it and restored him to perfect health.

IV. This is the very Gospel.—This miracle of healing is a parable of our life, of its leprosy and its defilement, its failures, its disappointment. The Divine power cannot but terrify us, the Divine power and the Divine purity are even more terrible together. They plunge us into the deep abyss. The Divine love must be manifested as well in such a way as to awaken a response of trustfulness. God must be seen in perfect sympathy with man. Out of the heaven of heavens, He must come to get near to man on the earth. The Son of God became the Son of Man. He did not despise the Virgin’s womb, the manger-cradle, the carpenter’s shop, and then, when He went forth to seek for whom He would save, He found him leprous and broken-hearted. He put forth His hand and He touched him.

—Dean J. Armitage Robinson.

Illustration

‘It is related in the legend of Count Fulc the Good, how that, journeying along the Loire towards Tours, he saw a leper full of sores, who put by his offer of alms and begged to be borne to the sacred city. Amid the gibes of his courtiers, the good count lifted him in his arms and carried him along bank and bridge. As they entered the town, the leper vanished from their sight, and men told how Fulc had borne an angel unawares. In many an old legend a kindred truth is embodied. We are never so like Christ as when we are kind and pitiful to some of God’s needy children.’