Mark 1:32-45 Cleansing Touch

First Things: Devotions in Mark’s Gospel

Mark 1:32-45 Cleansing Touch

We are given a summary of Jesus’ ministry in a concentrated space for a concentrated period of time. He ministers to scores of people, healing and casting out evil spirits. Men, women, children - all kinds of people come flooding to Him from the surrounding areas. The news of it must have spread like wildfire. 

And so it is surprising that only one single encounter is mentioned in detail: that of Jesus and the man with leprosy.

Mark 1:40   And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” ⁴¹ Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” 

When we were young, one of the things that our mothers taught us was to avoid touching unclean things. You can make your own list of prohibited touches. This probably did not apply to your situation, but if lepers had been in your area, you would surely have been told, don’t touch the lepers.

For the Jewish people of the 1st century, the prohibition of touching things unclean was even more severe. Not only did you risk contamination yourself,  - and that was bad enough - but it also would make you ceremonially unclean, and thus not able to participate in certain religious activities. Jesus, regarded as a rabbi, certainly knew this, but, regardless, he reached out and touched the leper anyway.

So how does this normally work? Let’s say you have really, really clean hands. And then you go to the grocery store and push the shopping cart that has the last person’s nasty bacteria all over it. Surely your cleanliness cleanses the handle of the shopping cart, right? Do you leave it in better condition than it was before? Are you in better condition than you were before? Or let’s say you are perfectly healthy, and your friend comes down with the vomiting flu. So you give him a big kiss on the lips, right? Since your extra clean, absolutely healthy condition will heal theirs? Well, that’s all foolishness. It kind of makes me sick just to think about it.

So do we get the wonder of this, that somehow, Jesus, the Clean One, touches the leper, the unclean one - and somehow, the cleanness of the Clean One overwhelms the contamination of the unclean one? Contrary to all of nature, Jesus’ Person; Jesus’ touch; cleanses the unclean.

And further, what we find in this amazing story - this story alone of all the other stories that could have been told on this day in this place - is that Jesus was willing, and able, to do what no other person would, or could, do - to extend the cleansing touch. And he offers that touch to you and me as well.