The story recorded in Mark 1:40-45 is a story of Jesus being faced with an ethical dilemma. He had to decide between two competing values – doing what was “the right way” or doing what was “the acceptable way” – in responding to the health care needs of a man suffering with leprosy.
“A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, ‘If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. Mark leaves no doubt about Jesus’ response. “Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.”
Jesus responds with the deepest of human feelings – compassion. The word “compassion” comes from the same Greek word as “viscera, bowels, intestines” or, as in our vernacular, “guts.” Mark uses this word to communicate how deeply Jesus feels into the sufferings of the leper. It is as if Jesus himself takes on the suffering of the leper as his own.
Mark does not use a word for “pity” – that would be too condescending, or a word for “sympathy” – that would be too superficial. But rather he uses a word that informs the reader that “flesh for flesh, gut for gut’ Jesus feels his way into the leper’s needs.
Also note that it is not enough for Jesus to simply feel with compassion. He reaches out his hand and touches the leper. Violating every medical warning and risking every social taboo, Jesus makes physical contact with the leper, thus confirming his compassionate concern for the leper and his needs.
In this story, Jesus had an ethical choice to make. Responding to the leper’s suffering would risk limiting his ministry by prematurely provoking the opposition of the established church. But Jesus chose to do what was right as defined by God’s command to love, and not by what was expedient, socially acceptable, and/or cost effective. And as a result of his choice, Jesus had to get out of town (v.45).
I am convinced that in order to make right ethical decisions in response to the sufferings of others we must first enter into and empathically feel the pain of those seeking our caring assistance.
Paul Brand, a noted physician and author, writes, “In the human body, when an area loses sensory contact with the rest of the body, even when its nourishment system remains intact, that part begins to wither and atrophy. The body poorly protects what it does not feel. So much of the sorrow in the world is due to the selfishness of one living organism that simply does not care when another suffers.”
I think we can and should expand Dr. Brand’s statement to include all bodies, whether they be the church, the organization, the community, or the government. There is substantial evidence confirming that none of these social bodies will appropriately respond to pain they do not feel. Until the pain of those suffering is deeply felt and entered into, these bodies cannot and will not respond in appropriate healing ways to meets the real needs of suffering people.
And so, the challenge of Mark 1:40-45 is individually focused to every decision-maker in any and all social groupings, who have the power to make a difference in the life of suffering persons. Indeed, the challenge is for every human being to compassionately feel their neighbor’s pain and respond with unselfish acts of caring, healing love. This is God’s character and command to all of us.
“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – September 11, 2019
Ray M. Geigley
Healing Rays of Righteousness 
Leave a comment