Be Clean!

Mark 1: 40 - 45

In this chapter, we read a story about how Jesus healed a leper. Like many stories in the Bible, we learn not only about miracles, but also about the kind of work Jesus did—work that must also be done by the Church. At that time, leprosy was an incurable disease, and lepers were exiled to protect the health of the community. Imagine: they were treated like poisonous people and forced to live with that identity. Their names, titles, occupations, and status no longer mattered. A leper had a deeply complex life—something we might not fully understand.

Sometimes, when we are looked down upon (perhaps because of our job or status), it can hurt deeply. But if we look at the life of a leper, it’s not just about losing social status; it’s about losing everything. And yet, in this situation, Jesus comes to him—and this is the uniqueness of the Christian life.

I don’t want to rush to the point that we should become like Christ. Before that, maybe we need to reflect and realize: perhaps we are the lepers. We might deny this, thinking our lives are fine—we have jobs, good salaries, education, and other blessings. But should Christians build their identity on such things?

When a Christian builds their identity on worldly attributes, they lose the ability to appreciate the presence of God. A Christian’s identity is not formed by achievement. Remember the baptism of Jesus: the Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This was Jesus’ identity—even before He began His ministry. His identity—as the beloved Son of God—should also be ours, not one shaped by the world.

A leper is a sinner—just like you and me. But his inability to build an identity based on worldly things makes him more receptive to God. The more we realize our spiritual bankruptcy, the more receptive we become to Jesus Christ.

At first glance, this passage seems to be about healing. But actually, there is not much reference to healing in the text. The word that is used here is “cleansing” rather than “healing.” The term “cleansing” takes us into a spiritual dimension. When Jesus came, He cleansed the unclean.

From the perspective of the leper, he never questioned Jesus’s ability to cleanse. Rather, he talked about Jesus’s willingness. By doing so, he was acknowledging that Jesus is the sovereign one—he didn’t want to force Jesus to cleanse him, but he believed that if Jesus was willing, he would surely be cleansed.

In verse 40, the leper came to Him, imploring Him, and kneeling said, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Then in verse 41, we read that Jesus was moved with pity—in other words, with compassion and mercy. In a world full of suffering, do we still have mercy and compassion—or do we build emotional defenses to avoid getting too close to those who are hurting?

To be moved with pity means making ourselves available and vulnerable, which can feel uncomfortable. But here, Jesus was moved with compassion and stretched out His hand and touched the leper, showing His mercy. Three qualities that must not be absent in true religion are mercy, compassion, and pity.

Sometimes being compassionate, for example, is seen as part of a certain political agenda. Then people might think that they don’t belong to that group, so they don’t feel the need to show compassion to others. Or sometimes we think that the miserable condition in someone’s life is simply the result of their own mistakes. Everyone needs to work hard—if they don’t, their life will be miserable. By thinking this way, we feel liberated from the calling to be compassionate, and slowly, we begin to lose our humanity.

When Jesus shows compassion, He reveals both His humanity and His divinity—because our God is a compassionate God. Compassion is rooted in God’s own character. So, where is the challenge in society?

Let’s revisit the idea of “clean” and “unclean.” Suppose we consider ourselves and the church as “clean,” and others—like the leper—as “unclean.” Traditionally, the unclean were excluded to avoid contaminating the clean. But when we look at Jesus, He not only allows the unclean to come to Him, He goes to them. He was not afraid of being contaminated; rather, the unclean became holy because of His holiness.

Jesus was not the one who became contaminated. Instead, He made the unclean clean. So what does it mean when the church avoids the “unclean”? Perhaps it’s because the church is not holy enough. If the church truly reflected Christ’s holiness, it would not be afraid of contamination.

This principle applies more broadly. Why are we afraid to enter conflict? Maybe because we lack peace. Why can’t we face hatred? Maybe because we’re not loving enough.

C.S. Lewis once said that the Pharisees feared being near sinners, but Jesus did not. Why? Because their holiness was mediocre and their lives were full of hypocrisy.

There are certain manuscripts that differ from the ones commonly used in many translations. For example, in verse 41, the ESV says that Jesus was “moved with pity,” but some other manuscripts use the phrase “filled with anger.” So how should we make sense of this difference in the translation?

We might understand this by recalling Jesus at Lazarus’ tomb. When Lazarus died, Jesus was indignant—not at the person, but at death itself. In the same way, Jesus’ anger in this passage is not toward the leper, but toward the fallen condition of the world—toward sin, death, and disease. One commentary says the leprosy was “dispelled by Jesus’ holy wrath,” restoring the man to the original creation. Jesus was moved with pity toward the human being but filled with anger toward the leprosy. We need this kind of holy wrath—but it must be aimed at the right target: not the human being, but the sin.

In verse 44, Jesus commands the leper not to tell others about the cleansing. His messianic identity had to remain hidden because He was not yet crucified. Without the cross, people would misunderstand His mission and project their own sinful expectations onto Him. However, in verse 45, the leper disobeys and spreads the news anyway. We might think this is understandable—why shouldn’t he be excited to share? But again, we are thinking like the leper—focused on ourselves, not on Jesus’ mission.

One commentary said that by spreading the news, the leper imposed a burden on Jesus, preventing Him from entering the city and forcing Him to stay in desolate places. The leper, who once lived in isolation, now happily enters society, while Jesus takes his place in the desolate place. This “trading of places” also reflects the cross. Jesus was originally free, but He became unclean and condemned at the cross to replace you and me. We are the ones who should be condemned, but Jesus endured the condemnation for us so that we might become people blessed by God the Father.

Sometimes, we as Christians do not truly understand this part. We want to help lonely people, but we’re not ready to trade places with them. We want to bless others, but we’re not ready to become poor. We want to console those who suffer, but we’re not willing to shed tears ourselves. Jesus’ ministry was marked by this kind of “trading places”, and the apostle Paul understood it well. Paul blessed and enriched the people he served, yet he himself became poor and faced danger every day. This is the standard—the foundation—of Christian life, not something extraordinary. So, how about us? Are we ready to be broken, or do we want to remain whole?

When we take part in Holy Communion, we break bread to symbolize Christ’s body broken for us. But this is more than symbolism. It is an invitation to be broken, just as He was.

Where do we find the courage to be broken? In Christ, we already have perfect holiness. Because of that, we can go to “the unclean”. We already have the wholeness of life, so we no longer fear being broken. We have true joy in Christ—so what are a few tears, if we truly have His joy?

Hopefully we can grow to be more like Christ. God bless us. (G.N.S)