THERE is no disease in all the world so much to be dreaded as leprosy. Once afflicted, there is no human cure. Its virus permeates and possesses the very life-blood of the afflicted one. For a time there may be no consciousness of the disease, so gradual and deceptive is its coming. It is from three to ten years before the disease manifests itself after infection.
THERE are no premonitory symptoms, no warning chills, no burning fever. A pimple, a discoloration, a lack of sensibility in some part, reveals it, and the awful, sickening sensation sweeps over the victim that he is doomed to a living death. A deadly foe has entered the citadel of life to go out no more till the noble frame is hopelessly marred; part after part may drop away, and the poor human walks or creeps before his kind a revolting spectacle, finally to drop into the grave, regretted not even by himself.
EGYPT is said to be the cradle of the disease, even as she stands in the Scriptures for infidelity and defiance of God. The Chinese anciently killed the lepers. Different nations banished them. Nearly all have segregated them. In some countries they have been compelled to wear a peculiar garb, and carry a rattle or clapper to warn people of their approach. Under the Jewish law the leper wore a bandage over his mouth, and whenever approached by men, he was forced to give warning. Dolorous indeed was the sad cry wafted to the ears of the traveler as the leper cried, "Unclean, unclean." And they were shunned by all.
Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
HERE is a typical scene of those far-off days in Judea. A great Teacher had been instructing a vast multitude on a pleasant mountainside. From His lips had fallen such truths as their ears had never listened to before. The vast multitudes were astonished and inspired by His teaching. With hearts burning and minds expectant of new things they follow Him down the mountain into the city. Suddenly their progress is arrested by the mournful tones of an approaching leper, "Unclean, unclean."
THE crowd fell back as the loathsome being came forward. Doubtless the disciples and others wondered that the Teacher did not shun the leper. But there the Master stands with no signs in face or attitude save of pity. The leper's faith takes new hold. He presses forward, falls on his knees before the Man of pity; and with broken heart-utterances, pleads as tho he almost expected to be refused, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." He believed in Christ's power; but his faith almost doubted, or could not grasp, the love of God. All men had so often shunned; this Man also might.
BUT not so. The Man of Sorrows, grieved never for Himself, ever moved for others' woes, extends His hand and touches the unclean; yet not to become Himself unclean, but to burn away by the touch of infinite power the uncleanness of the object He touched. Yea, He touched the leper, and, with voice of infinite tenderness, He responds, "I will; be thou made clean. And straightway his leprosy was cleansed."
By no long process of elimination or inoculation, by no germicidal concoction, by no matter of eating or drinking or fasting or drug-taking, was the cure and cleansing wrought. At once, as the Master spoke, as the Master touched, the leper was cleansed. The divine energy, the life of God, passed through every fiber of his frame, burned out the poison and death, and created new tissue where disease had destroyed the old. It was the manifestation of the Gospel of God in the human body, not by a life from within, but by a life from without and above entering in and taking possession where sin, disease, and death had hitherto wrought havoc.
The Great Lesson.
THIS miracle was recorded to give hope to the sinner. Sin is moral leprosy. It is as deceptive in its beginnings as is leprosy. It is as destructive to the soul as leprosy is to the body. It may not be manifest outwardly in its earlier stages, but it is as surely at work on heart and motive and conscience as tho we4could actually behold its ravages. And there is no cure. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." All remedies, however potent, can not cure the leprosy of sin. No earthly physician can properly diagnose a case affected. Many essay to do this, many claim a panacea, many claim a cure; but ever the disease eventuates in death. Better to accept the diagnosis of the great Physician. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt ["desperately sick," R. V.]; who can know it? I, Jehovah, search the mind, I try the heart." Jer. 17:9, 10. "From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." Isa. 1:6. That is the condition of sinful man, of every man by nature; "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Rom. 3:23. Men may argue and endeavor, but the great, awful fact remains, that the whole world is sick, each and all, incurably sick unto death, with the dread leprosy of sin.
BUT there is cure, there is a panacea for its multiform ills; and the sin leper can find it just where the other leper did, at the feet of Jesus. He may come all laden with sins. Others may reject Him and seek to disbar him. He may be shunned as a leper. He may be ostracized by the Pharisees of society; but let him come to Jesus. Listen to His voice: "Tho your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; tho they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool;" "Him that cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out." Then come. Yield all to Him. Place all rebellion to His government, all disloyalty to His law, all corruption of your heart, on the Sin-bearer, Sin-cleanser, and hear from His blessed lips, in response to your prayer, "I will; be thou clean."
WILL the word be potent? It was potent when the earth was created; when He said, "Let there be light;" when He said to the leper, "Be thou clean;" when He raised the dead. Not by a long process will He cleanse; not by crosses and penance and fasts, or shriving of human priests; but by His own divine word of forgiveness will He cleanse, and cleanse now. He was the leper's Friend and Healer; He longs to be the same to any sinful leper.
