Resurrection February
15, 2009 Mark 1:40-45
AN EASTER STORY
THEME: The resurrection is life that comes out of
death.
INTRODUCTION
A. I arrived home from the Annual Meeting on
Tuesday night just in time to see “Stump”
o Stump is the 10 year-old Sussex Spaniel who won “Best In Show” at this year’s Westminster
Kennel Club Dog Show at
o Stump, at the age of 10, is the oldest dog
to ever win “Best In Show” in the 133 year history of
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show…
o Stump beat out 2,500 other dogs to win the
most coveted title in the dog show world…
o And the interesting thing is that Stump came out of retirement just a week
before the dog show to win “Best In Show”
B. For Stump,
winning “Best In Show” was a resurrection story… his career
as a champion show dog
was resurrected…
C. Resurrection is life that comes out of death…
getting your life back… finding new life...
D. If you were to discover an old, old table in
a dark and dusty corner of your cellar and you were to
restore that table by filling in all the scratches, bracing
its legs, sanding it all down and putting a
new finish on it,
you would have “resurrected” that table… you would have given it its life back…
you would have
made it like new again… and when your friends inquired about the table you
might proudly respond,
“I resurrected that old table from the basement.”
I – THE LEPER (Mark 1:40-45)
A. Mark’s gospel moves quickly… the story which
Jennie read to you a few moments ago is the last
of a series of
six opening snapshots of Jesus’ ministry… Mark wants us to know, in a few
opening,
bold strokes, the
nature of Jesus’ ministry… Mark wants us to know what Jesus is all about.
B. Word had gotten out that Jesus could heal
people… so a leper came to Jesus and said, “If you
want to, you can
cleanse me.”
o In a sense, what he was saying was,
“If you choose, you can give me my life back.”
o Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out
his hand and touched him, and said, “I want to. Be made clean.” <Mark 1:40-42>
C. In Jesus’ day, the word leprosy was used for
a broad range of skin diseases… many of these
diseases had no
known cure, and were thus greatly feared…
o Some of these skin diseases were
highly contagious, so lepers were required to live in isolation… and when
people came near, the leper had to cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” so that people
would keep a safe distance…
o Lepers were cast out of community,
home, and family…
o Leprosy, therefore, had multiple
dimensions – medical, religious, social, and financial… the disease had a
devastating impact on its victims…
o A leper was considered to be ritually
unclean… they could not enter the temple to worship as other people of faith
did…
o And a leper could not work, therefore
he could not support himself, and he was cut off from anyone who might be able
to help him…
o “The leper was a person as good as
dead.” <Pulpit Resource>
D. If ever a leper was cured – and real leprosy
was incurable – he had to undergo a complicated
ceremony of
restoration and be declared “clean” by the priests of the temple. <See Leviticus 13
& 14>
E. The law made it clear
that a person could not touch a person with leprosy, but when this bold
leper came to
Jesus asking, not to be healed, but to be made clean, Jesus stretched out his
hand,
touched him, and
made him clean.
F. In this story we see the compassion, the
power, and the wisdom of Jesus woven together… with
Jesus, love and power always go
hand-in-hand.
G. Jesus was able and willing to meet this
leper’s most basic need - Jesus was willing and able to
give him his life
back.
H. The gospels are filled with “resurrection
stories” – the stories of men and women touched by
Jesus and have their life restored
H. The real value of a person is inside, not
outside. Although a person’s body may be diseased or
deformed, the
person inside is no less valuable to God…. In a sense, we are all people with
leprosy because
we have been deformed by the ugliness of sin. But God, by sending his Son,
Jesus, has
touched our lives, giving us the opportunity to be healed… giving us the
opportunity
to be
resurrected… giving us the opportunity to get our life back… <LABC>
II – A RESURRECTION STORY
A. Let me share with
you a more current resurrection story… (from
Sermonwriter.Com)
You
might remember a photograph that came out of the Vietnam War… it was a picture
of a nine-year-old girl, naked, running toward the camera. There were other
children in the picture, including her older brother, but it was the little
girl that we would remember. She was screaming. She had torn off her clothing,
which had been on fire. We couldn’t see her burns, which were on her back, but
it was clear that something terrible had happened. It was one of those photos
that stop you in your tracks. You don’t want to look at it, because it conveys
something you don’t want to see… but it sears its image on your mind and you
can’t escape seeing it. You see it even with your eyes shut.
The
napalm that burned that little girl and so many others was dropped by a South
Vietnamese plane flown by a South Vietnamese pilot. He had been cleared to drop
the napalm by an American, John Plummer, who had been assured and
double-assured that there were no civilians in the area.
The
little girl was burned so severely that it seemed unlikely that she would
survive. She spent more than a year in a
John
Plummer finished his tour and he went home, too – but his soul was scarred. He
had seen the picture and he knew that he had authorized the napalm drop. He
knew that he hadn’t really done anything wrong – somehow he had been given bad
information – but that didn’t help. The picture seemed like it was everywhere,
and Plummer experienced a painful stab of guilt every time he saw it.
The little girl’s name was Phan Thi Kim
Phuc (fan-tee-kim-fook.) Ten years after she was injured, she became a
Christian. Later, she was granted permission to study in
John
Plummer, the man who authorized the drop, became a Christian in 1990 – eight
years after Kim Phuc became a Christian. Plummer felt called to ministry, went
to seminary, and became a Methodist pastor in
In
1996, Plummer learned that Kim was scheduled to speak at the Vietnam Memorial
in
Can
you imagine how John Plummer felt when he heard those words! I would imagine
that there was something inside him crying, “If you choose, you can make me
clean!”
Plummer
got word to her that he was in the audience. He later wrote an article for a
newspaper where he related what happened next. “She saw my grief, my pain, my
sorrow,” he said. “She held out her arms and embraced me. All I could say was,
‘I’m sorry; I’m so sorry, I’m sorry’ – over and over again. At the same time
she was saying, ‘It’s all right; it’s all right; I forgive; I forgive.”
Or,
in the words of our scripture lesson today, he was saying, “If you choose, you
can make me clean” – and she was saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
CONCLUSION
A. “If
you choose, you can make me clean.”
B. Two questions come to mind:
o The first question is: Who is it that you can make clean?
§ Who is it that needs your blessing?
§ Who is it that needs to hear a kind
word from you?
§ Who is it that needs your forgiveness
and your love to be resurrected – to be given their life back?
o The second question is equally
important: What would make you clean?
§ What would set you free?
§ Where do you need a resurrection?
§ What is keeping you from living your
best life?
§ For what do you need to be forgiven?
§ What guilt is weighing you down?
§ What is draining the joy from your
days?
§ What fault is causing you to limp
through life?
§ What would give you your life back?
C. Maybe you need to seek the forgiveness of God
– the healing touch of Jesus Christ.
D. Maybe you need to break a habit – an
addiction – that has imprisoned you.
E. Maybe you need to let go of a grudge that has
been weighing heavily upon you.
F. Maybe you need to embrace a person that you
have wronged.
G. To be resurrected is to be restored… to be
resurrected is to get your life back…
H. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the
life. Those who believe in me, even though they
die, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:25)
o Jesus is in the “resurrection
business”… the “business” equipping people to live and die. (Klingensmith)
o Jesus is in the business of changing
lives right now with his power and his love…
o Jesus can make you clean with the
power of his touch, the embrace of his love, and the forgiveness of your sin.
I. Make your prayer, “Jesus, if you want to, you
can make me clean. If you want to, You can give
me my life back.”
And then listen for Jesus speaking these reassuring words to you, “I want to.
Be
made clean.”
SERMON SEEDS
o
Daily Study Bible (Mark) – William Barclay
o
Life Application Bible Commentary (Mark) – Published by
Tyndale
o
Sermon
Preparation Materials on Mark 1:40-45 from www.sermonwriter.com
o
Sermon
Preparation Materials on Mark 1:40-45 from Pulpit
Resource – William H. Willimon
o
“The Resurrection” – a sermon by Jason
Henderson
o
“What Difference
Does The Resurrection Make?” – a sermon by Rev. Eli Klingensmith