The FSAOF membership includes many former officers who've moved into ministry roles in other denominations, and where they've made meaningful and notable contributions.
One such person is Dr John Sullivan who has pastored large congregations in the Church of Canada for more than 5 decades. John has been a regular and much appreciated contributor to the FSAOF blog.
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In the early part of his ministry Jesus met a man who was a leper.
Leprosy was then a common disease with a wide variety of symptoms
One such person is Dr John Sullivan who has pastored large congregations in the Church of Canada for more than 5 decades. John has been a regular and much appreciated contributor to the FSAOF blog.
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In the early part of his ministry Jesus met a man who was a leper.
Leprosy was then a common disease with a wide variety of symptoms
and with varying degrees of
seriousness,
all the way from minor
infections of the skin
to the gradual rotting away
of the living body.
The disease was contagious,
but not quickly communicable,
and it was often curable.
The worst of it was, at least
from a well person’s point of view,
was that it made the victim
repulsive, loathsome to look at.
For the safety and protection
of the community
a leper was forbidden by the
Mosaic Law to mingle with other people.
Once a person was pronounced
a leper he or she was untouchable,
partly because he was a
danger to the health of other people,
and partly because he was an
offensive sight to a normally healthy person.
He wasn’t confined to a
colony or a hospital, as he is now.
He was free to be at large,
but he was at all costs to be avoided.
He was required by law to
wear torn clothes,
to let his hair hang loose
and to cover his upper lip.
I’ve often wondered what
covering his upper lip could possibly mean?
It refers to a man with a
mustache
and, if he had one, he must
cover it.
And wherever he went he must
cry, Unclean! Unclean!
And he must dwell alone in a
habitation outside the camp.
You’ll find these laws, in
Leviticus chapters 13 & 14.
When this particular leper
saw Jesus,
he forgot/ all about the Law,
which forbade him
to come anywhere near a
person who didn’t have leprosy,
and he threw himself at the
foot of Jesus.
He said, “if you will, you
can make me clean.”
He had no doubt whatever that
he could;
the only thing he doubted was
that he would.
Jesus stretched out his hand
and touched him.
Then he said, “I will, be
clean.”
And immediately the leprosy
left him.
Then Jesus spoke to him
sternly.
Here‘s one of those strange
combinations
of compassion at one moment,
and severity the next.
They don’t seem to go together,
but we find them often in people
and we dare not try to
analyze the situation in too great detail
nor do we dare to say why it
was or how it was
that these came in such close
proximity to Jesus.
All we know is that the
original Greek
is more severe than the
English translations,
and that in its mildest form
Jesus spoke to him sternly.
He told him to do two things:
First, to keep still about
what had happened to him.
Second he was to go to the
priest and let him certify his cure.
An interesting side-light of
the ministry of Jesus
is the fact that at this time
he was still working
within the ecclesiastical framework
of his day.
Whether the man deliberately
disobeyed his instruction to keep still
we do not know; but we do
know, that it wasn’t long
before the news of his cure
had spread like wildfire.
It may have been
because when he went to the
priest to get his certificate
he had to tell him how it
happened.
At any rate, if this had
happened to you or me
we couldn’t have kept still
about it.
We would want to tell the
whole world
that once we were a
segregated, loathed human being
and that we were now free to
mingle with people.
As a result, Jesus was so
besieged with sick people
that he had to withdraw into
the wilderness.
That’s the end of this brief
story
about Jesus and a nameless
leper.
What is the high point in the
story?
To the early Christians
there’s no doubt about the
high point in the story.
It was the cure.
It was one of the many
stories told by the early Church
that indicated that Jesus had
power,
and this power was a sign, if
not a proof, of his divine authority.
Without minimizing the cure,
the high point for us,
is the fact that Jesus
touched the man.
In spite of the law which
forbade it,
he stretched out his hand and touched him.
His concern for people took precedence
over his obedience to the ceremonial law.
And he touched him
in spite of the natural human instinct of
horror
at the sight of the leper.
And when he touched him, he
healed him;
and he healed him because he reached him.
He broke through the isolation to which the
man was condemned.
This is the point at which
the story begins to speak to us.
First, it speaks about our
own isolation:
We’re not lepers, but we
often feel completely isolated.
We have problems, and no one
understands them.
We have questions, and no one
can answer them.
We have physical liabilities
that no one knows anything about.
We live with difficulties
that no one would ever dream of.
We sometimes live under circumstances
that no one can change,
and we make mistakes that we
hardly dare even mention.
In our own way we’re quarantined,
at least we seem to be.
Then we see someone who
arouses our confidence:
A person who has a power that
draws us;
we go to the person and pour
it all out.
The person listens; and
understands what we’re talking about.
Though he or she may not
approve of what we’ve done,
he or she doesn’t condemn
us.
The person/ may not touch us
physically at all; but he or she reaches us.
We were “out of touch”; now
we’re “in touch”.
The person says to us, You
aren’t unique in your problem.
You belong to a fellowship of
people,
who share the suffering of
humanity.
Through him or her our
condition may not be changed,
but we are changed, we’re no
longer alone,
no longer left out, we’re in
touch with life.
END PART ONE (1/2)