Adam Faithful on X @Adam_FaithfulM
The law told him exactly how to live.
Leviticus 13:45. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
Torn clothes. Uncovered head. Face covered to the lip. And everywhere he went, he had to shout his own condition so people could get out of his way.
Verse 46. He shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.
Alone. Outside.
Imagine years of that. Walking toward a village and calling out the worst thing about yourself so mothers could pull their children away. Watching people cross the road. Never a handshake. Never an embrace. Never a hand on your shoulder.
Luke, the doctor, gives the diagnosis. Luke 5:12. A man full of leprosy.
Not a patch. Full.
And this man walked up to Jesus anyway, which he was not allowed to do, and fell on his knees.
Mark 1:40. If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
Read that sentence slowly.
He didn’t say if you can. He knew He could. He’d heard what Jesus was doing in Galilee.
His question wasn’t power. It was willingness.
You can. But do you want to? Would you want to – for someone like me?
That’s the question underneath almost every prayer that never gets prayed.
Now watch the order.
Mark 1:41. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.
He touched him first.
Then He spoke.
The touch came while the man was still full of leprosy. Before he was clean. Before he was safe to touch.
Under the Law, that touch should have made Jesus unclean. Instead, the uncleanness ran out of the man.
But here’s the detail most people miss.
Jesus didn’t have to touch him.
Turn the page in Matthew. Matthew 8 puts the leper first – verses 1 to 4. And the very next story, verse 5, is a Roman centurion whose servant is paralysed at home.
The centurion says, Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
Jesus does. From a distance. Never sees the servant. Never touches him. The servant is healed the same hour.
Same chapter. Back to back. One healed with a word from miles away. One healed with a hand.
Jesus could have healed the leper from across the road. He could have shouted it. He could have pointed.
He chose to touch him. Because the leprosy wasn’t the only thing that needed healing.
How long had it been since anyone had laid a hand on that man?
Now go back to the Old Testament, because there’s a reason everyone stared.
In the whole Old Testament, leprosy is almost never cured. When the king of Aram sent his general Naaman to the king of Israel to be healed, the king tore his clothes in panic.
2 Kings 5:7. Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy?
Healing leprosy was something only God could do.
Jesus said it Himself. Luke 4:27. Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
And look at how Naaman was healed. The prophet Elisha didn’t even come out of the house. He sent a servant to the door with instructions.
Naaman was furious. 2 Kings 5:11. Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place.
Naaman wanted the prophet to come out and put his hand on him.
Elisha wouldn’t.
Eight hundred years later, Jesus did exactly what Naaman wanted and never got. He came out. He stood. He put His hand on the man.
Greater than Elisha is here.
Now the ending, because it’s the part nobody preaches.
Jesus told the man to go to the priest quietly. He didn’t. Mark 1:45. He went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter.
And look what happened.
Insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places.
Read it again.
At the start of the story, the leper lives outside – alone, in desert places, unable to enter the town.
At the end of the story, the leper is back in town. And Jesus is the one who can’t go in. Jesus is out in the desert places.
They traded places.
He touched the outcast, and He became the outcast.
That’s the gospel in nine verses.
Hebrews 13:12–13. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.
He went outside the camp so you could come in.
Now you.
Some of you have been crying unclean about yourself for years.
Nobody makes you do it out loud. You do it in your head. Before you walk into church. Before you pray. Before anyone gets close enough to find out. You announce your own condition so nobody’s surprised. You keep your distance so nobody has to.
And when you finally get on your knees, the prayer comes out exactly like his.
I know you can.
I just don’t know if you’d want to. For me.
Here’s your answer. It’s the same one He gave the leper. Two words.
I will.
He’s not standing across the road. He’s not shouting from a safe distance. He doesn’t need you to be clean before He gets close.
He touches first.
Then He speaks.
I will.
Be clean.