Jesus heals the leper

Mark 1:40-45 - Jesus heals the leper

v40a - And a leper came to Jesus

This is an incident of a leper who took the inititive and pains of coming to Jesus. In those days, being a leper was synonymous with an "outcast". They were not allowed to live in the city. They used to live in the outskirts of the city, mostly near the graves. One such man, comes to Jesus. He doesn't wait for Jesus to pass by his house or his road. He takes the step forward to come to Jesus to seek his help. He'd have had to face the scorn of many people to have been able to get near Jesus. But this shows his determination on seeking God's help to be healed.

v40b - "If You are willing, You can make me clean".

When he comes to Jesus, what a beautiful way he presents his request. He doesn't say "Master I want to be clean. Please make me clean". His request seems more on the lines of "Not my will, but Yours be done". Again, I'd say he was not only a determined man, but a man who knew the scriptures and wanted nothing but God's will to come alive in his life.

v41a - Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him,

Till now, what I saw of the leper was that of a man who knew the right way to approach things in life. But when I read this verse, it got me thinking, "Why did Jesus have to stretch out His hand?" This leper had withstood the glares and comments of the people around Jesus, knew that the best thing in his life is what is willed by God, but still inspite of coming all that distance, couldn't he have stood near enough for Jesus to touch him, without having to stretch out?

When I visualize this situation, I think of it this way. He knelt beside Jesus, and asked him to cleanse him if He is willing. Jesus was willing, so He lifted His hands to touch the leper. Seeing the hand motion, the reaction of the leper could have been to step back a step, to think that may be Jesus' hand was moving towards him by mistake. He might've thought, Jesus will say "Be clean", and presto, I'll be as good as new. Or may be He'll ask me to wash myself in the River Jordan. But inspite of submitting himself to God's will, his body was unrelenting when God did something his mind had not perceived.

Aren't we like that leper most times (or may be at all times).

We really want God to work in us.

We are willing to submit our lives to the will of God.

But!!!! When He does something in our lives as not perceived by us, we tend to move back. We tend to keep one step back, and look at Him and say, "Whoa there! Are you sure you really want to do that? This is not exactly how I expected you to answer my prayers. You sure you wanna be doing this to me?"