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Mark 1:40
And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, "If you will, you can make me clean." The Torah spends a considerable amount of time detailing a condition called leprosy. It tells us about people’s leprosy, but also about leprosy in beards, fabrics, and houses (Leviticus 13:18–59). Leprosy in the Bible seems to relate not only to the loathsome disease by that name, but also to all sorts of corruption and decay. The term seems to be used to refer to the advance of death and corruption in matter (Leviticus 13:4–8). On a metaphorical level, Jewish sages referred to leprosy as the disease the snake inherited as part of the curse. Ritual contamination and mortality is part of the curse brought on man because of sin so the metaphor is certainly befitting. Leprosy is also associated with one of the most important sin in the Bible, the one called lashon harah which literally means the evil tongue. The term refers to gossip and slander because after slandering Moses, her brother and divinely appointed leader of Israel, Miriam was afflicted by this leprosy (Numbers 12). Leprosy and the state of ritual impurity are irrelevant today because they technically only relates to the Temple in Jerusalem which does not exist at this present time. At the time when religiosity accorded undue emphasis to ritual purity, Yeshua came to put it back in its proper perspective. In the days of the Master, Priests and Levites were so obsessed with ritual purity that they would ignore the commandments about mercy and helping those in need for fear of defiling themselves. We can see this in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33). Yeshua on the other hand was not afraid of being defiled by leprosy. On some occasions he even voluntarily touched a leper to heal him (Matthew 8:2-3). He even entered the house of Simon the Leper to eat with him, and this is where he met Mary-Magdalene (Matthew 26:6-7). The Talmud tells of one called, The Leper Messiah. It presents a supposed discourse between the great Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the prophet Elijah. The rabbi asks "When will the Messiah come and by what sign may I recognize him?" Elijah tells the rabbi to go to the gate of the city where he will find the Messiah sitting among the poor lepers. The Messiah, says the prophet, sits bandaging his leprous sores one at a time, unlike the rest of the sufferers, who bandage them all at once. Why? Because he might be needed at any time and would not want to be delayed (Sanhedrin 98a). While this may seem to be a far-fetched story, it is not the only Jewish text which associates Messiah with leprosy. One of the names of the coming Messiah in the Talmud is: ‘The Leper Scholar’. Unlike the exclusive religious leaders of his days who stayed away, Yeshua came to us and voluntarily put on the decaying condition of mortality. He even contaminated himself by touching our leprosy. While were still in our mortal decaying condition, he entered our house to fellowship with us. But the story doesn't end here; the most wonderful part of it is that as he goes back to his Father and our God, he takes us with him to partake of his pure resurrected body. What a wonderful Messiah we have. Amen and Amen. May it be soon, even in our days! P. Gabriel Lumbroso www.thelumbrosos.com For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here.
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Matthew 8:3
And Yeshua stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. One of the identifying signs of Messiah is that He would heal lepers, and He did. It was such a known fact that that some lepers even traveled from afar to ask Him to heal them. The apostolic texts also inform us that Yeshua only did healing when people confessed Him to be the Messiah. When He did not ask for this confession, it was because the people’s actions denoted of it. Such was the case with those who touched the side fringes of His garment (Matthew 13:46; Numbers 15:38; Malachi 4:2) and the blind men who asked for sight calling Him ‘Son of David’, one of the Names of Messiah (Matthew 20:30-34). The text also tells us that many people He couldn’t heal because of their lack of faith (that he was the Messiah). This does not mean that failure to obtain divine healing is the result of not having faith that He is the Messiah though. For one reason or another sometimes He chooses that we remain sick. There will even be a time when no matter how much we pray and have faith, He will let us die. These are the times to not sin nor charge God with wrong and say with Job, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. Adonai gave, and Adonai has taken away; blessed be the Name of the Adonai" (Job 1:21-22). Our timing is in His hands. We are owed nothing; we deserve nothing; and even in the worst of situations we get away easy! Healing when it occurs though, is always tied to confession; that’s why even the disciples healed in His Name. One of the most overlooked elements of Yeshua healing lepers is that He touched them, therefore rendering Himself ritually unclean. Again we notice that Messiah did not come here trying to remain in His purity; He came and put on the clothing of sinful humanity. He had contact with lepers and with those with an issue of blood and hanged around with some of the lowest strata of society, all in order to fulfill the Messianic role He was sent by the Father to fulfill. This is particularly interesting when we realize that the Talmud interprets Isaiah 53: 4 and 5 by calling the Messiah ‘The Leper of the House of Study’, which would mean ‘The Scholar Leper’. Another Talmudic interpretation describes Elijah telling Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi that he could find the Messiah by the gates of Rome among the poor lepers bandaging their wounds, meaning in the most unlikely of places. Would you find Messiah today? Seek no longer among the pompous holiness of religious scholars, teachers, and congregations. Messiah is still found in the most unlikely of places. You may find Him among the dregs of society bandaging the wounds of those the world leaves by the way side. He might also be found healing the leprosy of an enemy of our people (2 Kings 5), or even the spiritual and physical blindness of one of our worst persecutor (Acts 9). He was sent to the ‘Lost sheep of the House of Israel’ (the Israelites of the twelve tribes)’, and as a light for revelation to the gentiles (Matthew 15:24; Luke 2:32). As He came to us taking upon Himself our diseases and the iniquity of our sin, He became the ‘Leper Messiah’. As He mingled with us, He trusted the Father for His own sanctity: we should not fear to do the same! John 3:3
Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Finding connections with an ostracized declared-clean leper, we follow his path of rehabilitation in the presence of the Almighty and amidst the community. One of the last stages is immersion, commonly called in Greek: baptismo. Our sages have always understood ritual immersion as an illustration of being born-again. The whole idea was an illustration of returning into the maternal waters in order to be reborn. In a sense, this pronounced clean leper shaved from head to toe looked like a new-born baby and was going to immerse in baptismal/rebirth waters (Leviticus 14:9). In ancient Israel, the idea of the born-again ritual immersion was used as a mode of proselytization, for people desiring to become Jewish. The idea is that they went in the water as gentiles and came out the other side reborn as Jewish, as ‘members of the commonwealth of Israel’ (Ephesians 2:12). When Yeshua therefore tells Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3)," He actually tells the great teacher of Israel that unless he goes through a procedure of conversion to Judaism, he cannot be a part of the Kingdom of God. That explains the shocked teacher’s answer, ‘"How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born (John 3:4)?" By this he meant, ‘How can I convert to Judaism if I am already Jewish? To which Rabbi Yeshua wisely answers, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:5-6), or in other words, “It is not enough to be well bred; you must also have an immersion of repentance from sin!” This was the reoccurring theme in both John the Baptist and Yeshua’s teaching (Matthew 3:9-11). Peter compares the Great Flood as a baptism of the whole earth, and Paul speaks of the crossing of the Red Sea as the baptism of Israel (1 Peter 3:20-21;1 Corinthians 10:2). We have to be reborn in order to enter God’s new world! As the season of Passover approaches, as we think of our forefathers (biological or by adoption) crossing the Red Sea, may we also put away the old leaven of the old worldly culture. May we think of all the ways we can leave the ‘Egyptian’ behind and enter the Promised Land of His will and Kingdom as new reborn creations for His glory! James 4:6
"God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." At a time when Elishah was prophet in Israel Naaman, a proud general of the Assyrian Empire, was afflicted with leprosy. A young Israelite girl in the service of his wife told him about the prophet in Israel that could heal him. The Assyrians looked down at Israel and at what seemed to them their backward religion, so this must have been a hard saying for this proud general. If that was not enough, Naaman also had to ask permission from his enemy the King of Israel before approaching Elishah. But Naaman, desperately seeking healing decided to give it a try. He took with him monies and rewards and set himself to visit the prophet in Israel but to the general's great humiliation, Elisha did not even come and see him, but rather sent Gehazi his servant. Here is how the story goes, 'And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean." But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?"' Somehow it seems that Naaman's leprosy was related to his pride. What leprosy does to the flesh, pride certainly does to virtue. The story continues and says, 'So he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, "My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?" So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean (2 Kings 5:10-14).' What a miracle! But the greatest miracle of all is that Naaman 'returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, "Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel (2 (Kings 5:15)." God always seems to get good mileage out of things, and these are just a few 'miles' He got associated with that event. God did heal the general of his sickness, He addressed the pride issue that created the disease, and he got the Naaman toi recognize the God of Israel. That my friend is complete healing! Mark 1:40
And there came a leper to him, beseeching … saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. The Torah spends a considerable amount of time detailing a condition called ‘leprosy’. It tells us about people’s leprosy, but also about leprosy in beards, fabrics, and houses (Leviticus 13:18-59). Leprosy in the Bible seems to relate not only to the loathsome disease by that name, but also to all sorts of corruption and decay. The term seems to be used to refer to the advance of death and corruption in matter (Leviticus 13:4-8). On a metaphorical level, Jewish sages referred to leprosy as the disease the snake inherited as part of the curse. Uncleanliness and mortality is part of the curse brought on man because of sin so the metaphor is certainly befitting. Leprosy is also associated with one of the most important sin in the Bible, the one called ‘lashon harah’ which literally means ‘the evil tongue’ and which refers to gossip and slander. After slandering Moses her brother, Miriam was afflicted by this ‘leprosy’ (Numbers 12). Leprosy and the state of ritual impurity is irrelevant today because it only relates to the Temple in Jerusalem which does not exist at this present time. At the time when religiosity accorded undue emphasis to ritual purity, Yeshua came to put it back in its proper perspective. In the days of the Master, Priests and Levites were so obsessed with ritual purity that they would forget the commandments about mercy and helping those in need for fearing defiling themselves. We can see this in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33). Yeshua on the other hand was not afraid of being defiled by leprosy. On some occasions he even voluntarily touched a leper to heal him (Matthew 8:2-3). He even entered the house of Simon the Leper to eat with him, and this is where He met Mary-Magdalene (Matthew 26:6-7). The Talmud tells of one called: The Leper Messiah. It "records" a supposed discourse between the great Rabbi Joshua ben Levi and the prophet Elijah. The rabbi asks "When will the Messiah come?" And "By what sign may I recognize him?" Elijah tells the rabbi to go to the gate of the city where he will find the Messiah sitting among the poor lepers. The Messiah, says the prophet, sits bandaging his leprous sores one at a time, unlike the rest of the sufferers, who bandage them all at once. Why? Because He might be needed at any time and would not want to be delayed (Sanhedrin 98a). While this may seem to be a far-fetched story, it is not the only Jewish text which associates Messiah with leprosy. One of the names of the coming Messiah in the Talmud is: ‘The Leper Scholar’. Unlike the exclusive religious leaders of His days, as He came to us, Yeshua voluntarily put on the decaying condition of mortality. He touched our ‘leprosy’, and even entered our house to fellowship with us while in our mortal decaying condition. As He goes back to His father and our God, He takes us with Him to partake of His resurrected body. What a wonderful Messiah we have. Amen and Amen. May it be soon, even in our days! |
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