In my own analysis, I broke the text down like this:

KV41: Jesus Enters the Ministry in Earnest

41: Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

35-39: Everyone Is Looking for You!
40-45: Say Nothing to Anyone…

Jesus has been “in ministry” for about a year or so at this point. The period between His baptism and the calling of His first disciples a bit earlier in chapter one is sometimes referred to as the “muddy year” of ministry. Peter’s call to Simon Peter and Andrew recorded in 1:16-20 was at least 18 months into Jesus’ ministry. They had already been following Jesus for an unspecified number of months. I think this may have been for His disciples (whom He would have known in advance as God) to get to know Him, and perhaps to learn that the life change they had committed to at the baptism of John was difficult work and did not occur instantly, but would literally take the rest of their lives. During this period, Jesus and his called men went to a Galilean wedding, travelled to Capernaum, attended important religious services like Passover, met with religious leaders, some of those were friendly like Nicodemus, some were hostile (usually of the cults of the Pharisees and Saducees, but Herodians became involved at points), and wandered around the Judean countryside looking for trouble (okay, not really, but it still found them).

In all of this, what we observe isn’t a large-scale ministry of any kind, but rather immersive discipleship with a small group of men that learned “hands on” so to speak. In all this time, it really reflects Jesus’s deliberate strategy of literally investing in small group ministry and teaching by example, as well as by words and works of power rather than, as we said last time, into a large scale spectacle, by going down to, say, the Capernaum Convention Center, and having large scale teaching or healing or miracle meetings, which somehow all found Him and happened anyway.

In this study, we see Jesus enter that more what we today would call “ministry” in earnest. There becomes a more deliberate attempt to teach, and as a great example to we who follow Him, to be praerful and humble, not for our own popularity or gain. That is precisely what we see in our text this evening. Let’s look at it and see.

KV41: Jesus Enters the Ministry in Earnest

41: Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Jesus also reveals the real reason behind His ministry among humans in the text, and that is His willing compassion about the human condition. Dictionary.com defines compassion as “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.” Jesus’s famous compassion is not only displayed in this text, but was put into song lyrics by William Hunter in 1851. “The great Physician now is near, the sympathizing Jesus; He speaks the drooping heart to cheer, Oh! Hear the voice of Jesus.” That’s the first verse. He has come to heal us by lifting us out of our condition of sinfulness and under the wrath of God. This must be remembered above all, that He came to save us from that, and it is in fact His own stated goal. We will probably have more to say about that later. Let’s jump into the text here.

35-39: Everyone Is Looking for You!

Just the evening before, our Lord was consulted by what the Scriptures say was the entire city of Capernaum, though I personally wonder if it was a subset of that whole who were restricted to the needs of unclean spirits and sicknesses of different sorts. Whatever the case, he dealth with every single petitioner who came by healing them all. The text told us that this was after sundown (about 6 p.m.), and I wonder how late those events stretched into the evening. Because I am in ill health myself, I understand the need for rest medically, and I wonder what time Jesus the man got some sleep, or even if He got any. We do not know because Mark does not tell us, but we do know what he said next.

35: In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

From the text, it tells us that our Lord Jesus rose in the early morning while it was still dark. It doesn’t say, but I get the impression that He was an early riser, and that’s something I understand as a farm boy. If you can get a good jump on the day, you just have better days. Even Emperor Marcus Aurelius (he ruled from 161-180, and is often thought of as the last of the good emperors, and was the last to rule over the Pax Romana, a period that lasted from 27 BC to AD 180, a little over 200 years, when Rome truly ruled the world) believed in getting a good jump on the day. I’m not saying he was a believer, I think he was anything but, but the mental disciplines he practiced sounds a lot like my morning and evening devotions, only he would have substituted the priciples of Stoicism for the Scriptures and how Christ is reflected in all of them. Beloved, he did that every morning, and ended his day by examining his own conduct to discern errors or progress made during the day. I think this has more to do with the effect of Pauline theology on Roman Society than anything else, if I’m being honest. I say that because Christianity will still be an illegal religion for approximately 150 years yet. And they were still beginning to realize that there needs to be a spiritual aspect to our lives and what that involved, even though they only had shards of the truth like Emperor Aurelius. Jesus rising before dawn had to have some spiritual purpose, and I like to think it was something like this.

He not only got us, he left everybody else and went to a secluded place. Given that He was praying there (it’s in the text), I think it representative of a good model for His followers to adopt. When I get out of bed, it is very early in the day. I’m deliberately not giving you times because I don’t want people to “do it like Gerry does.” Come up with your own schedule. I find a quiet spot and open my bible and go through the passages that my reading plan has that day. I use the old McCheynne reading guide, and most bible software has it built in. There are printible versions if you like to use real books, and there are arguments in favor of that, but we can talk about that another time.

Now because Jesus Himself IS the Word of God, we can understand why He didn’t read from the Word. We should though. I’m sure He had some spiritual fellowship with His Father, who is our adoptive Heavenly Father, so we should as well. I’m sure He worshiped His Heavenly Father as a man, even the Son of Man, and so should we. We know He prayed, because the text tells us that is when His disciples found Him. I know this isn’t explicitly in the text, but we should all be making an attempt to discipline ourselves (it comes from the word disciple in English and in Latin) to some kind of routine for reading and prayer and self-examination and repentance wherever necessary.

The last thing I will say in this verse is that it caused Him to be missed when everyone else got up. How do we know? Next verse.

36: Simon and his companions searched for Him;

When they discovered that He was not where they thought He was, they went looking for Him! And I don’t think it was just His disciples that were searching.

37: they found Him, and said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.”

I find it interesting that it was His disciples who at least had an idea of where to look. We know this, because it was they who found Him. We know that it wasn’t just they who searched because they tell us so: “Everyone is looking for you,” they said. This made me wonder why it was that everyone was looking for Jesus.

I believe it is because He met their needs. Have you ever heard the ancient proverb, “An army travels on its stomach?” There is an amount of truth to that in a spiritual sense, and I think it can be generally applied here. What I mean is that if you have a need or needs, and you find someone that can actually hep with that, you will seek them out for that help. From this point forward, this principle will come into play for our Lord Jesus. It will to an extent in the next verse, and we will see that momentarily, but at a certain point, like after the feeding of the 5000, the crowds became unmanageable and the only place Jesus could go was into a boat to escape the press of the crowds. There even came a point that Jesus had to leave the state where he was just to spend some one-on-one time with His closest men, the original 12 disciples. Now, let’s look at that principle I mentioned. Next verse.

38: He said to them, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for.”

Here, at the time His knowledge was increasing in the minds of others, Jesus feels the need to take His show on the road into the nearby towns and villiages to do the same thing in those places. Think about this as a form of marketing, though that is a modern equivalent of what was going on. If you have a message to spread, you go about and spread the message. Today, we call it direct messaging, and many know it as public speaking. We understand the metrics very well these days, and if you’re trying to be well-known, this is the kind of speaking tour you go on.

I have difficulty believing that the Lord of Hosts needs this kind of marketing, and I see another and more tragic reasoning behind this. I believe this is God the Son presenting Himself through His words and miracle workings to His nation, revealing Himself as the One True King of Israel because He knew even then that there would come a day when they would seek Him out for a darker reason and reject His words and works, the very reason for which He came. He knew, even then, that there was a point coming when they would deliver Him over to those who would put Him to death for His very identity. However, that is a ways into the future from this point. Here, He is presenting Himself to Israel as the Anointed One of God, the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed. Because it helped them, initially, everyone had a good report to give. And what did He do? Next verse!

39: And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out the demons.

He did what He said He was going to do. He became an iteinerant speaker; that’s what we call it today. He went from His base in Capernaum to the synagogues in neaby towns and villages and did two things specifically mentioned in the text: preaching and casting out demons. I think we are all familiar with his message, because we ran into it in verse 15: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near [lit.]; repent and believe in the gospel.” We know this because (and we will see this as we go on) His message does not change. He, as God the Son, became human for us, lived a perfect life under the law of Moses, and at the right time that He provoked, He gave up His life as the perfect atoning sacrifice for the sins of those of us who will turn to Him in faith. Looking back on that few days nearly 2000 years ago, we know all of the history that backs this up, and we go through it on the channel as we go through these studies. At this point in history, nobody but Jesus knew any of this from a human perspective.

On a darker note, remember, Jesus knows that He has come to pay the price for all of the sins of all the men and women who will ever turn to Him in faith. Time is ticking down to that event, just like time is counting down for us, and unlike Him, we do not have the prescient ability to know how long we have until He comes for us, either in the harpazo event that is predicted in the New Testament in at least two places (I argue four, with a fifth place given as a definition of how it will operate), or at the end of our lives when the Lord comes for us personally as an individual. Remember the words of Peter in His letter; 1 Peter 4:18 says, “And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?”

We may not know how long we have, but we do know the ultimate fate of believers and unbelievers. The believers up to that point will go with Him. The unbelievers, although I don’t like to talk about it, I must, will have a hotter time. It relates to that message that Jesus at the point in history we are reading about in this study is preaching. God has set a day where He will judge all the disobedient in righteousness, and if anyone does not meet His holy standard (NOT OUR IMAGINED ONE), then on that day, in front of the assembled Holy Ones of God, which at this point will include all God’s chosen people the saints, they will be flung into the lake that burns with fire for the rest of eternity, and there will be no diminishing of that suffering over time. You won’t get used to it, you won’t be able to manipulate your way out of it, or lie and escape it. Not one person who deserves to be there will escape it. Please, I don’t want anyone to go there. Turn from your sin and toward Jesus, our Redeemer. Forsake your horrible mess you call a life and exchange it for His glorious life by believing that He rose from the dead to prove that He really did die in your place on the cross. We have to move on into the next study, but email me if you want to talk further.

In a sense, it is still true in a way that everyone is looking for Jesus. His chosen people are looking for Him all the time. And for those who will actively seek Him for salvation, they will find Him. For those that still want what they want more than Him, they will find a false version of Jesus that will give them what they want to their own eternal sorrow.

40-45: Say Nothing to Anyone…

As Jesus’ popularity grew in direct correlation with the number of people He helped publicly, He began to say, “Don’t tell anyone who did this.” I do not think this was done because He wanted to hide Himself or His works, but because of His real humility. Because he had that thing we all know as compassion, “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering,” as you will recall our earlier definition from Dictionary.com, he wanted to alleviate the suffering the encountered individual was experiencing. However, this presented a couple of logistical problems for Him in ministry. First, if he had allowed the demons to speak about Him, well, He would have had demons testifying about Him. Do you think they would tell an accurate picture of Him? I don’t either. So He would have also had to deal with the lies they told about Him. Interestingly, He told one demoniac that He should go and tell everybody, so we know this wasn’t a blanket principle. Second, He was telling some of the people to stay silent to attempt to ease the pressure on Him. He was helping so many people; it was hindering other areas of ministry, like prayer, for example, which has already come up, and why He was up before the sun. He knew that if people who were healed or relatives blabbed all over, it would lead to large crowds that would hinder Him in ministry. He also ended up telling His disciples not to tell anyone He was the Messiah even though they had realized it, because they didn’t understand it, and they wouldn’t until after His resurrection. It would have been potentially disastrous for them to proclaim something they understood as poorly as they did. It would be like a game of telephone, but where you got cut off halfway through the line you were supposed to communicate. Still, we see it come up in the next paragraph, so I mention it for what it’s worth. Let’s get into the text.

40: 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.”

This, to me, encapsulates Jesus’ whole earthly ministry. Leprosy was a communicable disease that was nearly always fatal. In Scripture, it is always used as a type or symbol of sin. It also made the one with the leprosy ceremonially unclean among the Jews, and it meant that until it was cured and you went through the purification ritual with a priest, you were unable to participate in any of the religious life of the people of God. You were cursed, cut off from the blessings of God. All Jewish lepers knew it, and even had to stand afar off and identify themselves by shouting “Unclean! Unclean!” to all who were approaching, lest they come into contact with this scourge. It was a double curse, for not only could you not participate in the religious life of the people of God, but you also couldn’t risk going near anyone you cared about because you might give it to them! You were cut off and cast off, except by anyone other than lepers. Not a fun party, that.

Such a man came to Jesus. There are some things worth noting here. The man knew where to go and who to see about his leprosy. He had the good sense to acknowledge that Jesus was no ordinary man by “beseeching,” or earnestly pleading (begging) and falling on his knees before Him. This is a physical act of humility and recognizing His authority. And then, with His words, and that is important, He asks Jesus to make Him clean, if He was willing. I think the words are important. It used to be a thing way back in the Pentecostal church days for me that you didn’t have to talk to God because He knew what your requests were before you asked. Now if that were true, why pray at all? No, words are important because they demonstrate your need and your faith to those around you if nothing else. There may be other things. I’m often short of time when preparing these studies, so I apologize for that. It’s Jesus’ answer to this man that brings me to tears. Next verse.

41: Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

Jesus was moved in His own heart with His famous compassion. He felt that deep sympathy for the man whom He had personally created with His own supernatural power, like He has for all of us. He felt the sorrow of the man, knowing all of what He had suffered because of sin in the world that will lead to death, and our Lord Jesus knew there was nothing the man could do for himself to alleviate his own suffering. He allowed that compassion to move Him in love for His own creation, and then He did something unexpected. He reached out His hand and touched the leper, which is something you NEVER did if you were a normal human who didn’t want to risk catching it. And then He spoke from His heart. “I am willing. Be cleansed.”

And there I was, lost in my own sin, destroyed from a lack of family to talk to about a relationship gone wrong that had shattered my heart into a million or so tiny little fragments. My dad would have said he was sorry it didn’t work out with my little friend and gone on with what he was doing. My mom would have just said stuff about how I didn’t know what love really was, and she may have been right about that, but still, hard to take, and my sisters would have just laughed or wer too young. My one uncle was a deforocked minister who belonged to a cult. My other uncle was living five hours away. My grandparents? Um…just no. I literally had nobody I could go to. In my own sinfulness, I recognized I was unclean. I may not have understood the extent, but I knew that. When Jesus found me, I showed Him the shards of my heart. I told Him of my own defilement of sin. I asked His forgiveness, His cleasing for my spiritual leprosy if He wanted a loser like me around. Metaphorically, He told me He was willing, and to be cleansed. I opend the door of my heart. He came in. He brought the (spiritual, metaphorical) food. He healed my heart and mind. I’m going to read you the verse that won me on that June evening in 1985. Revelation 3:20 says,“ Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” My very first love – she and I eventually married – different people. Sadly, several years ago, she was killed in a freak motorcycle accident, but that’s part of my point. We don’t know when God will call our name to attend Him. We had best be ready.

I also think because of who God is, that this was no random encounter. Jesus knew where the man was before He approached him. This man may have thought He found Jesus, but I assure you it was the other way around. Jesus will find YOU at the right time. He will make you an offer like this that you will not want to refuse, so don’t He will save you when you ask Him. Ask Him. As soon as you can. You will only need to do it once, and He is waiting for you. Next verse.

42: Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

Bill Gaither wrote many songs, but one of the ones he is most recognized for is “He touched me.” At a touch of the Saviour’s hand, the leprosy was gone, just like Peter’s mother-in-law’s fever. And at a touch of the Saviour’s hand, my sinful nature was gone, although I didn’t understand everything that means (and honestly still don’t). Because He was willing, knowing we believed, He healed us, at least spiritually, although the leper was also physically healed of leprosy. This was the whole point of the encounter: to cleanse the metaphorical sin from this man. There are multiple reasons why.

The first reason was because this man needed it. Through whatever means, he had contracted and suffered from leprosy. Recall that not only were the consequences physical, but also spiritual, in that in made one ceremonially unclean. He was not allowed anywhere near a synagogue. He had to tell everyone he was unclean everywhere. Can you imagine an organization, Lepers’ Anonymous? “My name is Uzziah, and I’m a leper…” “Hi, Uzziah.” And the testimony of the suffering continues. If you’re snickering, it’s okay. It is laughable.

The second reason was to show that Jesus could in fact heal leprosy, that great type of sin. In the next verse, Jesus warns the man sternly, and we’ll say more about it there, but I don’t think this was the “don’t tell people” argument. Reasons when we get there. He has the supernatural power to deal with demons effectively AND the power to forgive sin in a life.

43: And He sternly warned him and immediately sent him away,

The reason I don’t think this was the “don’t talk about me” warning is because that comes in the next verse. It doesn’t specifically say what he was warned about, but there are other passages that can give us an idea of things. There was a man who his friends carried, dug a hole in Jesus’ actual roof, and lowered on a pallet in front of Him. In the story in John 5:14, it says, “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.’” I think Jesus was warning this man to stop sinning and walk with Him. The language here from John is specific: stop sinning or things can be worse for you. That’s what I think this warning was about. Why? Next verse has a different warning statement.

44: and He said 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.”

Here is where the man is warned not to say anything to anyone. I believe this is a second statement because of the use of the word “and” at the beginning at the start of the verse. I did look at the Greek for that, and the word καὶ is there. I know, I copied and pasted it into my notes, because I have an English keyboard, not a Greek one! Look at this as one complex sentence, and it works in both languages. The sentence: “And He sternly waned him and immediately sent him away, and He said to him, &c…” The grammar here indicates it was two seperate sentences.

Jesus also gave the man separate instructions because He also ceremonially cleansed the man, and there was a sacred process to that. Leviticus 14:32 tells us, “This is the law for him in whom there is an infection of leprosy, whose means are limited for his cleansing.” There was a ritual sacrifice for cleansing by a Levitical priest according to what the individual could afford, but I’m unclear if that was still in effect at this time. From about 200 BC, Israel had descended into apostasy, and specific cults rose to ascendancy and ran the nation. (Those were the Pharisees, who became today’s rabbinical Jews, and the Sadducees who also joined them as the intellectual version of the same thing.) However, Jesus did say to make the offering for his own cleansing as Moses prescribed in the Law.

The reason this was a testimony to these priests was at least twofold: First, it was a testimony against them in their face because of their possible non-adherence to the law of Moses, which many of them still boasted about, even though they had nothing to actually do with it. They followed something called the “traditions of the elders” that were meant to keep people away from the law like a fence is meant to keep animals away from a hazard, and although that initially had good intentions, sunk into a way to avoid actually doing the law before God. We will see this again. Second, it was to show them that there was someone out there doing supernatural miracles of healing as a kind of call to them to come back to the Lord and abandon their problematic traditions of the elders.

Jesus was also not under any illusions that this man was going to remain silent. He was God, and He had created this man personbally from before this world came into being. Because there is not a day that God has had to learn anything, the God-Man knew what was going to happen. Next verse, last verse.

45: But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around, to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere.

See? The man could not keep quiet. I can’t really blame him. Someone newly supernaturally cleansed is normally jazzed enough to tell every one they meet what happened, how it happened, when it happened, the time of day, the day of the week, the phase of the moon, like that. I was more than a little like that. I remember getting hauled in to my boss’s office and told that when I was at work was not the time to do that, and I’m being kind. He was right, there is a time and place. You have to balabnce that need to evangelize with the job they are actually paying you to do while you’re there. I think Jesus may have designed that into those who are His, so I do not thingk that Jesus was surprised that he did this. I don’t even think He was angry, although maybe annoyed that he couldn’t just go through a city gate without going after dark or sneaking in the back way. He could not stay in the cities. Can you imagine not being able to rent an inn to sleep because literally everyone wanted to meet you and get your help on things?

Jesus ended up staying in “unpopulated areas.” This doesn’t mean necessarily that He slept rough out in the fields, though I’ve don that occasionally, and it isn’t that bad if you’re camping or on a multiday trip. My mother tells the story of how she met Mel Gibson face to face in front of the Kenora Post Office, back about the time of Mad Max: Thunderdome, I think. She was coming off of her midnight shift as a cleaner somewhere, and she was checking the mail on the way home. He had rented a temporary mailbox and was doing the same thing. My hometown was just shy of 10,000 people the entire time I was growing up. The start point for a city in Ontario used to be 10,000 people, and our population was officially 9,997, and it said it on the sign at the outskirts of town. However, Jesus (and Mr. Gibson) would have had the same problem in Kenora. However, there was a village (population like 200) about 30 miles to the north named Minaki, and it turns out that Mr. Gibson had rented the whole facility of Minaki Lodge to take his family on a vacation and had come into town before 7 a.m. to check the mail. Remember, there was a group of guys travelling together, at certain points as many as 20 people, because more than just the disciples followed Jesus around. Matthias at least was there, and I would guess a few others. However, once word got around, the same problem would occur.

What I saw in this chapter is that public life can be like this. At a certain point, everyone is looking for you, and it is difficult to get some time to do reading and thinking through sermons or bible studies, or in my case time to actually do my accreditation assignments. I think I have a handle on it, if nothing strange happens, but if you want to pray for me, that’s a great thing to pray for.

I also saw that the whole point behind Jesus’ ministry when He was here to do the will of His Father was energized by His compassion for us. We can see how He was willing to touch a leper and heal and cleanse Him. Metaphorically, I made a connection between that leper and the average sinner, using my own story as an example. Jesus came to save us, not condemn us. John 3:17 says, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” Yes, verse 18 comes after that, and it does explain that those who have not believed are condemned, but it is explaing that is the default value is all humans are already condemned. Jesus came to change that for any who would turn to Him, and we saw those priciples in our text in this study.

That’s what I saw in the text this time! Next Thursday at 7 p.m., we are in Mark 2:1-12, which I initially have titled “Who Is This Man?” speaking of Jesus.

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