Am I Ready to Trade My Place?

Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.”

But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.

Mark 1:41, 45

Trading my sorrows is a contemporary song which is a favourite for almost all the age groups, and which is one of my favourites also. Darrell Evans, the writer of this song is one of the best musician and song writer of contemporary Christian songs. Looking at the lyrics of the songs I just felt it’s so easy to give away all that is difficult for us to handle. Sorrows, shame, pain and sickness. We don’t want these. And we are ready to give it away. But is it that easy to give away what we hold dear? My position, my reputation, my job, my happiness, my peace for somebody else. This is what Jesus did in this passage.

Though the leper’s attitude in this portion is interesting, his attitude is not the reason Jesus healed him. Luke 4:40 says He healed everybody. He healed everyone. He didn’t make distinctions about having faith, enough faith, too little faith. That was immaterial. He healed everybody.

The only thing that moved Jesus to heal the man is indicated in verse 41: His compassion, He was moved with compassion. He felt the man’s pain. He felt the agony of this man’s isolation, physical distress, social isolation, religious isolation. The man’s plight triggered Jesus’ compassion.

His touch was a touch of compassion. His touch was a touch of connection.

Things don’t happen just like that. It’s not because the leper broke all the barriers and came and met Jesus that he was forced to heal the leper. There is a progression that Christ wants to teach us.

He was moved with pity/compassion at the sight of the leper. His condition must have been really bad for Christ was pained seeing him. And Jesus just didn’t stick on to seeing but willed in His mind I will do my best to bring him out of this condition.

After healing, the leper was given a positive and negative command. The positive command was to go and show the priests and a negative command not to tell about this incident to anyone. But this man was so happy that he could not hold it to himself. He went out and told it to everyone.

Because of this Jesus has to exchange his place with the leper. The leper started in the wilderness in isolation and after meeting Jesus was able to mingle in the city, whereas Jesus started in the city, but after meeting the leper, was isolated to the wilderness.

I believe that’s a metaphor for what Jesus did on the cross. We are the spiritual lepers who lived in alienation and isolation from God. The only way we could ever be taken from our isolation and brought into the presence of God was if He left the presence of God and went Himself into isolation. And that’s what He did on the cross. Because Jesus was forsaken, because Jesus was treated as an outcast, we are accepted and welcomed into the presence of God.

Dear Friends, This Lenten Season are we ready to exchange our position, our reputation, our job, our happiness, our peace for somebody else’s healing?