The Great Family Physician

Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Parents are amazing, really. From the time the first child is born until the last child is able to utilize a toilet and navigate to it in the middle of the night on her own without calling for help, parents are called on countless times to deal with body issues (pun intended) that would turn the stomach of a childless person. Besides dealing with mind boggling numbers of dirty diapers, I cannot tell you how many times I was up in the middle of the night with a sick child cleaning the results of stomach flu or diarrhea off of them, off the bedding and off the floor. Yet I also cannot remember one time when, faced with a smelly gross mess, I had any desire to turn away from my child and let him or her wallow in the sickness and the muck. I might not have enjoyed the smelly mess but it in no way affected my love and concern for my child or my desire to be with the child. In fact, my concern and desire to comfort and be present to that child was heightened by their illness. There is nothing more heart wrenching than a sick child.

Those of you who have no children may remember times as a child when you were so ill and your mother or father sat with you, cleaned up your messes, spoke gently to you and brought you little treats to make you feel better.

Quite often we are encouraged to relate to ourselves as the leper in this Gospel passage and to see ourselves as the untouchable one whom Jesus saves. But, just for a moment, instead of putting yourself in the lowest place, put yourself in Jesus’ sandals.

A leper was repulsive, unclean and dangerous to be around. Open sores and missing body parts made a leper a horror to look at. No one was allowed to go near a leper and they especially were not allowed to touch them. Most people would have found the idea of touching a leper repugnant anyway. But Jesus chose to touch the leper – because he wanted to.

“Such a kind man.” We might think. Well, it wasn’t just an act of detached pity that made Jesus reach out and touch the leprous man. To Jesus, this leper was not a repulsive, filthy, distorted person; this leper was his beloved sick child. Jesus loved this man and he could no more turn away from him than parents can turn away from their sick and helpless children. Can you understand the love now?

There are times when you feel leprous inside, as if all your faults and failings and disabilities have caused open sores on your spirit. There are times of great discouragement in your life because it seems like the more you try to control your failures the more they get away from you. Like the person with leprosy, the sores of your inadequacies just keep appearing and eating away at you. It just doesn’t feel like Jesus would be particularly happy to keep company with someone who has such a diseased and disabled spirit. Yes, you know that he loves you and forgives you but does he really want to be with you? Does he like to be with you?

Tell me who made the hearts of parents? We need not be overly sentimental here. A parent's heart isn’t always the epitome of patience, mercy and love. Parents get tired and worn out and snap when they're pushed too far and have moments of resentment and even desperation but when they have a sick little baby in their arms, a baby or a toddler who’s burning up with fever and can’t keep food down, the kind of patience and deep concern that fills their hearts comes straight from the heart of God. They don't blame the child for being sick. They are just so sorry for the child for being the victim of whatever virus or disease she is fighting. They do not walk away from the child saying, “When you get over this illness and when you’ve cleaned up your messes, come and see me.”

Sin is an illness. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’ He doesn’t hold himself back from us when we are ill of spirit, mind and heart. He comes because we are sick. He is burning the midnight oil at our sides, cooling the fever, cleaning up the messes. He stays with us until we are better even if that takes until the breaking of the dawn. He will never leave us or get upset if we don’t seem to be getting better. He is also a physician so he knows much better than we do that we are on the mend. Jesus can see what we can’t.

He did not come to earth to condemn it; he came with mercy - and did you know that the Hebrew word for mercy actually means the quality of love felt by a mother nursing her child? That's powerful love. If you’re feeling sick inside, let him nurse you back to health. Your sickness is not what breaks his heart, it’s when you don’t let him in to take care of you because you’re ashamed of being sick.

Can you imagine how heartbreaking it would be to go into the room of a sick child only to see the child frantically trying to clean up the vomit on the floor because he's afraid his parents will be angry and disappointed with him for being sick or that they won't want to be with him because he's so sick. God sees this in us all the time. When this happens in a natural family, we say that the parents are dysfunctional for creating that kind of fear and anxiety in a child. Yet, when we fear God will be angry or disappointed with us over our inner illnesses, we don't stop to think that we are attributing to him the characteristics of a dysfunctional parent.

Perhaps the problem is that you just don't want to be his sick child. You want to be whole, healthy and saintly – one who has got all your inner illnesses well under control. Well, good luck with that. If you are a human being, you are ill. You are broken and you need mending. Don't you see? That's the beauty of it. Christ comes joyfully to you in your brokenness and illness. He doesn't come to you out of reluctant obligation; he chooses eagerly to dine with you, to sit with you and to touch the most leprous parts of your spirit just as he chose to touch the leper and to eat with publicans, prostitutes and sinners.

If you're unwilling to fit in with the sick, the addicted, the sinful and the marginalized then you'll miss out on the wondrous company of the compassionate Christ.

Because that's where he is. Because that's where he chooses to be.