[AI translation] Brothers and sisters, you may remember that one Sunday weeks ago I announced that I would like to speak in a series on the question of what kind of God we have. And I said then, and I say now, let me emphasize again, that we have the God we see God as we see God in Jesus. The unknown author of the letter to the Hebrews put it most classically right at the very beginning of his letter when he said that "Jesus is the image of the glory of God and the reflection of the reality of God". So God is like Jesus, and Jesus is like God. And when here in the story we read we see Jesus healing a man full of leprosy and saying to him, "I want you to be cleansed", then this healing Jesus is here also a reflection of the glory of the healing God and the image of the reality of the healing God. So we have a God who wants to heal. Not for nothing are the many, many miracles of healing recounted in the Gospels concerning the ministry of Jesus: remember him, he healed the withered hand, the paralytic, the blind, the deaf, the woman with dysentery, the constipated, the cold-sufferer, the gouty, the grouchy, and so on, all manner of other ailments.All those many miracles of healing are not simply meant to be miracles, but both a tangible testimony and a strong indication that God, the invisible God, in Jesus of Nazareth, wants to reach into human misery in a healing way. So that in Jesus the heavenly healing power of God is at work. This is what distinguishes Jesus from the other so-called founders of other religions, that Jesus heals. If he did not, that is, if he had only spoken fine words, if he had preached some new and great teaching, then Jesus would indeed be one among many, many other religious teachers and founders. But in the fact that Jesus heals, in that fact is the whole gospel. So let us understand it well: Jesus did not come as a great teacher, or even as a new teacher among, or above, or alongside, many other human teachers, great and lesser. He did not come as a great sage who gives people useful instructions on how to live rightly, how to get along with each other, how to respect each other, how to help each other, how to overcome their own anger, how to avoid conflicts between themselves, how to solve their problems. This is not the only way Jesus came, and this is not the only way he came. And I want to emphasise this very, very strongly because there are still many people, even among believing Reformed people, who only appreciate Jesus in this way. So they see Jesus only as a teacher, let's say even the greatest teacher in his person.
Just the other day I was talking to someone - a really knowledgeable, serious man - who put his creed this way: 'I believe in God and I try to live according to the commandments of Jesus. Think about that confession, dear brothers and sisters. I said to him, "That is very nice, but it is not enough! Oh, but how not enough! Jesus did not come to this earth to rule the lives of men with new and good commandments. He who comes in this way, and he who comes for this purpose, in fact only adds to man's misery. For imagine that if Jesus had only told us how to live rightly, but did not enable us to live rightly - that is, did not heal us - it would have been just as if Jesus had said to the leper, the leper with intestinal leprosy, "Why are you ill, my dear friend, it would be much better if you were healthy! It is in vain that I tell a man with lame hands how to hold an axe and cut with it. Perhaps his sadness is increased by the fact that this is what he cannot do, for his hands are helpless. And no matter how eloquently I teach a sick person the rules of healthy living, that sick person will not be healthy.
So this is the great difference between the law and the gospel, that Jesus not only teaches, but heals. He not only tells us how we should live and what we should do, but he wants to bring into the reality of our lives a whole new, higher divine reality of life. Therefore, it is not enough to say that I am trying to live according to Jesus' commandments. Well, then, try! Well, will you succeed? This leprosy patient is trying in vain to live as if he were healthy, as if he were not a leper: he must first be cured! So Jesus wants first of all to heal. You too, me too, and always, again.
Let me also say, brothers and sisters, that this is why Jesus is here, even now, at this moment. Jesus is here right now as He is saying to you and to me exactly what He said to this patient with intestinal pox: "I want you to be cleansed." I would like to proclaim very, very emphatically the great, happy gospel that there is One among us who wants and can heal even the most incurable disease. I do not know what ails you, you alone know what ails you. If only you really knew what hurts, and where your life is sick, and what is not as it should be! Where it's at that point where the same old trouble always comes back. Where is that gap in your life that you are always trying in vain to plug up, because the flood of temptations or any other emotion will immediately burst through again. I do not know what are the tendencies in you that you cannot overcome in yourself. What are the fears that you cannot get rid of, or the sadness that haunts your soul. But brothers and sisters, these are all just symptoms. They are all just symptoms of a much deeper problem, a truly incurable inner sickness, which makes us try in vain to live according to Jesus' commandments, because we fail. Because we are incapable.
The leprosy that we carry in our souls is really an incurable disease, and rules and fine teachings and commands cannot cure it. But that is the very disease Jesus wants to heal in all of our lives! And look, the case of this man from hell, his healing, is just a sign that there is no hopeless case before Jesus, that for Jesus there is no incurable disease. He healed this anonymous leper precisely so that you too may dare to believe that he wants to help you and can help you. Brothers and sisters, so far it is still the case that anyone who truly came to Jesus, and came to Jesus as this man did, was healed! His heart is healed. That haughty heart, that self-righteous heart, that fearful heart, that unclean heart. He began to see the beautiful as beautiful and the ugly as ugly. He saw good as good and bad as bad. He began to see himself, the other man, the world, a little with the eyes of God. And his hand was healed. That envious spasm was released, and he began to be able to give, to caress, to help. He was cured of his sorrow, his bitterness. He began to love people he had hated and hated before, he was cured of his bitterness, his fears, his helplessness. Anyone who really comes to Jesus, who does not just come to the church to listen to a sermon or a sermon of this or that kind and say a prayer, but comes to Jesus - here too, to Jesus present in his Word, invisible but real - and who comes as this leper came, with the desire to be healed, something must always happen to him! A wonderful healing process must begin in his life, because that is what Jesus wants. He wants to heal.
How did this leper come to Jesus? Well, we read that he fell on his face before Jesus and began to ask, "Lord, if you want to, you can make me clean." You know, brothers and sisters, this is how one who truly believes speaks. He who does not doubt the fullness of Jesus. He who is certain that Jesus really has the power to heal someone, even from intestinal leprosy. And that faith is unconditional faith. It does not impose different conditions. He doesn't say that when I see, I will believe, but he believes, simply, without seeing. He believes even if he sees no results of his faith. Lord, if you want, you can cleanse me! He does not even express in him a definite desire for healing, but simply bows in some great, humble devotion to the will of Jesus, and then leaves the rest to Jesus: let Him do what He wants now and in the way He wants! I believe, brothers and sisters, that this is true faith: total trust in the power of Jesus. Such absolute trust that everything depends on His will. He expects everything from Him and demands nothing from Him. And you know, that in itself is healing. Because what is happening here? See, what happens here is that a person's life no longer depends on his sickness, but on the will of Jesus. And do you know what a tremendous thing it is when a man's life becomes independent of his own affliction? When a man's whole attitude and all his actions and his whole life become independent of that inconsolable sorrow, or that insurmountable fear, or that ever-renewing temptation, or that paralyzing passion, feeling, evil feeling, anger, hatred which has hitherto held his soul captive; or even when his life becomes independent of a disease which doctors have now declared incurable?
It becomes independent of this, and it depends solely on the will of Jesus: Lord, if you want, you can cleanse me! With this confession, not a request, but a declaration of faith, one places oneself and all one's problems in the hands of Jesus. And when a person prostrates himself before Jesus, as this leper did, saying, "Lord, if you want to cleanse me, you can cleanse me," he is in fact already freed from the burden of his problem, his illness. He has already found the doctor into whose hands he can place his whole lost life. And, brothers and sisters, it is in this kind of total, self-giving faith that what we read here happens, that Jesus touches this man without a stool and says, "I want you to be cleansed." Imagine when this hand touches someone: He touches someone and reaches out to where the trouble is - because He always reaches out to where the trouble is. The hand that has everything we lack: purity, strength, health, peace. At such a touch, everything is changed, must be changed: death into life, despair into joyful hope; hell into heaven, sorrow into joy, failure into victory - the whole man into a somehow different man.
That Jesus touches this man is the expression of the fact that only personal contact with Jesus, restored, can bring healing to a man. And it is also in this touch that Jesus, in touching this leper, risks death in order to give the reality of life. He takes on our suffering in order to give us His life.
But there is no end to the story, for we read afterwards that when this man is healed and stands up happy that he is now healed and wants to go away, Jesus commands him to "tell no one; but go," he says, "show yourself to the priest and offer sacrifices for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them". So, he who is healed, let him show himself: Don't talk about it in vain, it has no credibility. Let him show that he is healed. It is as if Jesus were saying, "Now be what you are! A healed man among other men. A person who now shows that he is truly healed and can now strive to live according to Jesus' commandments. For now the commands of Jesus will not affect you as if you were praising health to a leper; as if you were talking to a sick person about how good it is to be healthy, but now you are healed and can live the life of a healed person. And now the commandments of Jesus will no longer be unfulfilled and the reality of the Christian life will no longer be unattainable and unrealizable, for there comes with us Someone further on who can heal the incurable. Of course, if I look at myself, I will always find that I cannot live the life of the healed person. But if I look to Jesus, then I will suddenly find that, no: now I have not only failures in my life, but increasingly victories! So show yourself at home, in front of your family, your friends, your acquaintances and strangers what Jesus has done for you! Show yourself!
In conclusion, brothers and sisters, let me read you just one more little verse. This is a poem by a Jewish-Christian woman, 82 years old, a Christian-Jewish woman, who was visited by a young girl, a milkmaid, and from this visit this little poem was born. Look not at its literary value, but at its inner content, the happy confession of faith that is pure, that is true, that is authentic in it:
The Lord Jesus so willed that a young milkmaid should come.
He is a devout, believing soul, learning, rejoicing, and this is his motto:
I look only to Jesus.
I am moved by these words. I know that Jesus can give me everything:
Life and hope, if you've fallen and he'll lift you up.
I need to look to Jesus too!
In times past, I have often been stricken with grief, I have shed tears of despair.
But if I had come to life then, I would have received help,
If I had only looked to Jesus.
I come to you bowing down: Look, Lord, life is torn.
But I come to you, for I have sworn, as long as I live,
I will look only to Jesus.
Let us therefore look to Him, and so let us say to Him together:
My faith now looks to you,
My Saviour, my God,
On Calvary:
Hear my prayer,
And take away my sin;
From now on let me be
Yours only.
(Canto 466, verse 1)
Amen.
Date: 10 September 1967.