Shame. No other word so adequately captures the despair of a 1st century Galilean leper. He wakes every morning to see a deathly pallor tint his scaly and crusted skin. His body grows numb as the disease attacks the deep nerve tissues of his body, disintegrating weaves of nerve cells. The condition exposes him to unfelt trauma and injury and can leave him permanently disfigured through infection and injury.
He is unloved. He is despised. He will never again hold his own child or take his wife into his arms. He knows only isolation. All relationships have been affected. The world shuns him. His immediate family disowns him. His residence is now, by law, a leper’s colony.
His circle of friends is rather absent the values of real friendship. They live in caves. Their coping skills have been reduced to mistrust and survival. Relationships offer no hope, no joy; he is a patient without a cure.
Should he need to venture outside of the caves into public view, the private torture becomes an open shame. Law requires him to wear tattered garments with his face partially veiled. An encounter with a citizen on the street, requires him to announce to everyone present: Unclean! Unclean!
That makes his encounter with the Nazarene so much more remarkable.
And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Mark 1.40 (NASB)
Nothing more than the mere presence of Christ can be so attractive to one so desperate. And at the feet of Christ, hope rises within his spirit and breaks the surface of his speech with an impassioned plea: If You are willing, You can make me clean.
Jesus, the Healer of multitudes, discovers a unique audience of one awaiting a response and it is significant.
Priests were the only Jewish citizens, who were not prohibited by Jewish law to touch leprous skin. They alone could pronounce a leper clean. And the Highest Priest moved by compassion rather than ritual and liturgy, utters words: “I am willing; be cleansed,” and offers a touch that said even more: I am willing to touch a hand of open sores. I am willing to touch ashen skin. I love you. I care. I’m sorry. I understand. I want to help.
And His touch accomplished more than non-verbal communication. It summoned a visual transformation and, in an instant, love conquered shame.
Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
An encounter with Immanuel invites such hope, such surrender, such trust. The child of the manger was born for encounters with the hopeless and the broken. The mere presence of the Christ creates space for us to discover what His love can do to shame.