I Am Willing

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

“I AM WILLING”

Luke 5:12-16

12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."  15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

NIV

There are two truths here that we need to see. First, in those days a person with leprosy was so ceremonial unclean they were not allowed to live in the general population, they were outcasts so to speak, and had to live in some kind of colony outside of town. Secondly, to touch a person with leprosy would make someone unclean themselves and they would have to go through the purification process before they could enter the temple courts. It is a good thing we do not have that kind of disease today, and the stigma associated with it. Of course, we do have, in some sense, a few outcasts in our culture today, and maybe even in the church, when we see this formation of, what I call, unholy cliques. If we are believers who share in common the love of God, and we are supposed to love each other as God loves us, than the exclusion of someone from some little group, a clique, is an unholy act. But I digress.  The truth we want to focus on is the words of Jesus, “I am willing”. Here is a man excluded from the group because of his leprosy, unliked by all others, sent outside, who does not just knell before Jessus but falls face down on the ground, laying himself prostrate before Jesus, and begs saying, “Lord if you are willing, you can make me clean”. Those beautiful words of Jesus ring loud and clear, "I am willing”, “Be clean”. We do not understand why Jesus did not want the man to testify about what Jesus did for him, however, again, in that culture the man still needed to go through the process of being declared clean by the priest after he brought the appropriate sacrifice. But here is where it gets a little dicey for us who suffer from some disease, illness, or infirmity. How often do we feel the touch of Jesus and his words, “be clean”? however, his words, “I am willing” still stand throughout the ages, and that means for us today. Jesus is always willing to heal all our diseases, all our illnesses, and all our infirmities. We just wonder how willing are we to come to him face down prostrate on the ground before him? Maybe we should do that in the physical sense, but even if we don’t come before him like that, are we laying ourselves before him, truly humbling ourselves before him, even in the spiritual sense? Have we become too prideful to beg Jesus for a healing? Have we become too sophisticated in our lives, that we cannot truly come humbly, begging Jesus saying, with the faith of that leper, "If you are will, Lord, you can cleanse me, you can heal me? We know that Jesus will always answer, “I  am willing, be clean, be healed” We do not have a record of Jesus ever saying, "No" or Not now" or "Wait". We only have a record of Jesus always healing ever disease, every illness, every infirmity  to those who came to him, humbly before him, with the words, "I am willing, be clean".