Jesus In Galilee
Mark 1: 35-45
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The New
Testament Witness of the Apostle
Peter |
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As we consider the passage before us, let us note well that as The Bible Background Commentary records - that more than the usual amount of sick and helpless were in the Galilee region because of the hot springs which were thought to relieve a variety of ailments. This type of medical tourist trade has been common all throughout history. When World War One broke out, a key allied general was taking the baths inside Austria. Gallantly, the Austrian government allowed him to return to his homeland of Serbia where he went on to fight them to a standstill. Taking the baths were once popular even in this country as well. Once popular resorts at the turn of the century are now often fairly vacant. The corn flakes of popular breakfast food were once touted as a health food in one such resort in Michigan.
So by geography and habit, the Creator God provided the necessary audience to seek His only Son when the miraculous healings began. Now, you and I realize that very many health conditions can be cured with aspirin and the power of suggestion. However, the scriptures are clear in their indication that even an uncurable disease such as leprosy was well within the curative powers of the Master's merciful hand. So popular was the healing ministry of Jesus that He can hardly find time to be alone for prayer.
We don't realize it today, but the village cultures that were common up to the beginning of this century did not have the livable luxury that we are accustomed to today. The homes in Galilee were small one room cottages, with an open roof for sleeping in warmer conditions. Sometimes a dozen people might live in space that we would consider crowded for three or four. My small study at home which is twenty foot square would have been considered a large structure in the colonial period. The first church building for my home church was only five feet squarer in its dimensions. How we meet on a Sunday morning in our tiny sanctuary would have been most common throughout the most of history. In fact, a few years ago, one of our visitors to our former sanctuary in White Hall noted that they knew what it meant to worship in a New Testament setting!
In small rural communities where manual labor was much more the rule than it has been for decades in our country, there were few places where shepherds, wood gatherers and hunters did not cover. So heavy was once the hand of those who struggled to put food on the table and fire in the stove, that our own areas were much more known and administered a hundred years ago than today. I am told by the older people in my area that there is a vast increase in the number of trees and unfarmed land today than at the time of the Civil war. The deer and the other wildlife in Ohio was extremely scarce at the end of the Colonial period. And only in the last thirty years have they returned in numbers large enough to be a concern. I can even remember when sighting a deer was a rare event. Groundhogs were only known by rumor, because the horsemen hunted them viciously because a groundhog hole could break a horse's leg.
And so, the area around Galilee which was heavily settled left very few hills and vales where a person could literally disappear. We notice that the disciples were easily able to find Christ in their neighborhood. When they remind Him that the people are searching for Him, He suggests that they go on to another village. These villages were probably about seven miles apart like they are in our rural areas. In particularly crowded areas, the villages could be even half that distance apart. Most of Europe is now so densely settled that the "fortified" villages on the north German plain were carefully sited so that small armed weapons can easily be sighted between the villages. The inter-village traffic could easily keep people notified of where Jesus was preaching and healing. Town to Town the spiritual and healing revival appeared and spread.
The leper in our record, heard and came to see Jesus. "If You are willing, You can make me clean," are the humble words of the diseased leper. Isn't that a different attitude towards healing than we are used to! We would probably find this attitude in the third world where people have to travel in search of a doctor. But in our jaded HMO practicality, willingness to heal is practically lost in the increasing right to medical care. So overwhelmed are our emergency services with unnecessary cases that sometimes real needs are accidentally missed in the clamor of the sick to be heard. I was once in an emergency room and saw a drunken lout demanding attention that fully a dozen more serious cases were kept temporarily waiting. And so, we can understand the psychology (if I may use that fallen word) of those who came in their great numbers for an uncommon cure to their common ails. So huge were the crowds that Jesus continually stayed on the move and often sought a refuge for prayer and rest.
But, still the Author of life, the Great Healer, the First Teacher of heaven and earth cared deeply for those in real need. Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man with words that recognized the man's deepest need. "I am willing; be cleansed." Now leprosy was a dirty contagious disease which the common people dreaded like the plague. Lepers were kept out of the villages and by law and habit had to live on the edge of society. Whenever they ran into the ordinary folk, a wide breadth was taken around them, not only for health but for the unsanitary, unwashed and unperfumed realities of the condition.
The term stinking sinner, once used by earlier generations had a real connotation here in the Greek words before us. So striking is the reaction of Christ in this healing scene that we should give it more than passing notice. Our hospitals today are well endowed with methods and materials to cover over the stench once associated with disease and the cleanliness next to godliness has almost an equally overwhelming aroma as that once associated with the unclean, unwashed, unhealed sinners. Early in my ministry I was in the homes of several poor families and it was a different experience. You could hardly reach out your hand and shake theirs, let alone have to tend to their needs if nursing were your ministry.
Yet, here is the Lord of all the earth showing us by example how the homeless sinners should be treated in respect and sympathy. "He touched me" is the focus of more than one sentimental spiritual song in the collection of Christian literature. Me, in the words of generations gone by, me the stinking sinner stained by the prison house of sin. Some of my friends who served in Southeast Asia could easily testify that you could smell the worst areas of a city and that alone should have warned many of the social diseases that lurked in the shadows. Do we see here in the frailty of a fallen world the stinking sin that a holy sinless Son of God must abhor? Spiritually, we are all like this physically impaired leper. And like Him, we have come to the Holy One of Israel and pleaded our case -
"If you
are willing, You can make me clean."
Notice the instructions that Jesus gives to the leper. "Be quiet about this!" "Go and fulfill the offerings of the law of Moses so that your testimony may be in accord with them." Once or twice, I have been able to apply a limited common sense to physical ills. The people involved were surprised that I could guess what the cure should be. Thankfully, those minimal contacts were not glorified because I am certain that I could not duplicate that wisdom repeatedly! However, there are a few "faith healers" who besides getting lucky in their diagnosis once or twice suddenly decide that they have the same gift of healing that Christ and His disciples realized in the prayerful power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in them, their day and place! It is not for us in our time to duplicate and spread abroad, except in those rare instances where the Lord chooses, like Christ in this scene to work a miracle of intuition leading on to the proper treatment and recording of that cure.
But, what does the leper do with His instruction? He heeds not the word of Christ, but loudly proclaims the miraculous healing so that Jesus finds it more and more difficult to do the preaching work for which He came. Yes, our medical missionaries do indeed go to the ends of the earth to gain the attention of the sick and the lost, but we like Christ dare not forget our primary goal of sharing the Good News that Christ is not only able to heal but more importantly able to save! Still they came and sought Him out, the hidden places in the countryside were not sufficient to hide him from the tourist crowd who would be healed for this life alone!
Ah - and there is an important rub for our modern age! How desperately the baby boomers would seek immortality and a life where they could remain ever young, ever bold and ever sinful! Heal me, cure me, save me for this passing life. Hardly a moment's interest beyond mere mortality. This life to live, a passing glory not even realized. Eternity is where the Son of God lives, the time He spent here was only thirty-three years. And our culture cannot see beyond the grave, death is an enemy that medical science can one day cure. If we can just live long enough - whatever ails us can be cured? And so our generation comes not as stinking sinners longing to be saved for eternity, but to have our tummy tucks, our wrinkles straightened, an equal opportunity access to viagra and all the vain worldly things which seem to charm us most.
The reality of a millennial crossing may make some few believers, especially if times are even remotely trying. May we hope and pray that in the coming months, the Lord of Life will give us opportunity to witness to stinking sinners such as we, so that we may point them beyond the present and passing age to the Age to Come and to the Lord of Life who is willing, not only to save us, but all who come to Him in humility and ask "If You are willing, You can make me clean." Amen, Lord Jesus come in Your Spirit to cleanse the hearts of many and bring them all who must be called to glory in Your Name, Amen.
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Resources Used | |
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Cole, Alan. |
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Mark. |
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Keener, Craig S. |
The IVP Bible Background Commentary:
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Morrison, A.W. |
Calvin's New Testament
Commentaries: |
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The New
Geneva Study Bible (NKJV) | |
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Mrk01d |
07 November 99 |