If You Are Willing (Friday Devotional)

 

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

- Matthew 8:1-3

A few days ago, I found myself with some free time late in the afternoon—the big kids were at Grandma’s and Lindsey was starting dinner, so it was just me and baby Isaac hanging out in the playroom. I decided to turn on MLB TV to see if any teams were playing and saw that only one option was available: the Oakland A’s were a couple innings away from defeating the Tampa Bay Rays.

For those of you who don’t follow baseball, I can’t emphasize enough how low-stakes this game was. The Rays and the A’s are perhaps the least-watched teams in baseball, proved by abysmal attendance figures and record-low TV viewership. Neither team will make the playoffs this year, and even a hard-core baseball fan would struggle to name 5 players on either squad. This game was not, to put it mildly, appointment viewing.

Nevertheless, I put the game on, figuring it would serve as decent background noise while I played with Isaac. And something unexpected happened—I found myself getting steadily more invested with every pitch. When the Rays’ pitcher instinctually stuck his hand out to protect himself from a line drive, I listened intently as the broadcasters explained what the trainer needed to know before he’d let the pitcher throw another ball. When a hitter lifted a long fly ball to left field with men on base, I sighed with disappointment as it died on the warning track. And when A’s closer Mason Miller (one of the only players on either team you could rightly call a star) started firing fastballs at 103 mph, I was captivated. Indeed, by the time Miller induced a weak groundout to end the game, I was on the edge of my seat. Over the course of about 30 minutes, something seemingly meaningless had become meaningful.

That experience reminded me of Jesus’ encounter with a man stricken by leprosy, a time when something—or rather, someone—far more significant than a baseball game saw his story change from meaningless to meaningful. The story’s conclusion is standard fare for the gospels—a sick person is healed by Jesus. But I’ve always been struck by the man’s request and the Lord’s reply. “If you are willing,” the leper said, “you can make me clean.”

For such a man, whose disease rendered him not only medically unfit but socially outcast and ritually unclean, it was no given that Jesus would show him compassion. There was no reason but mercy for Jesus to give this man the time of day, much less a miracle. Nevertheless, here was Jesus’ response to the leper’s plea: “I am willing. Be made clean.”

Jesus saw a man others ignored. He recognized the man’s inherent dignity where others saw only shame. So many in his day saw the leper as a blight on the world, unworthy of attention, much less care—but Jesus cared deeply.

Chances are, you can’t heal sick people with a touch like Jesus did. But you can show the same kind of compassion he did to the same kinds of outcasts our world still shuns today. You can notice the unnoticed and love the unloved. Those the world calls meaningless, you can make meaningful.

If you are willing, that is. Jesus is—how about you?