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Weekly Devotional

February 16, 2009

God’s Peace be with you all.

Mark 1:40-45  ⁴⁰ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, "If you choose, you can make me clean."  ⁴¹ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!"  ⁴² Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.  ⁴³ After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,  ⁴⁴ saying to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."  ⁴⁵ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Yesterday we heard a sermon all about Baptism.  Pastor Karriker did a fine job of relating the writings of Paul to what we saw yesterday in the baptism of Joseph.  However, the downside to yesterday was that we had this wonderful Gospel lesson (see above) and that we didn’t go into in any depth.  You also didn’t have to listen to me preach (you can decide is that is an upside or a downside!) on the lesson.  So I decided that for the devotion today we could look at this text a little closer.

            We have two interesting points in this gospel lesson.  First, we have Jesus being given the chance to heal someone….they put the ball in his court.  “If you choose” are the words the man used.  But look at his other actions.  The leper gets on his knees, stretching out his hand, acting very penitently toward the Son of God.  And to demonstrate the love of God, Jesus has pity on the man.  As Jesus says “I do choose.”  Yesterday, God choose Joseph to be a part of his family, just as he has chosen all of us, and the leper in this story.

            The second point is that like other places in Mark’s Gospel, here we have Jesus ordering people not to say anything about him.  It seems that Jesus wants people to keep his identity a secret.  But my question is this:  If the Son of God knows everything, why bother?  Wouldn’t he already know that this man is going to go tell everyone?  Perhaps it is not a bad thing that people go to find God, as opposed to God coming to find them.  We know that God loves his creation so much that he will go out to find them, but it must be a nice refresher for God when people go to find him.

            Finally, look again at the actions of this man:  “he we went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word.”  As Christians, this too is our mission, to go out and proclaim freely by spreading the word.  To me, God is not one who wants us to sit idle and do nothing.  Instead God is one who wants to be known, and who wants us to spread the good news.  Yesterday at church several of you had guests with you…in the words of Pr. Karriker:  “WOW”.  What a wonderful thing.  Please keep it up.  Keep sharing, bringing, and spreading.

In our prayers this week: 

Ann, Doris and her mom, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Joseph, Norm

Pastor Judson