The Lutheran Hour
-
"Jesus is Willing"
- No Sermon MP3 No bonus material MP3
-
Text: Mark 1:40-45
-
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! To a world cast off and condemned to humanity, helpless and in horror, the heavenly Father sent His Son to become one of us. His perfect life of love satisfied the Commandments we had broken. His omnipotent power conquered the devil whose power held us captive. His resurrection victory proclaims a living Lord who comes to each of us, in our sickness and our sin. By Jesus’ blood, we are cleansed. The Easter victory cry, “Christ is risen,” says that all who believe, by God’s power and love, can be healed and whole.
Years ago, I was leading a Christian tour to Egypt. We were awed by the sights and sounds of that wonderful country of past power and present possibilities. There was, however, one thing that didn’t impress many of the “cleanliness-is-next-to-Godliness” travelers. That was the dust and dirt we seemed to encounter everywhere. One lady, who was either more offended or more outspoken than the rest, saw a particularly dirty child playing on what looked to be a village garbage dump. She complained to those around her, “Why doesn’t her mother do something to clean up her little girl?”
Although she didn’t expect it, the guide, a native Egyptian, who was sitting in the front seat, overheard her question. Calmly, he reached over and took up the microphone used to broadcast his narratives throughout the coach. He calmly said, “Ladies and gentlemen, someone has asked the question, ‘Why would a mother allow her daughter to get so dirty?’ I can only tell you this: Visitors to our country hate dirt, but they don’t know or love the little children. Mothers of our country know and love their little children, but don’t hate the dirt. Until love for a child and hatred for dirt come together in one person, these dirty children you see are likely to remain as they are.'”
The bus got quiet after that, quiet for a long time–not because we were embarrassed at being chewed out. No, it got quiet because most of us were thinking what the guide said was really true. It’s true for the world. It’s true for each of us. For positive changes to happen in our lives, love and power need to come together.
Remember when you were little, back when you were in grade school? Do you remember how you got picked on? Maybe somebody called you a name. Maybe classmates avoided you. Maybe you felt you had no friends or you felt stupid or weren’t a good athlete and always got picked last to be on a team. Maybe you didn’t get invited to a party or someone told you what the other kids were saying about you. It doesn’t make any difference what the problem was, as long as you remember it. What did you do with that problem? Most of us went home with it. We shuffled into the house. We hid in our bedroom and cried, or plotted some righteous and really painful revenge upon our persecutors. Eventually Mom or Dad would notice something was not quite right. “What’s wrong, honey?” they asked. “Nuthin.'” “Are you feeling all right?” “I’m fine.” “Want me to take your temperature?” “No, I’m fine.” By now, your inquisitor knew you weren’t fine. They knew something was wrong. Really wrong. They wanted to help. But you didn’t tell them about your problem. Why not? Because you knew, deep down, no matter how much they loved you, they couldn’t help. They didn’t have the power. What were they going to do? Go to your teacher and complain? Call up your classmates’ mothers? Oh, that would have helped. If you said, “I’m stupid,” they would’ve replied, “No you aren’t.” If you said, “Nobody likes me,” they retorted, “Of course they do.” If you said, “I’m ugly,” they would reply, “I love you just the way you are.” They loved you, but they didn’t have the power to help you. The kids in your class had the power to help you, but they didn’t love you. Power and love have to come together.
Now we’ve all grown since those days. Certainly, we’ve all grown older. Some of us may have grown wiser. But all of us still have our problems. Those problems have grown, too. Each of us is still looking for the persons who love us and have the power to help. Here’s what I mean: are you married and finding your marriage cooling off? No doubt you have family and friends who love you, but they can’t help, can they? The person who has the power to help doesn’t love you enough to do so. Are you having money problems? The bank has money enough to help, but the bank doesn’t care enough to share. Worried about your job? The boss who can help doesn’t care, while your family, who loves you, doesn’t have the power to help. Insert your particular problem. You need someone who loves you enough, and has power to make a difference. Such a person is hard to find.
If that’s the case, I, and my colleagues at “The Lutheran Hour” would like to introduce you to someone who has infinite power and limitless love. We would like to introduce you to Jesus. Now, hold on. I know, at this point, your first reaction is probably to reach for the dial and give it a twist; to hit the button on your radio and kick it to another station. You’re saying to yourself, “Yeah, right. I don’t think so. God isn’t going to take care of my problem.” Even some of you church goers are thinking, “God doesn’t care about me.” Look, give me a break. This message lasts no more than 17 minutes. You’ve already got a few minutes invested. Remember your problem. We’re going to be coming back to it. Give me the next quarter hour and come with me to look at a few verses of Scripture.
It starts out: “A man with leprosy came to Him.” That’s simple enough. A man with leprosy came. Now, if a minute ago you thought you had a problem, I want you to know your problem probably pales in comparison to the pain this person felt. Leprosy, or Hansen’s bacillus, is treatable today. But when our Savior walked this earth, a diagnosis of leprosy meant confinement to a living death. Leprosy, beginning with specks on the eyelids, eventually covers the body with running sores and scales. Those scales are what give the disease its name. Lepos, that’s the Greek word for “scale.” Under the skin, the illness rips through nerves and, eventually, the infected individual has no feeling. If you have no feeling, you have no sensitivity or pain. Brush your teeth, comb your hair, scratch an itch–any of those actions could cause bleeding and bruising if you brushed, combed or scratched too hard. If you fell down, a leper didn’t know if something was broken, or if there was internal bleeding. Eventually fingers, toes, nose, ears were gone.
In an Indian leper colony, many of the sick seemed to be mysteriously losing fingers and toes, at night, while they were sleeping. Only when someone stayed up did they find out why. Rats were gnawing on the sleepers, who, feeling no pain, never woke up. Now you understand part of the leper’s problem. But you do not understand it all. Not hardly. There’s more. The individual with leprosy was considered unclean. The Old Testament book of Leviticus 13:45-46 defined the life of an unclean leper. It says: “Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean!’ He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone…. ” The leper was required to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!,” wherever he went. Children would cower at the sight of his corrupted countenance. Adults would run away for fear of contamination. No family, no job, no touch, no intimacy, no future, no hope–for as long as he lived, the simple joys of life, were forbidden. In his earlier life there may have been many who loved him; but, now, none had the power to help.
That’s the way it was for our leper, until the day Jesus showed up. The text records, “A leper came to Jesus and begged Him on his knees.” I can’t tell you how that man had heard about our Lord. In all probability, the news of the Savior’s miracles had reached the remote recesses of the leper’s lair. Notice, the leper doesn’t appear to get too close, nor does he touch Jesus. That was forbidden. More than forbidden, these gestures would have been too familiar from a person asking for a great favor. Instead, the leper kneels down. With hoarseness, for leprosy also affects vocal chords, he croaked his request: “If you are willing you can make me clean.” He waits. He knows his future, his family, his hope, his happiness all depend upon the Savior’s reply. Will love and power come together in Jesus?
For a few moments, let us leave the leper on his knees. Let us turn our attention to your problem. You remember your problem, don’t you? Of course you do. It’s hard to forget. With your problem at hand, are you ready to get down on your knees, right beside the leper and say, “Lord, Jesus, if you are willing, you can take care of my problem? My sin?” Do I feel a hesitation, a reluctance? Are you saying, “Pastor, you know that was OK back then, but it doesn’t work now. Jesus isn’t here in front of me. He isn’t listening to me. I would feel foolish.” Well, I don’t blame you for feeling that way. A lot of folks feel that way. You aren’t alone. But you haven’t found anyone else who has both the power and love to help you, have you? You are still carrying that problem around, aren’t you? Like the leper, you really don’t have anything to lose, do you? Jesus is here. Jesus is listening! Don’t be so foolish as to push away the one Person who can help.
It was quite some time ago that a 1 a.m. phone call was made to the bedroom of Dr. Leo Winter. The respected Chicago surgeon was quickly awake. “A young boy, severely hurt in an accident,” was what the voice on the other end of the line said. A few questions determined he had to go. His hands might be able to save the boy. Dr. Winter got out of bed, quickly dressed, and was soon plotting his route to the hospital. Time was short, so he decided to risk taking a shortcut, a shortcut which had him driving through one of the meaner areas of town. He almost made it, too. But, at a red light, his door was jerked open by a man wearing a gray hat and a worn flannel shirt. “Give me your car!” the man demanded, dragging Winter from his seat. Winter tried to explain. His words were drowned out by the roar of the engine tearing down the street.
The doctor wandered for close to an hour, looking for a phone. It was longer still before a taxi got him to the hospital. At the nurse’s station he was told the boy had died 30 minutes earlier. Indeed, the lad’s own father had just managed to get there before the death. The nurse suggested the good doctor might want to see the father. She added, He’s awfully confused. He doesn’t understand why you didn’t come.”
The doctor went down the hall to make the visit no doctor ever wants to make. Entering the dimly-lit chapel, he went to the only person there, a dejected, weeping man. He went to the man, still dressed in the same gray hat and old flannel shirt he had worn when he had pushed the life-saving doctor from his car.
Don’t do that to Jesus. Don’t push Jesus away. In Jesus, you do have the Person of power and love you have always wanted–that you still need. Alongside the leper, kneel down. Give Him your problem. “Lord, if You want, You can help me, too.” Quiet. The Savior speaks. Jesus’ simple words echo humanity’s straightforward request. Jesus says: “I am willing.” As the all-powerful Son of God, those words have strength. As the gracious Savior, those words are filled with divine love. Don’t be surprised Jesus is willing to help you. It is not the first time humanity has seen God’s power and love come together.
When our ancestors first sinned, when they were condemned, when they were helpless, God’s love and power came together. God promised His Son would be born to save us from our sin (Genesis 3:15). When Moses prayed for the helpless children of Israel who were trapped between the sea and Pharaoh’s soldiers, God’s power and love came together in the form of a miraculous deliverance. When the great giant, Goliath, threatened Saul’s scared soldiers, God’s power and love came together and guided a stone from the slingshot of young shepherd, David. When Daniel was helpless in the lion’s den–in each of these instances and many more, God’s power and love came together to rescue His people. Search the Scripture. Can you ever find a time when God has not been willing to help? It may be a leper’s lostness or your own personal problem. It makes no difference. God is willing. He is so willing that He sent His Son into this world. Jesus became one of us. He lived our pain, understood our pain, and carried it to the cross. Jesus saw our sin; He had compassion on the sinners and took their sins to His cross. Jesus is willing.
Now, this is the point where many of you listeners are saying, “But I know someone who asked God for something…. I asked God for something, and He wasn’t willing. I didn’t get the answer I wanted.” I can’t argue. I don’t agree with religious leaders who say that God will heal every disease if we have a strong faith. God doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes God has a higher purpose for His people. Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, but it was for “God’s glory” (John 11:4), and so the disciples might believe (John 11:15). An unnamed man suffered blindness his entire life so God’s power and love “might be displayed…..” (John 9:33). Even the apostle Paul did not escape his “thorn in the flesh,” so God’s strength might be continuously trusted (2 Cor. 12:7). Even so, I can assure each of you if God doesn’t remove your problem, He will help you carry it. I know, as sure as I know anything, if that problem remains with you, so will God. God will remain by your side, willing to help, in His way, with His wisdom, with His power, and His love.
“I am willing,” Jesus said. Those were the words the leper had hoped to hear, that you need to hear. But what came next was something the leper never expected. Jesus showed His love with more than words. Our text tells us Jesus reached out and touched the untouchable. The gesture was unthinkable. It was unbelievable. Who would do such a thing? Search as you might, the religious world knows only one such person: Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Savior. Jesus reached out to the leper and touched him, even as He reached out to the possessed, to the sick, to the lost, to the lame, to the condemned. He reached out to the adulterer, the thief, and the murderer. And Jesus is reaching out to you, right now. Through this message, Jesus sees your problem and is willing to help you. Without any merit or worthiness in you, Jesus wants to help you now, and in eternity. Jesus, who has redeemed you at the cost of His own life; who has brought you from sin, death and the devil, by His substitutionary death, for you is willing. He reaches out to you. He says, as He did to the leper, “Be clean.” It is more than anyone has the right to expect. It is more than we deserve. It is God’s omnipotent power and His gracious love coming together. And since this is so, you can be healed and whole. God grant it. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for February 16, 2003
ANNOUNCER: We have questions from our listeners. I’m Mark Eischer. Joining me is Pastor Ken Klaus. Today we’re responding to the question a listener asks, ‘What does God want me to be?’
KLAUS: Hi, Mark. If you remember, last week we talked about the difference between Christians and non-Christians in their view of God’s purpose. Today, we’re going to assume that questioner is a Christian.
ANNOUNCER: How would being a Christian make a difference in knowing what God wants him to be?
KLAUS: Well, Mark, there are some things we know God wants us to do. We know, because He’s told us. He wants us to believe in Jesus as our Savior. He wants us to follow the commandments. All of that is an important part of the Christian life, showing that Jesus is first. And, of course, God wants us to love each other.
ANNOUNCER: But our listener wants something more specific. How does he know what he’s supposed to do with his life?
KLAUS: This might be something of a letdown for him, but I have to say it: “He doesn’t.”
ANNOUNCER: He doesn’t? God doesn’t say?
KLAUS: No, He doesn’t. God gave us a free will. He doesn’t move us around like little robots. He doesn’t force us into doing this or that.
ANNOUNCER: So God doesn’t always specifically tell people what they’re supposed to do with their lives?
KLAUS: He doesn’t. Not everyone hears God speak to him like young Samuel did. Not everyone is anointed like little David. Not everyone sees a burning bush, as did Moses. Think about it. On Pentecost, the birthday of the church, we hear Peter and the other disciples preaching. Right?
ANNOUNCER: Right.
KLAUS: And before that day was over 3,000 converts were made to the new faith–3,000 people believed on Jesus. Also right?
ANNOUNCER: Also right.
KLAUS: What happened to those people?
ANNOUNCER: I don’t know.
KLAUS: What did they do?
ANNOUNCER: The Bible doesn’t say.
KLAUS: Right. The Bible doesn’t say. Some of them probably went back home. Within a short time, they probably returned to work. They did what they had been doing, but now they were Christians. Their old lives had a new and different meaning.
ANNOUNCER: In what way?
KLAUS: Say somebody was a tentmaker. Before Jesus, he made tents to live, to make a profit. After Jesus, each stitch he put into his tents was to glorify Jesus. He wanted to make a good tent, because people would judge him and his Savior, in a negative way, if he put out a shoddy product.
ANNOUNCER: So, not everybody was supposed to be an apostle? Not everyone was to go on the road and become a missionary?
KLAUS: Right, again. Do you remember the story of the man who was possessed by the devil, the one who lived in the cemetery?
ANNOUNCER: I do. Jesus threw the devils out of the man. They went into a herd of pigs and the pigs ran off a cliff.
KLAUS: Exactly. That’s what we usually remember about that story. But most people don’t read much further. There was a “rest of the story.” The evangelist Mark tells us, as Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with Him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell everyone how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
ANNOUNCER: He started witnessing at home. He did God’s work at home.
KLAUS: Exactly.
ANNOUNCER: So, we see God can use people where they are. Then it doesn’t make any difference what you do?
KLAUS: Well, I didn’t say that, exactly. You see, God wants you to use the gifts He has given to you.
ANNOUNCER: Gifts?
KLAUS: Using those gifts of God, we can be what He particularly wants us to be.
ANNOUNCER: Because He has entrusted different gifts to different people.
KLAUS: Right. Saint Paul says that in the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians. He says there are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.
ANNOUNCER: I think Jesus said the same thing in His parable of the talents.
KLAUS: He told us to use the gifts He has given.
ANNOUNCER: And when we use those gifts, we are following God’s personal purpose?
KLAUS: The more we use God’s gifts, the more we bring our lives into harmony with His will and the greater is our peace and contentment. The farther away we go or the more we stray, the more difficult our life will be.
ANNOUNCER: That’s it?
KLAUS: Pretty much. No, maybe we ought to say one more thing. As most of our listeners know, Saint Paul covered a lot of ground in his life. He was a murderer and an apostle, a tentmaker and a preacher; an evangelist and a Pharisee. Yet, as he looked back on all that had happened to him, this was his conclusion. It comes from Philippians 4. He said, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. The next Lutheran Hour message is titled, “Not As Easy as It Looks.”