2 And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
3 And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Matthew 8:2-3
Leprosy is mentioned in the Bible over 40 times. It was a common disease in Biblical times and it was often seen as a curse of God. The leprosy in the Bible and the modern-day leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease) are contested as being two distinct diseases due to the absence of some strikingly observable symptoms and the differing severity of the two. It is now more widely accepted that the contagious skin disease mentioned in the Old Testament Hebrew “tsaraath” does not have the same meaning as the Greek term for leprosy “elephantiasis“. Regardless of this, “leprosy” (I will refer to whatever skin defiling disease it was in the OT using this term) still remains a poignant analogy to highlight the gravity of sin and the state we were in before we were healed by God.
Leprosy from Birth
These lepers were once normal and lived perfectly normal lives. They were part of society, they knew what it was like to live a life free from stigma and disgrace. However, for us all, we were born in sin, we were brought forth in iniquity and in sin our mother conceived us. (Psalm 51:5) Since we inherit the fallenness of man, and are prone to sin as soon as we come of age, so too are we already diagnosed with this gross disease even before we become aware of it. We have it in our blood, so to speak. (I do not intend to be medically accurate but use this only figuratively)
As we grow and mature physically, we develop more symptoms and the disease gets progressively worse. It is the same with sin. As we grow older, we find more ways to sin, sin gets a tighter hold of us and we revel in committing it. The worst thing is that we are completely oblivious to the severity of this disease. Instead of treating it in the early stages in hopes of recovery, we totally neglect it and instead choose to wallow in it. We embrace it, we accept it, we are even proud of it.
In Leviticus 13, God lists all the detailed symptoms at different stages of the disease and gives specific instructions on how to diagnose leprosy and deal with lepers.
45“The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ 46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Leviticus 13:45-46
We may question why God was so severe with someone who had contracted this disease. Why they were harshly ordered to live away from the rest of the people. That is the same flawed understanding we have of sin in our lives. Why does God make a small sin like lying into such a big issue? Why did He punish Adam and Eve so gravely just because of a fruit? Why does He seem so strict with His people?
But we fail to understand the holiness of God, the purity of God, the justice of God. Even the slightest of stains, a small drop of an ink, can stain a beautiful white garment.
Hope for the Lepers
What hope is there for sinners then? If God is holy and He cannot overlook sin with His pure eyes (Habakkuk 1:13), who can escape His wrath, who can escape His judgement?
12 And if the leprous disease breaks out in the skin, so that the leprous disease covers all the skin of the diseased person from head to foot, so far as the priest can see, 13 then the priest shall look, and if the leprous disease has covered all his body, he shall pronounce him clean of the disease; it has all turned white, and he is clean. Leviticus 13:12-13
It is ironic that in this case, if the disease has entirely covered the person, he is pronounced clean. There is no more place to infect. It has reached the end of its infection. This gives hope even to the vilest and most sinister of peoples. This assures the dejected and guilt-stricken of their cure. That no one is sick enough to be deemed a prognosis negative. You can been pronounced clean. You can be made righteous in the eyes of God. Made righteous, but at the cost of Jesus’ death.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:21)
Christ became the leper of lepers. He not only associated Himself with them and healed many of them, but He became one of them on the cross. Abhorrent to the people looking over, despicable in the sight of His own, hung outside the city gates just as the lepers lived outside the city, alone, forsaken and despised.
This was the only way God could bring us back to His fold, to welcome us back into His loving company and to adopt us into His holy family. To restore the intimate relationship we once enjoyed with Him at the beginning of creation. It is all made possible only through Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus is the only cure to heal us of our spiritual infirmities.
If only we cry out like the leper “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” The Lord is not only able to make us clean, He wills it. “I will; be clean.” (Matt. 8:3)
Once we, who have put our faith on Him and have been made into new creatures, have understood the deplorable state we were in and realise the amazing transformation that has been made possible by Christ. Only then will we finally be as grateful as the one leper, who out of the ten that were healed, was the only one to return and praise God with a loud voice. (Luke 17)
Let us be that one in ten to devote our ransomed, healed and restored lives for the glory of God.
