How the Complete Gospel Brought Complete Healing to the Leper
I must admit, while I hated Covid and everything about it, there were some things I rather enjoyed about the temporary shutdown.
I enjoyed giving Bible studies at home on the phone in my pajamas. I enjoyed Sabbath mornings, relaxing with my Bible and having a nice big breakfast before meeting everyone on Zoom for church. I enjoyed the fact that while we did church on Zoom, old friends from around the world could join us. I even got to speak at my old church in Texas on Zoom, and a retired pastor in Texas who used to be at one of my current churches in Florida, got to be our guest speaker on Zoom.
I even learned I knew how to cook. However, when the restaurants opened back up, I seemed to have forgotten I knew how to cook. I enjoyed all the miles I saved on my car, working from home. Being an introvert, (My friends find this hard to believe but yes, I am an introvert.) I enjoyed having more time to read and write and just think and ponder life. I actually would not mind another shutdown every now and then, just without the Covid!
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But as introverted as I may be, I missed people! A single friend who lives alone like I do, mentioned to me on the phone how long it had been since she had been hugged. She said at least people stuck at home with their families can touch and hug each other. For her, though, there was no human touch. For me neither. Human touch is important. As a matter of fact, I believe that is why Satan has so masterfully made inappropriate touching such a problem today. Now people are scared to touch someone even appropriately, and by this Satan has a double win. Bad people are touching others inappropriately and good people aren’t even touching others appropriately, for fear their motives will be misconstrued. But appropriate touch is still so vitally important. Take the story of Jesus healing the leper for example.
Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. Mark 1:40-42 NKJV
We all know in the Bible leprosy can be symbolic of sin. I love the fact that while some of our prayers may seem to have a delay in being answered, not so the prayer to be made clean. As soon as the request was made for being cleansed, the leper was immediately cleansed. This tells me that when I ask for forgiveness and the moral cleansing referred to in 1 John 1:9 that there is no delay. I am immediately forgiven and cleansed.
But back to my point about how important appropriate touch is. Mark tells us Jesus touched the leper. Why? After all, He healed him with the words, “be cleansed,” so why did Jesus have to touch him? Because, while Jesus cleansed the leprosy with His words, He healed the loneliness with His hand. This man had been an outcast from society and even his own home. He needed more than just physical healing. He needed emotional healing. He needed to be healed from loneliness. Words can heal leprosy, but human touch cures loneliness.
When it comes to sharing the Gospel, many people want to drop a piece of literature on someone’s doorstep and run away before the person opens the door, so they don’t have to talk to them. But the Gospel heals us completely. The Gospel not only gives us amazing facts, but it also gives us amazing relationships. The Gospel takes away our sins, but it also takes away our loneliness. This means mingling with people instead of just throwing Bible facts at them and running away.
And get this – while some people complain that some Bible study groups and even Sabbath school classes have too much food and refreshments instead of just studying the Bible, the complete Gospel provides both – spiritual food and physical food. The complete Gospel fills the mind, the heart and the stomach! The complete Gospel makes us complete spiritually, physically and emotionally. This is why many Bible study growth groups have refreshments after the deep Bible study. This gives the teacher the opportunity to teach and fellowship with the group so he/she can get to bond with everyone.
A while back a friend from Florida moved to another state for a couple of years and then moved back to Florida. When she came back, I asked how she liked where she just moved from. She said, “Everyone was friendly, but nobody wanted to be your friend.” I thought wow, that could describe some of our churches. Everyone smiles at you but as soon as church is over, they all want to run home to be alone.
I have often said, you can’t tell how friendly a church is on Sabbath. You can tell how friendly a church is during the week. Smiles and greetings on Sabbath mean absolutely nothing if we ignore each other during the week. That is why it’s only during the week that you can tell how friendly a church or Sabbath school class is. Our Sabbath School classes and Bible study groups are designed to do way more than present a Gospel that just saves you from sin. If that were the case we could all just study our Bible alone and have church by ourselves at home. Our Sabbath School classes and Bible study groups are to present a Gospel that saves the sinner from sin and loneliness.
In the story of Jesus healing the leper, we see that the Gospel cleanses us and makes us whole, spiritually, physically and emotionally.
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