Jesus Offers Wholeness

Scripture — Mark 1:40-44 (NRSV)

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, 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.”

Devotion

In this story from Mark, a man with leprosy comes to Jesus for healing. Jesus was his only hope of getting free from the dreaded disease that had cut the man off from society and would one day lead to his death. So the man approached Jesus, “begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean’” (1:40).

In response to the man’s fervent plea, Jesus healed his body. But then Jesus said something curious: “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” (1:44). The command not to tell anyone reflected Jesus’s concern that word of his healing power would bring the crowds and keep him from fulfilling his full purpose. Indeed, this is exactly what happened when the healed man disobeyed Jesus and told everyone what had happened to him (1:45).

But why did Jesus tell the healed man to be examined by a priest and present the offering required in the law? For years, the man with leprosy had been excluded from his community, forced to live on the edges of society because of his disease. Only the priest had the authority to declare that this man had truly been healed. Thus, a priest alone had the authority to restore the former leper in his community. Jesus could heal his body. But the priest could “heal” his relationships. This is exactly what Jesus wanted for this man.

Jesus still heals bodies, sometimes through the gift of medical science, sometimes with supernatural power . . . and often through a combination of all both. Yet Jesus is not just in the body-healing business. Nor is he just in the soul-healing business, though this is surely central to his work. Rather, Jesus seeks to make us whole in every dimension of life. The kingdom of God brings restoration, not just to bodies, but to all that was lost when sin distorted God’s good creation. Though we wait for the full experience of the kingdom, even now God offers to each of us the chance to experience wholeness in every part of life.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Mark 1:40–45. Jesus Heals a Leper.