February 21, 2021
8 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him; 2 and there was a leper who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
16 That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
You and I are Holy Vessels. We were created by God and hold the love and light of Christ as best we can, sharing same with those in our lives. But we are also vessels that have been cracked, bruised and at times broken. Like our opening song proclaimed, we are “holy and whole, broken and needing Christ. Each week during Lent we will focus on a different need – physical, communal, mental, intellectual, and environmental, using the healing stories of Matthew as our guide.
As you noticed sea glass is our image for this journey. Marcia McFee created this theme seeing the beauty of something that once was whole, then broken, to emerge after tumbles and forces smoothed its edges. That is a metaphor for our lives. We go through life as daughters, mother, husband and employees, friends, and disciples, yet when hard times come, we find ourselves feeling tossed about, hurt by circumstances. Of course, these same roles bring us much joy, but it is in the brokenness that we are often changed. That is when we need to know at our core that we are loved, and precious in God’s sight.
After coming down from the place of sermon on the mount, Jesus is boldly approached by a leper. That leper had been tossed about and hurt. Leprosy was a terrible illness, causing physical pain and social exile. You were cast out from your family, social and religious groups, and left to your own devices. It was even likened to death in that people were as unclean for touching someone with leprosy as they were for touching a dead body. Leprosy had broken his body, had cracked his holy vessel and isolated him from his community. Yet the first healing in Matthew is of Jesus touching and healing a leper.
Amazingly the sick man worshipped Jesus, bowed down before him and called him Lord before making his bold request for healing. He believed in Jesus’ power to heal, even though Jesus had not yet healed anyone. Maybe that is why their exchange is so dramatic. “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” Such faith, such certainty, such hope. Then Jesus replies, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Jesus shows his willingness to offer healing comfort to this man. Jesus says yes to the person who is broken and outcast in front of him. Jesus does the same for you and me. When we come to Jesus with whatever is hurting in our lives Jesus says, yes. Yes, I see your pain. Yes, I see your disease. Yes, I see your brokenness. Jesus says “Yes, I do choose to take that burden and make you whole. Jesus is always willing to respond to our needs, but we need to ask, we need to come to Jesus vulnerable and broken.
But sometimes that is hard. We have shame, or embarrassment and we really do not want God to know about our brokenness. Maybe that is why the first healing is of a leper. Because it is both a physical disease and a social stigma. Jesus wants us to be whole, clean, made well and so if that means addressing the social or emotional parts of our brokenness, then Jesus is up to the task. So that whatever feels broken in your life, Jesus is open and compassionately willing to hear you and to help.
Jesus chose to heal the leper and to compassionately touch him. As I said earlier, touching a leper made you ritually unclean, and an outcast. But that does not stop Jesus. Jesus upends the norms to care for the man, to value the man, to show compassion. In 1989 Princess Diana did something similar. On a solo trip to America, she visited Harlem Hospital AIDS unit and did the unthinkable at that time. She embraced a child with HIV. She shared her humanity with this sick boy. She disregarded the social stigma and through her status helped to change the way the world responds to people with HIV/AIDS.
Touch is a powerful thing. We need touch like we need air and water to live. That is part of why this shelter in place is so hard. I don’t know about you, but I miss our hugs after church. A way of sharing and caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ in a physical way. Or think back to a time when you were emotionally hurting and crying, and the comfort you felt when someone held you, touched you, and graced you with the compassion of their presence and the acceptance of your wounded state.
We are holy vessels who can be broken and cracked by illness, physical failings, a body that is simply worn and tire. But that is why Jesus quoting Isaiah is so important. First, we hear that Jesus healed all who were sick. Jesus chose to heal, to make whole those who came to him. His willingness to heal, his statement, “I do choose,” makes all the difference. As one commentator wrote, “The question upon which everything in the story depends is not on Jesus’ ability to heal (which is taken for granted) but his willingness to heal. In communicating such willingness, Jesus reveals something of the divine power and sovereignty working through him” (Walter Wilson). Remember Jesus is always willing to heal you, even if that healing takes a form different than you hoped.
Jesus then fulfills Isaiah words saying, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Within this context of healing, you might think that is a throwaway line. But it is not. Jesus is designated as the Suffering Servant that Isaiah proclaimed. The fullest account of who the Messiah is, the Suffering Servant, one known by every Jew, has just been called to mind. The next verse states, “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (Is. 53:5). By Jesus’ bruises we are healed! Yes, Jesus bore our diseases because Jesus willingly and compassionately does so. Willingly and compassionately says yes. But the fullness of our healing is found in the sacrifice Christ made on the cross so that you and I would have healing in this life and promised life in the next. Isaiah tells in the same chapter, “he poured out himself to death…, and bore the sins of many” (Is. 53:12).
Walter Wilson is the book, The Healing in the Gospel of Matthew writes,
“Viewed in the shadow of the cross, Jesus’ ministry of healing can be seen as an extension of his solidarity with human suffering, especially the suffering of those who have been “abandonad” by society. The bodies of those healed, meanwhile, are marked by the power of the divine to create new life out of hopelessness, their stories representing new chapters in the rewritten narrative of human suffering.” (pg. 90)
Our cracked and holy vessels are given renewed life in the new chapters written by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Our faith helps us lean into the polishing that happens as we are tossed about by circumstances, trusting that we will become like beautiful pieces of sea glass that even when broken find their place in God’s world. Grant us the ablity to treasure the cracks we have, knowing God is not done with us, restoring us and healing us. May our time sharing Christ’s table enhance our awareness of cracks, and may we boldly ask Jesus for healing much like the leper did. Amen.
