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Text: Mark Trading
Spaces In
the name of him who with his blood washes away all our uncleanness, dear
friends in Christ: I suspect that most
of you are familiar with a television program called Trading Spaces; but for those who aren’t, I suppose you could call
it a home improvement show. What they do
is take two couples, usually who are good friends and neighbors. Each couple picks a room in their own home
that they’d like to have renovated and redecorated, and then, with the help of
an expert designer who’s assigned to direct them, they go to work on the other couple’s project. All the planning and work have to be done within
two days; and I think they have to keep the budget to within $1000. And it’s easy to see why the program’s
sponsor, which happens to be one of those big home improvement chain stores,
thought up the idea for the show in the first place: they want everyone to see just how quick,
easy, inexpensive, and fun it is to do projects around the house that will
radically improve the appearance and function of their living space. That is to say, they want you to get excited
about what you see and come buy their stuff.
Anyway, on the show, everything is kept very secret while work is in progress: you don’t get to see what the other couple is
doing in your house until it’s all over.
Then comes the great moment of unveiling, when each
side gets to see the improvements that were made to their own homes. Now, very often it happens that the overall
changes are pretty nice; but what I’ve noticed is that in the end, there are
almost always definite winners and losers. You ask how
that can be, since both sides are getting a thousand dollar facelift on a room and the advice of a trained expert? Well, it usually has to do with which of the
expert designers is chosen to be giving advice.
There are several on the staff; and some are, well, I suppose they’d say more “bold and avant-garde“ than
others; but personally, I’d use terms like “outrageous” and “offensive”. There’s one designer in particular who can be counted on to do exactly the opposite of what you
tell him. If there’s something the
owners really like about their room the way it is, you can be certain that he will
change it. Suppose, for instance, they’re
going to redo a living room that features a spectacular fireplace and hearth
done in river rock or gorgeous rough hewn quarry stone, and the owners say, “We
love our fireplace just the way it is.
Please don’t change it. If
anything, design the room to highlight
it; but under no circumstances are you to mess with the fireplace in anyway” …
ah, such a request is guaranteed to be the kiss of death. As soon as the designer is alone with the
couple that will be doing the work, you can count on him saying, “Okay, first
we gotta do something about that fireplace …
I know, let’s paint it purple, cover it with chicken wire spray painted
green, and then glue plastic sea shells to it.
What do you think?” The horrified
couple will say, “No! That would be
hideous! Besides, didn’t you hear
them? They said not to mess with it.” To which the guy responds, “Hey, who’s the expert
designer here? I’m a professional. Trust me; they’re gonna love it.” Usually he manages to talk them into it; but later,
when they’re alone doing the work, they’ll be saying, “I don’t know. I really think they’re going to hate it. I hope they’ll still be our friends after
they see it. I hope even more they’re
not over there doing anything like this in our house.” And sure enough, the next day, when the victimized
couple gets to see how the so-called expert designer has presided over another
aesthetic atrocity, they’ll be yelling, “What did you do to our house? We told you not to do that! Why couldn’t you follow simple instructions?” The funny thing is that it never seems to
hurt the guy’s feelings when people hate his designs. He acts like, “Hey, I’ve got class. If you can’t see it, it’s because you’re an
ignorant slob with no taste” – which, I think, when correctly translated means,
“I don’t have to live here and look at it every day: you do.
Better get used to it.” So, like
I said, when it comes to Trading Spaces,
there are usually definite winners and losers – and the reason I mention all
this is that’s exactly what we see in this morning’s short lesson from the
Gospel of St. Mark. It is, as we heard,
primarily the account of a healing miracle in which Jesus cleanses a man from
the dread and otherwise incurable disease of leprosy. That’s
what captures our attention first—and rightly so; it is a remarkable thing that
demonstrates both the power and the compassion of our Lord. And, as always, we want to glean the
spiritual dimension of the story: it’s a
picture of how Jesus cleanses us from the dread and incurable disease of
sin. And if you’ve ever heard me preach
on any of the healing miracles of Jesus, it was obvious to you that sooner or
later I would mention that. Ah, but
perhaps a bit less obvious in the story is the little subplot that involves a trading
of spaces that takes place between the two primary characters: Jesus and the man with leprosy. That’s what I want to focus on this morning. You see,
a person with leprosy was an outcast from society. And I’m sure you know why: you’ve heard how the disease disfigures its
victims and causes them to literally rot away while living. It’s horrible. And because of the fear of contagion, anyone
who was discovered having the disease was driven out. They were not allowed to appear in public
areas or to live in any city or town.
They were forced to live alone in deserted places. And to keep others safe, they had to wear
rags and cover their faces to mark them as lepers so that no healthy person
would approach them; and just to be sure, they had to give a verbal warning,
shouting, “Unclean! Unclean!” whenever
they saw someone coming their way. So,
as bad as the physical deterioration caused by the disease was, in many ways
even worse was the desperate isolation it inflicted on those who suffered from it. Imagine what it would be like to be removed suddenly
from every relationship you have, and to be completely deprived of such things
as family, friends, companionship, a simple conversation with a stranger, or of
even the touch of another human being for the rest of your life. Imagine wandering from place to place like a
stray dog looking for a new home, only to be met by curses and stones hurled by
people who wanted you anywhere but here
– that was the life of a leper. And
that’s why the disease of leprosy makes such a perfect illustration of
sin. Yes, sin destroys our bodies, as
the Scripture says: “The soul that sins shall die”; but part of that death even
while we live is that it ruins our ability to form relationships with other
people – at least, the kind of loving and fulfilling relationships our Creator
has in mind for us. No, the inward
turning caused by our sin, our preoccupation with me and what’s mine, and our
inability to love anyone more than we love ourselves – these things always
stand in the way of true intimacy, of truly loving, trusting, and caring for
others, and so they keep us confined in a place of spiritual isolation. Sure, outwardly we go through the motions of
pretending to get along; and who knows, maybe it’s okay some or even most of
the time – but inwardly we long for another place, a place of real harmony and
peace with others. But the humanly
incurable disease of sin makes it impossible for us to ever get there. On our
own, that is. What we see in the lesson
is that Jesus comes to where we are: a
world full of people living in spiritual solitary confinement caused by the
leprosy of sin. And here he does the
unthinkable: he reaches out and touches
one of us. He makes a physical
connection – a bridge, so to speak, that spans the gap between the Holy God and
the fallen, isolated sinner. The result of
this contact is instantaneous. The
diseased man is cleansed. The horrible
sores and swellings in the flesh are gone.
It is, of course, a picture of how Jesus takes away our sin and restores
our relationship with God – first and foremost in Baptism; but there’s more
going on here. As a result of having
been cleansed, the man is now free to return to the world of people. Not only is his body healed, he can now
reestablish relationships and enjoy the company and fellowship of other people. It’s an illustration of how the forgiveness
of sins that Christ gives us makes it possible for us to live in fellowship with
one another – especially those who share this contact, this communion we have with God in Christ. So the man
is the story can return to his family, to his town, to society in general – but
as he does, look at whom, at the end of the story, has to stay away from
populated areas. Now it’s Jesus who is forced
to stay outside in the lonely places. The two men have traded spaces, as it were. And, as I said before, the result is that
there is a winner and a loser. This part
of the story shows us that the cleansing and forgiveness Christ gives to us always
comes at a cost – not to us; but to him.
You see, back in those days the disease of leprosy never just went
away. It could only be spread. And anyone who touched a leper would be
considered himself unclean. A similar thing is true of the disease of
sin: it doesn’t just go away – it can
only be taken away by Jesus. And even then, it doesn’t just vanish into
thin air. No, Jesus has to bear the sin
himself. In healing us, he takes the uncleanness,
the guilt and consequences of our sin upon himself. And so he becomes the one who is driven out
to lonely places – to the loneliest place of all, in fact: to a hill called But he endured
even this because of his great love and compassion for us. And when the payment for our sin was complete,
he died and rose again to complete our reconciliation with his Father in
heaven. Through that reconciliation, he
gives us what we need now to begin the healthy restoration of all our other human
relationships. That, of course, is the
good news of the Gospel we proclaim here each and every week – and which is
shown even in a simple six verse Bible story such as the one we’re looking at this
morning. But
there’s one more thing in this simple story I’d like to draw to your
attention. We’ve already seen that how
it illustrates that our Lord Jesus, in cleansing us, trades spaces with us so
that he loses and we gain; but what struck me was that the specific sin of the
man that drove Jesus away was the one he committed after he had been cleansed.
Jesus told him explicitly to go to directly to the priests and to do
what was required by the Law of Moses – that is, to offer the sacrifices the
Law prescribed for someone cleansed of leprosy.
He was to do this, Jesus said, as a testimony to them; and he was to
talk to no one else about what had happened. It would
have been an interesting thing to be at the But they
didn’t get the testimony that Jesus wanted them to have. Instead, because the man failed to follow
very simple instructions, Jesus was forced by thrill seeking crowds away from
public places to continue his ministry.
And in this, the formerly leprous man made himself a loser. He had traded spaces up, as it were; and now
he could return to the world of people.
But his failure to follow the words of Jesus after his cleansing drove
Jesus away from him. And that is a
danger we all need to take to heart. You
see, we too have been given some simple instructions by Jesus – instructions
whereby we are to testify of the cleansing work he has done in us. For example, he’s asked us to forgive others
as we have been forgiven. He’s asked us
to love each other as a witness to his love at work in us. He’s asked us remain in his Word, and to take
up our crosses and follow him. When we
fail to do these things, we bear false witness of him before the world, we
drive him away from us, and we effectively crucify the Son of God to ourselves
all over again. And
so what we see is that what we really need is repeated and constant cleansing
from him. Once or twice is not
enough. Because the leprosy of sin
clings stubbornly to us, we need to go where he is: to the lonely places, to the loneliest of all
places, to the foot of his cross. And
there we need to remain along with all the others who are coming from
everywhere to be there, where from his wounded side flows the water and blood
that alone can cleanse us. May God give
us the grace to remain at that place; and may he keep us there so that we don’t
trade away the place he’s made for us in his eternal kingdom. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Soli Deo Gloria! |
