Bible Study lesson:

Mark 1:40-45

Q. Visualize condition of the Leper.

• Rejected by family, friends, community
• Outcast from the community and city
• No one would have touched him for days. If anyone touches him, he will also become unclean.
• Leprosy is not something, you can romanticized. It is one of the most hated and rejected diseases. (Check out Jesus healing the Disabled Man at Bethesda)
• He would need physical, social, spiritual healing.
• His self-esteem would have been lost.
• According to Moses’ Law, the leper has to pass through at least 14 days of ‘cleansing’ process before he can enter the city and see Jesus.

  

Q. What does his request say about his state of mind?

• The leper was desperate and downcast. In Jesus, he saw his last rescue!
• His lack of confidence in himself – “If you are willing, you can make me clean!”
• This man would have tried everything, he could, to cure himself. But nothing could cure his decaying body.  In Jesus, he saw hope, a healer, savior who can help him out of this condition. And so he came to him kneeling and beseeching.
• It is out of such state of mind of helplessness and self-pity, he cried out. “If you are willing, you can heal me.”
• I believe that in the Kingdom of God, this is your qualification, when you realize that you are nothing in yourself, but a helpless person, who desperately need a healer and Savior.

Q. What was Jesus’ response to the leper?

• He was moved by pity, filled with compassion.
• He stretched out his hands and touch him! people around him would have been shocked to see that!
• “How can he touch him? He would also be ‘unclean’.” Some might have whispered!
• There is a reverse phenomenon here, Jesus’ touch can cleanse the ‘unclean’.
• I believe that even Jesus’ touch would have healed his soul. For what seems like a simple gesture by Jesus, was a great expression of comfort and acknowledgment, as if Jesus is saying, “I love you and care for you despite of your wounds and disrupted body and soul.”
• Jesus healed his body and soul.
• I am not going to focus today on this man’s failure to follow Jesus’ warning. I guess his joy was too great to be contained to himself. That did caused hindrances for Jesus’ public ministry.

Bible Lessons & Prayer:

This passage is the reminder that your greatest qualification in the Kingdom of God, is when you realize your own unworthiness. How often we come to Jesus without putting aside ourselves, expecting him to do great things for us. (or expecting us to do great things for him!).

More I dig deeper into this story. I find my own story of encounter with Jesus – ‘A Leper’s Story‘!

Jesus, Even you touch is so relieving and soothing to our stressed, tensed, pitiful heart and soul for it reminds me that You love me and care for me.

More Bible Study Lessons:

• Beatitudes: Blessed are Poor in Spirit – 8 Part Series
• The Sadducees and Jesus – Question about Resurrection
• Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness – Beatitudes Bible Study | 4 of 8
• Persecuted for Righteousness: Beatitudes Bible Study – Part 8 of 8
• Jesus Heals Paralytic Man | Mark 2:1-12