“If you will, you can make me clean”. –Mark 1:40
That statement in the gospel of Mark really tugs at my heart. I see my own heart in the statement of this desperate leper. He knows that God can do anything, but He isn’t sure that He wants to. He’s found in Jesus the man who can touch His greatest hurt and wash Him clean…but will He? Jesus’ ability isn’t up for debate, but apparently His heart is.
It’s likely years of shame which has this leper questioning whether Jesus would want to heal him. Ed Welch says it well:
“…shame can deliberately undermine any possible success. If you catch a whiff of something good, you treat it as a threat. You run from it, drink at it, drug at it, sabotage it…People who live with shame believe they don’t deserve anything good. Sure, others get hurt by shame’s self-destructive ways, but its not as if you wanted to hurt them. You are doing your loved ones a favor (you think) if you distance yourself from them. You will ruin lives eventually, so you might as well get it over with.” (Shame Interrupted, 32)
This leper knows that Jesus can heal him, but why would he want to? I love Mark 1:41. It’ll preach. Jesus is moved with compassion and then He does the unthinkable…He touches the leper. And rather than Jesus getting leprosy and becoming unclean He heals the leper. That’s good gospel stuff right there. Jesus touches the untouchable. It doesn’t matter how much shame or darkness or dirtiness or brokenness you have, when you call upon the name of the Lord you will be saved.
But then I think of Martha.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
She, like the leper, isn’t questioning Jesus’ ability. She’s not even questioning His heart. If Jesus had been here then He would have made sure Lazarus didn’t die. What she is questioning is Jesus’ time management skills. Or rather, she is questioning the goodness of God’s planning.
And that leads to where I occasionally wrestle with the Lord. I know that He is able. I know (at least I’m growing in knowing) that He loves me. But what if His love means that Lazarus still dies? What if for the glory of God my Lazarus dies?
He is still good. He still loves me. He still is doing everything that is ultimately best for me. But it’s not what I would have chosen. Will I trust Him then?
This is where those who question God’s existence get really frustrated with us. We say God miraculously heals someone. We see the hand of God in someone’s cancer going into remission. We attribute this to God instead of science. Point for team Jesus. Then when God doesn’t heal someone…we continue to believe that God is good and does us good. We say things like “He has a better plan, He decided to heal in another way”. It’s a no lose situation for God.
If God could heal someone, if God loves us, then why in the world would He not always heal? And if he doesn’t always heal doesn’t it mean that either He doesn’t exist or He isn’t good?
Not at all.
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
It just means the story isn’t over.
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