An Ugly Disease

I have found myself studying the disease of leprosy recently in preparation for preaching a sermon about Jesus' healing of a leper. The New Testament tells us that Jesus felt compassion for this man whom Dr. Luke describes as being "full of leprosy" . . . he was in the advanced stages of this terrible muscular and neurological condition that also effected the skin in such a repugnant way.

Leprosy is an ugly, disgusting disease. Not nearly contagious, apparently, as many thought years ago, but it still maims and disfigures . . . and when diagnosed requires months of treatment to effect a cure.

Jesus healed this leper with a simple command, "be cleansed". Mark's gospel says simply that the leprosy "left him".

What a glorious event for this poor man. It had probably been years since he'd been touched by his wife or had been able to hold his children. He has been an outcast, discarded by society and relegated to the trash heap. He had to keep his distance from regular folk and was required to call out "unclean, unclean" when anyone approached . . .

And now he is clean! His rotten flesh restored. His open sores and maimed limbs renewed.

The Bible compares this terrible disease to another dreaded human condition called "sin". This disease afflicts every person on the planet and just like this leper, every one of us needs to come to the savior for cleansing.

Unlike this leper, however, most of us don't recognize the presence of this disease. Even when confronted by the fact that we live our lives in violation of God's law (called "transgression") and we fall seriously short of God's standard, His moral law (the ten commandments) we simply excuse it by claiming to be normal or simply "human".

Like this leper we must come to Jesus in humility and worship seeking His cleansing. We need to see the awfulness and ugliness of our disease. The prophet Isaiah said that our good deeds and righteous acts are like "filithy rags" in God's sight. They aren't good enough to accomplish the cure from this dreaded disease . . . after all, if the BEST we can do is viewed as "filthy rags", what must our worst stuff look like?