Selwyn). Churchman's Pulpit : Third Sunday after the Epiphany, iv. 52 (E. Palmer). Clergyman's Magazine, 3rd Ser., xi. 20 (W. Burrows).
The Leper.
And behold, there came to him a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will ; be thou made clean. And straight- way his leprosy was cleansed.— Matt. viii. 2, 3.
1. The disease of leprosy is scarcely known, except in a mild form, among ourselves ; only those who have seen it in Eastern lands can realize its full horror and loathsomeness. And not even then unless they place themselves in intelligent sympathy with the ancient Hebrew point of view, and understand the mysterious dread and utter abhorrence which surrounded the person so afflicted. He was an accursed thing, under the ban of God, the pariah, the unapproachable. Writhing under the dread disease, he was lost to the world. His home was the caves among the rocks, his food the scanty pittance which he could gather in the fields or by the roadsides. Leprosy was held to be the mark of awful sin, the manifestation of God's special displeasure. Even if he recovered, he could not be restored without an elaborate ritual, which was supposed to cleanse him from the taint of disease, and to reconcile him to God. How horrible this all seems as we read and think about it. Yet we must realize it if we desire to appreciate fully all that the Saviour's touch and healing implied.
2. To approach the leper, to look upon him, to bend over him, to reach out the hand and touch him, required no common courage. There was such pollution in the act that the one doing it became ritually unclean. For a man to step across the awful chasm which yawned between the leper and society, to minister to his wants, to show him the way back to health and home, was braver than to face death on the battlefield. To the beholder it would be an evidence of utter recklessness, an open defiance of all
208 THE LEPER
tradition and all law. Yet Christ, the Son of Man, did not hesitate for a moment. He did not come to set at naught the law, made sacred by Moses' decree and by long ages of use. It was not that. It was only a declaration, of which His wonderful life was so full, of the higher law which was from henceforth to govern the world ; that higher law of the sympathy of the great Father with all manner of suffering and sorrow, that higher law which was to take the place of the narrow rule of Hebrew ritual, of the possi- bility of the restoration of every outcast by the acceptance of the help of the Saviour.
T| Christ did not disregard the prohibition to touch the leper because He wanted to show His contempt for the statute. For Him the wealth of His own life repealed the statute. He was like a vessel riding the deep sea ; all underlaid with rocks the sea may be, but for that vessel there are no rocks ; the vastness of the deep waters on whose surface its course is swung practically obliterates the rocks, and bears the vessel forward in the con- fidence of infinite security.1
I.
The Cry for Cleansing.
M Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."
1. This is a confession of faith rather than a direct prayer. It expresses faith in the power of Christ. It is a grand thing when a leper can believe in anything besides his own misery. Probably this man had heard only at a distance (owing to the disabilities of his loathsome disease) of Christ's deeds of power, and had never been near enough to Him to hear the tender tones of that voice which had melting pity in it, or to trace the lines of gentleness and grace in His loving countenance. Besides, men learn sooner to trace power than to trace tenderness. The Ked Sea and Sinai revealed God's power, but it took a millennium and a half longer for Calvary to reveal His love. The plea of the leper therefore is, " Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst." Did he accept the general belief that only God could heal the leper ? Then there was the more faith in this admission of Christ's power.
1 C. II. Parkhurat, A Little Lover than the A,i<jels, 43.
ST. MATTHEW vm. 2, 3 209
Tj What a consciousness of might there was in Jesus ! Others, prophets and apostles, have healed the sick, but their power was delegated. It came as in waves of Divine impulse, intermittent and temporary. The power that Jesus wielded was inherent and absolute, deeps which knew neither cessation nor diminution. Christ's will was supreme over all forces. Nature's potencies are diffused and isolated, slumbering in herb or metal, flower or leaf, in mountain or sea. But all are inert and useless until man distils them with his subtle alchemies, and then applies them by his slow processes, dissolving the tinctures in the blood, sending on its warm currents the healing virtue, if haply it may reach its goal and accomplish its mission. But all these potencies lay in the hand or in the will of Christ. The forces of life all were marshalled under His bidding. He had but to say to one " Go," and it went, here or there, or anywhither ; nor does it go for nought ; it accomplishes its high behest, the great Master's will.1