And then a leper approached, did him homage, and said,
“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Lord, do you really wish to cleanse me? If so, how can it be? It has been so long and I've suffered so much. Why not sooner? Yes, it appears that you have power to heal, that you do heal others, but surely I am somehow unique, someone undeserving of your love. Yes, I know that no one is deserving, yet there seem to be some who are favored, others not. Surely my past is the limit by which my future can be created. And yet I see your power moving in the world. I see the love in your eyes that excludes no one. I can tell that you know me through and through, that you knew me before you formed in in my mother's womb. You know what I have suffered, and have a profound sympathy for me. You are not indifferent to what I have experienced. And so maybe, just maybe, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Or so the leper may have thought. But the important thing is that he was able to enter this place of profound vulnerability before Jesus and to place everything in his hands. He stepped back from his own judgments and self-evaluations and entrusted himself to Jesus.
He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
“I will do it. Be made clean.”
What was the mystery of the timing that caused this man to suffer so much before finding healing? Even a question such as that was one which he had to turn over to God. He did not insist on holding the past against God as proof of a lack of love. His willingness to trust was able to overcome even his ability to understand. Did he ever have a sense that it was good that he was wounded in order that Jesus might heal him?
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes (see Psalm 119:71).
Most of us who receive healing don't always have a sense of why the suffering we endured had value. Perhaps we have become more compassionate, sympathetic to others who suffer. More than that, perhaps it opened us to being touched at a deeper level than would have been otherwise possible because of how vulnerable we were. But understanding is less important than trust. Jesus can heal us, and desires to do so. We may feel unworthy or beyond his reach. But this is the first thing he will heal if we will only put our hearts and lives in his sacred hands.
His leprosy was cleansed immediately.
Why did Abraham have to wait so long for Isaac? God wanted it to be obvious that his blessings came through faith, not through natural means, or because of any deserving on our part. And so we too must sometimes wait. But the faithfulness of God will never fail us.
I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her.
Him also will I bless; he shall give rise to nations,
and rulers of peoples shall issue from him.
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