Lepers lose fingers, toes, entire limbs, eyes, ears. In the advanced stages, leprosy leaves its victims maimed, handicapped, and scarred with boils and open wounds, sometimes so badly that the lepers are no longer recognizable for the person they were.
But, leprosy does not directly attack limbs or eyes. The bacteria that causes leprosy does not, on its own, cause disfigurement. It doesn’t directly attack flesh or muscles. Leprosy attacks the nerves in these extremities and desensitizes them. The nerves no longer register and report cuts, bruises, wounds, and the pain of infection in the limbs. So, a leper, cast outside of the city, in the dangerous and dirty leper colonies rife with debris and garbage, accidently scratches his leg on a piece of metal. However, he doesn’t feel the cut.
Unless he has committed to a routine of self-examination, he never looks for new cuts. He doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t look at it. He doesn’t want to know, because he feels just fine.
He says, “There’s nothing wrong with me.
“I’m not like these ‘lepers’ out here.
I’m not sick.
I feel just fine.”
All the while, his leg is wounded. Then it gets infected. The infection is ignored, because he feels just fine. The infection worsens. The leg dies. But still, the leper pretends that everything is alright. After all, if something was seriously wrong, his leg would hurt. Wouldn’t it?
The infection spreads. The tissue die. The joint between leg and body scab over. One day, the leper literally wakes up and his leg falls off.
Gruesome, isn't it?
But, this is what happens in the church.
We no longer feel pain when our members are wounded by sin, especially when they are wounded by their own sin. We are no longer pained either the spiritual pain or the physical suffering around us.
1 John 3: 17 But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?
We say that we are well, that we have the love of God, the grace of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, but if we were to examine honestly examine our live, we would find as many scars and festering wounds inside the church as we would find outside.
Jesus said of the church in Laodicea, “…You say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Revelations 3:17)
In Matthew 9: 12 He warned the Pharisees, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”
In the church, we claim to be clean, but are we really? In the church we profess to be spiritually whole and healthy. But are we?
We meet and worship. We get our praise on and our pray on. We hear the preacher and shout, “Amen!” We leave the church house feeling just fine. Yet, when the pastor calls for people to go out and touch the untouchables, we don’t want to go and we don’t feel like we need to go.
Their problems, their pain does not touch us. We “ain’t feeling them.” And we think that’s because
“There’s nothing wrong with me.
I’m not like these ‘lepers’ out here.
I’m not sick.
I feel just fine.”
John 9: 39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
If we don’t hurt when young people kill each other over the color of their baseball caps, we have become desensitized. If we are not bothered when Christian marriages break up, then we have become desensitized. If their sin does not prick our spirit and awaken a desire to do…something, then we really ought to examine ourselves. Because if we in the church are desensitized to the spiritual uncleanness outside the church, it may be because we inside are infected as well.
If we are infected, and we continue to pretend that we are not, the infection will spread and our parts, our members will die spiritually and fall off.
James 2: 15-17 warns If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
This, I believe, is what has happened in so many churches. We do not serve others because we do not recognize the need to confess our sins. We do not confess our sins, so our relationship with God remains broken. Because our relationship with God is broken we cannot receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit as He would guide us and gift us. We feel nothing and misinterpret the absence of pain as the absence of sickness. We continue to live unrepentantly unloving lives. We deny the Spirit’s conviction, the diagnosis that we are in fact wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
So our members keep falling off.
The treatment is Biblically simple.
James 5: 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
We must be willing to confess our sins, to acknowledge our uncleanness, to receive the Spirit’s diagnosis and then His healing.
And, while we are being healed, we must be consciously sensitive to the pain caused by spiritual uncleanness. We must be willing to touch the untouchables.
Matthew 8: 2 And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”
3 Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
As we touch the untouchable with the love of Jesus, we will discover that God is healing our infection too.
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