The Touch of Your Hand

Today’s passage is Mark 1:40-45. With an open mind and a humble heart, read this passage and see what sticks out to you in this passage.  Is there a verse, a phrase, or a lesson you think the Holy Spirit may be highlighting for you in this passage?  After you’ve thought about the passage yourself a bit, read the GAME sharing below.  Let’s go!

Mark 1:40-42 (NIV)
⁴⁰  A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”
⁴¹  Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”
⁴²  Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

On verses 40-42:  When the leper cried out to Jesus for help, Jesus showed that he was full of compassion as well as the power to heal.  What touches me most is the way Jesus healed this leper: he touched him.

In Jesus’ time, lepers were the untouchables of society.  Lepers were not allowed to touch anyone and no one was to touch them.  Yet when the leper cried out to Jesus for help, Jesus reached out and touched the leper.  Could you imagine how that leper must have felt when Jesus touched him?  That touch from Jesus was likely the first time the leper felt a loving touch in years, maybe decades, maybe ever.  Jesus could have spoken out his healing from a safe physical distance.  Instead, he touched the leper, and in so doing not only effected the leper’s physical healing, but his emotional healing as well.

Most people would think that “if I touch this leper, I will get sick too.”  Jesus thought, “if I touch this leper, I can make him well.”  I love how Jesus comes to meet us in that very place where we are hurting or in need.  Just one touch from Jesus can change an entire life.

Mark 1:43-44a (NIV)
⁴³  Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning:
⁴⁴  “See that you don’t tell this to anyone…

On verses 43-44a:  The fact that Jesus warns this former leper not to tell anyone about this miracle tells us a number of things, one of them being:  Jesus didn’t just do miracles to show off.  Rather, Jesus performed miracles because he genuinely loved the people he was doing them for and had compassion for them.

Mark 1:44b (NIV)
⁴⁴ …But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

On verse 44b:  Why did Jesus tell the former leper to show himself to the priest and offer sacrifices for his cleansing?  It’s because unless the former leper was examined and cleared by the priest, he would still be socially ostracized and considered an outcast.  So in order that this former leper could be included back into society, Jesus tells the former leper to have a priest examine him.  It goes to show that Jesus cares not just for the restoration of our physical bodies, or our emotional healing, but also wants us to live in healthy relationship with others too.  Jesus knows that we don’t just need physical health, but we also need to belong to a community.

Mark 1:45 (NIV)
⁴⁵  Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

On verse 45:   Jesus had sternly warned the former leper not to spread the news about his healing, but the former leper didn’t listen, and the consequences were real: Jesus could not move freely through a town anymore but had to stay outside in lonely places.  What can we learn from this?  When we don’t heed Jesus’ warnings, when we don’t obey Jesus’ commands, we make it harder for God’s kingdom to advance in and through our lives so that other people can be blessed.  God will still find a way to do His work, but it will not be less because of us and more in spite of us.

Jesus, thank You for being the One who heals me and restores me in every way – physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially.  Thank You that just one touch from You can change my entire life.  In Jesus’ name, AMEN!