(Audio)
Jesus teaches as one who has authority. This authority event extends over sickness. He descends from the mountain to bring his word to man. Unlike the law of Moses which merely condemned sin the word of Jesus has healing power. The leper that approached Jesus sensed the authority with which he taught. But he was unsure about his heart.
“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”
Why should someone so exalted and powerful care about us? This is a human way of thinking, but we often fall into it. We assume power in Jesus is like it is with other men. Power for them means they are so in control of their own destinies that they no longer need to bother much with compassion. Even the lip service to compassion they may give is aimed mostly at retaining their power. We project these broken images on God and assume that at his core his identity has more to do with power than with love. We need to remember that God is love (see First John 4:7), and nothing else about him can be separated from that truth.
He stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
“I will do it. Be made clean.”
The psalmist tells us that the power and the love of God are an inseparable reality.
Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love (see Psalm 62:11-12).
Because the love of Jesus is powerful, rooted in God's own power, it can overcome any barrier to receiving it. Earthly love comes up against limits like leprosy and backs down. It can't enter into the isolation and pain that such people feel. It is constrained to keep itself apart, to protect itself. But the love of Jesus is not only doesn't need to isolate and withdraw from lepers, but can even and even to touch them. Rather than being contaminated himself, the entire flow is reserved, and the leper is cleansed.
Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one,
but go show yourself to the priest,
and offer the gift that Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them.”
When we are changed by Jesus it means more to show it by our lives than by our words. Anything we might say about the power and authority of Jesus should be implicit in the very fact of the healing we have received. It is no longer the time for silence and we are not called to keep the source of our life a secret. But even so, like this former leper, our lives are meant to reveal him even when before we speak.
We might doubt the power of Jesus to heal our world. We might seem to be in a situation like the exile of Israel in Babylon. But we must not give in to despair.
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand be forgotten!
We did forget the new Jerusalem. We weren't as grateful as such a gift as the New Covenant of Jesus deserved. We failed to respond with thanksgiving and fear of the LORD. Our hands did wither and we became unable to live as the city of a hill we were meant to be, unable to reach out to others. But for us, just as for the leper, the love of Jesus has power. Even though the world can seem like a lost cause, we ourselves powerless to help, doing our best to shield ourselves from it, it is not a lost cause for Jesus. His love can break down the barriers. He can heal the wounds of sin and division. He can do it, and he wills it.
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