"Healing"

Scripture: Mark 1:40-45
Preacher: Rev. Ross Purdy
Date: February 12, 2006

A few years ago I shared with you about my early life.   I'm going to share a bit about it again because this passage connects with that part of my life more than any other passage of Scripture.   This healing of Jesus to a man with leprosy touches me in such a profound way and I hope it does you as well.

When I was in my early years of life I developed a skin disorder, eczema.   This is not a deadly disorder by any means at all.   In fact many people have it and I would probably imagine that some of you have it this morning.   But, as a young boy of about 3 or 4 I found it very irritating and annoying.   It covered most of my body, except for my face and neck.   I had it all up my arms and down my legs.   But other than being an annoyance, I didn't really matter with it at all.   Sure, there were days that it flared up beyond an annoyance stage.   Some days, after scratching myself pink and having my flesh weep, I would sit down at the end of a day to peel off my socks slowly, for about an hour.   The white socks had become red and brown from dried blood.   Those were painful days.   Later, I would find that my tender skin would react to the area of Niagara Falls, being in the area of "Love Canal", an underground toxic waste dump.   I remember getting boils all over my body twice and a few times having poison somehow get into my joints.  

I was a mess.   But I wasn't at threat of losing my life, with the rare exceptions of those poisonous experiences (thank God for the discovery of penicillin).   My family never let me know that I was different than anyone else, though, so I lived a normal childhood...until I was five years of age.

On the first day of school, my sister held my hand all the way to 17 th Street School in Niagara Falls, New York.   When we entered the school property, my sister let go of my hand and went off to play with her friends.   I stood by the bars of the jungle gym and watched the other children play.   Then, little by little, other children came up to me and we struck up a conversation.   Things were looking pretty good for this 5 year old.  

Then, at one particular moment, on that first day of school, I received my identity as a human being.   A child standing near me looked down at my hands and jumped backward.   "Yuck," he said to the other kids standing by, "he's a leper."   I didn't know what that meant.   I hadn't learned that in Sunday School yet.   All I knew is that whatever a leper was, I didn't want to be one.   The children all began to say, "yuck" and moved backward, away from me.   I stood there alone that day...waiting for the school bell to ring.  

Throughout that year and the next, I knew my identity.   I was a leper.   I was not normal.   I was different and I was repulsive.   I would die inside whenever the teacher, whatever year of school, would say, "Okay class, circle up and hold hands."   I would die when I stood there in the group watching the children all jockey for positions away from me.   Then I'd put my hands in my pocket so the child who lost didn't have to bear the disgrace of this disease.

"Don't they know that they can't get this from me?   Don't they know that I'm not dangerous?"

I guess I don't blame them.   I wouldn't want to touch me either.

I remember coming home each day and seeing my mom as I walked through the door.   "How was school, Ross?"   "It was fine."   I didn't want my parents to know that their son was a leper.   After all, if they didn't know what the other children knew, there was a good chance that I could keep it from them.   I wanted them to be proud of me.  

After the usual greeting, I'd run as fast as I could to get to my room.   My parents, I believed, were convinced that I was a good student, working on my homework or playing.   But in all reality, I would close the door and crawl beside my bed and the wall and cry.   "Oh God.   Why did you make me this way?   Couldn't you have made me a dog?   Dogs don't notice these things."  

I struggled hard to believe that even God wanted to spend time with me.   But I had to have this as a common base.   Certainly if God knows me, He must love me.  

Then one day I heard this story in Sunday School at the Pierce Avenue United Presbyterian Church.   My teacher told this miracle about a leper who came to Jesus (there it was...another "leper"!).   My teacher began explaining what a person with leprosy was.   The other children didn't pay much attention but I listened intently.   I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I knew Jesus is God.   I knew that from an early age.   He was born as a baby in Nazareth - God had come here.   I listened to this passage and saw Jesus welcoming the man.   He cried out "Jesus! If you will, you can make me clean."   Then Jesus was moved with pity.   I saw Jesus cry tears for this man.

Later, when I learned that the people with leprosy in Jesus' days were not allowed to touch another person I said to myself, "Yes, I can understand that."   When I leaned that the people with leprosy in Jesus' day were commanded by law to cry out several feet away from another person "UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN!" I knew that my body did the crying for me.   When someone saw me and my bloody skin coming down the street, my body cried out "UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN!"  

As I listened to my Sunday School teacher speak I felt a warm electricity pierce through my soul.   I saw Jesus cry, moved with pity, and say to that man, "I will, be clean."   Through other Scriptures I learned that Jesus touched people who were filthy.   I could imagine Him reaching out to them and holding them with arms that must have felt so good.   They had never felt the touch of another.   Jesus knew that and in a moment He sought to hold them in such a way that gave them an eternity of love.   I had been right.   God did care about lepers.   Then I realized this: God not only cares about lepers, God heals the lepers.  

Today I don't have eczema except for a small flare-up here and there.   I have been healed even though I still bear some scars on my body.   But what I have spent my life learning is this: I knew my identity as a leper.   I knew the years of putting on masks to cover my filthiness up from others.   I learned as an older child how to wear clothing that would cover up my arms and legs.   I learned as a teenager how to hang out with the cool people in school and, when someone came close to figuring out that I was just a leper in disguise; not like them, different than everyone else, filthy to the core, pretending to be a person when I just wished to be dog, I'd shove my hands into my pockets and put on another mask.   I was good at covering up my leprosy.

I have struggled with my identity.   As I have come to know Jesus I have been hugged and healed to a point where I see my identity now as a beloved child, perfect before my Heavenly Father.   Now, as a minister, I recognize the masks and the leprosy all around me.   Those people whom I thought were normal were just like me.   My leprosy was on the outside.   Their leprosy was on the inside.   The hypocrisy of the first-century world to put people outside the gates of the city to live all alone, forbidden to have love from others when the people of the cities were just as leprous, maybe more so, than the lepers themselves.   I look around today and I see a greater leprosy.   It is one of the heart; people who die inside without anyone knowing that they feel different.   But inside they feel like they don't belong.   Is that you?

As a healed leper (you never call someone a leper.   That's a label.   You call them a PERSON with leprosy.   But for the effect and pain of it all I'm using the term "leper"), I now see that everyone is a leper.   You are a leper.   You may have your masks hoping that no one will find out who you are, but you can't keep putting on those masks.   They keep you sick.   They keep you from being healed.   You need to be healed.   You may be sitting here this morning believing that you are different; that if the person sitting next to you really knew who you are they'd say, "YUCK, you're a leper."   You may have a spouse or a relative, friend or acquaintance who is not afforded the opportunity of knowing the real you because you're afraid that you'll be an outcast.   But if you have a mask to hide yourself behind, you are an outcast.   You're living like one.   It's time to be healed, isn't it?

I know a man who wasn't afraid to heal a leper.   It is the same one who was moved with pity on the man in our story.   He is moved with pity, right now.   He loves you so much and wants to hold you.   It breaks his heart to see you hide behind your filthiness.

I want us to experience healing this morning.   As we speak about healing today, I want to tell you that God hates illness and disease.   I spoke about the healing of my body, soul, mind and spirit.   I have had miraculous healings in my life; three to be exact.   I am concerned about the leprosy of your inward being, but there is more that I am concerned about.   I am also concerned about you being healed in all ways; body, soul, mind and spirit.

When we pray the Lord's Prayer every Sunday together we cry out for Heaven to come to earth.   We cry out for God's perfect world to overtake this fallen and broken one.   "Thy Kingdom Come.   Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."   If we really mean that prayer then we are actually crying out for healing.   How much sickness is in Heaven?   None.   So, if the Kingdom of God is now and the Kingdom of God is taking over the imperfect to make it perfect, then healing, the removal of sickness, is a sign that the Kingdom has come.  

Jesus is here this morning.   I proclaim to you that the Kingdom of God is here this morning.  

There are many ways to be healed.   You need to be healed from your leprosy.   But you need to be healed in some other ways.   Some of you have had an emotionally damaging experience.   You have a memory of hurt that keeps you from being a whole person.   God wants to heal that memory this morning.   Maybe a spouse or friend, father or mother, told you that you're no good; that you can't do anything right; that you're a burden.   They wounded you.   You are perfect in God's eyes.   God wants to heal you from that moment and lift your head from looking downward.   Look into His eyes this morning and see his Healing love.

Maybe you need to be healed psychologically.   Maybe you're in depression.   Maybe you don't even know why.   God wants to heal you.   God wants to touch you.

Maybe your spirit is sick.   Maybe you keep finding yourself doing things that bring death to your body instead of life.   You need to come clean, confess this practice, turn away from it and let God heal your spirit.   Jesus died on the cross to exchange His life for your death.   Would you consider exchanging your death inside for life that can bubble over?

But please note this: we always put so much stock into instantaneous healings.   I have seen those incidences happen.   But they are not often the most common healings.   When we don't get an immediate response, we think God's Kingdom hasn't come to us. But, in my experience, through all 3 of my miraculous healings, each of them was a progression.   They took time.   But, there was no doubt that the healing occurred.   The Kingdom was ushered in and then, took over my life.   The healing was brought to my body, soul and spirit.  

One of the most powerful moments for me in my healing of eczema and my emotional healing about my leprosy was that I figured out that my parents did know the struggles I went through.   I remember, during some nights of my early life, scratching myself in bed, smelling the odor of foul flesh and sticking to blood on my bed.   Then, my parents, one night my mom, one night my dad, would sit by my bed and reach out to take my hands and rub me gently until I fell asleep.   I would flinch.   "Don't touch me.   I'm gross."   But they looked at me and held me until I fell asleep.   They became an incarnation of Jesus Christ to me.   They helped my healing process.   I saw Jesus in and through them.

This morning we have some people here in the sanctuary who love you very much.   Jesus lives within them and they are here to represent God's love to you.   They want to reach out to you and touch your leprosy.   They want to hear what it is you need healed.   They don't need to know everything about it unless you want to tell them.   But they just need to know where you need God to touch you.  

Do you need a healing of your body?   Do you have an illness?   They want to pray and usher in the Kingdom of God in and through you.

Do you need a healing of your mind; a memory or hurt?   They want to pray with you and usher in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of peace, in and through you.

Do you need to receive Jesus' love into your life - maybe you don't know exactly what it is you need, but you do know that you need Him.   They want to pray with you and usher in the Kingdom of God in and through you.

If you've never received Jesus into your life, I want to pray with you.  

I expect healings to occur in these next moments.   Will you come forward to experience them?   This is a moment to seek healing.   Jesus is here. Reach out and grab Him this morning.   A woman did that very thing years ago and she was healed instantaneously.    I believe the Lord has some things in store.   Come.