Leprosies of the Heart and Blood-Soaked Birds
We talked last week about skin diseases and how they represent our sinful condition in the book of Leviticus. Remember Leviticus 13 tells us that the disease is much more serious than it looks, it is more than skin deep. Similarly, sin goes deeper than the surface. Sin is the very condition of our hearts - the prophet Jeremiah says our hearts are desperately sick, and we need the Lord to search it out, diagnose and heal us.
Secondly, remember also the sickness underneath leads to death ultimately. Slowly but surely it will. Remember how it quietly numbs the victim’s senses and dulls him to pain? In the same way, sin also leads ultimately to death, dulls us His spiritual call, sin leads to eternal separation from the Lord. The sick leper cannot enter the presence of God, he cannot even enter the camp of Israel because he is so unclean and contaminated! But we also mentioned that there is hope for the leper, there is hope for the sick sinner. Some of us here live under the crushing weight of sin daily. We know Jesus Christ but we live in despair because our fleshly desires and the poison of our sinful heart simply overwhelms daily like a wave against the shore, over and over again. But today, we need to know again there is hope for the sick sinner, for us. In Leviticus 14, we will see that there are occasions when the sick person is healed. The Israelites know it is only their God, the Living God, who can bring healing. So, let us see how our God brings healing.
But before that, let me tell you about a man called Dr Paul Brand. He was a Christian missionary doctor who lived among lepers in India. This is what he documented about the ‘healing process’ his medical team discovered. First, Dr Brand began with the hands. Lepers have claw-like hands that are rigid. He transferred muscles and tendons to restore a full range of movement. The surgeries and rehab took months and sometimes years. He did the same for the patients’ feet, and these patients had to go through rehab to relearn how to distribute weight and pressure, to walk normally again.
But then there were the physical deformities, the scars. No one wanted to employ fully these recovered lepers even though they were physically functional because they really didn’t look human. I don’t mean to be rude but think Voldermort from Harry Potter or Anakin Skywalker after he got burnt in Revenge of the Sith. The scars were so bad that some patients asked Dr Brand to reverse the effects of surgery so they could have obvious physical deformities again, so that they go back to their life of begging and earn some money. For this, Dr Brand added cosmetic surgery into the healing process. They reconstructed noses, they prevented blindness by restoring the patients’ ability to blink. The lepers who lost their eyebrows had to have new eyebrows to look normal. To do that, Dr Brand transferred a piece of their scalp with the hair, nerve and blood supply intact and sewed it on the patients’ foreheads.
It takes so much effort to help a leper recover through medical procedures, but even then, the leper is never ever completely healed - the disease may subside but the effects always remain in the form of scars of minor physical disabilities. All this is meant to affirm what Scripture says - that true healing can only come if the Lord visits the leper and brings full cleansing. That’s exactly what happened in Mark’s gospel when Jesus stretched out his hand to heal a leper. And Mark records that immediately, the leprosy left the man and he was made clean. And then Jesus told the man, go show yourself to the priest as a testimony. But as a testimony of what, Jesus? Well, as a testimony that the one who heals skin diseases, the only one who can bring wholeness to lepers, he is here! God has visited his people! But of course, Jesus’ touch is quite the cheat code - we need to look at the healing process in the Old Testament to get a better picture of how sin is cured and how all of us are made whole again. So, please look with me in 2 Kings 5 at the story of a man called Naaman.
1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. 2 Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” (she’s talking about Elisha the prophet, God’s servant to Israel) 4 So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.” 5 And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” Right, so obviously Naaman gets his wish granted because he was a great man, a mighty commander and his king favoured him.
So Naaman went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. 6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 7 And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.” Okay so the king of Israel isn’t overreacting or being dramatic here because he knows only the Living God can bring such healing.
8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.” Elisha says don’t emo, there’s a way out.
9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. Can you just imagine the scenario? The super commander of the mighty Syrian army comes with his many Ferraris (because horses) to Elisha in Israel. The prophet doesn’t even come out to chat with him personally. Not only that, he sent a mere messenger to give instructions. And then, the instructions sound pretty ridiculous to him - go wash in this Jordan River 7 times and everything will be okay after that. Then he starts raging about other better rivers with cleaner waters and decides he can’t deal with this crazy solution.
13 But his servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Thankfully, Naaman has pretty perceptive servants who tell him not to be silly and actually give it a shot. After all, the solution was pretty simply - even if it didn’t work out. That’s why they said, “has he actually said to you, ‘wash, and be clean’?” can it really be that simple? And so Naaman does actually give it a shot and he comes us clean with baby skin, new flesh!
Now, again this healing process is really interesting and quite similar to God’s prescribed way of healing skin diseases in Leviticus 14. Look with me at Leviticus 14. After, someone has been healed of leprosy by the Lord, this is what he’s supposed to do before the priest. In verse 3…
3 if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, 4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live clean birds and cedar wood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. 5 And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. So, one of the birds is killed and its blood is collected in a clay bowl. 6 The priest shall take the live bird with the cedar wood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. Bird number 2, which is still alive is baptised with the blood of the dead bird number 1, and throughout this process, to emphasis the baptism significance of the healing, fresh water is running over the birds.
7 And then the priest shall sprinkle the blood seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird go into the open field. What’s going on here? Well, because the other bird dies, bird number 2 gets to go free. Of course this speaks of Christ, who baptises us in His blood to cleanse us of our sins! And all this while, just imagine what bird number 2 is thinking? Its soaked in the blood of its friend, its flying away with blood-drenched wings. It’s the same for the leper who gets sprinkled with the blood of the bird too. It’s the familiar picture of the Cross, Word of God tells us the blood of Christ has been shed for the forgiveness of sins, we are now free and purified before the Lord.
8 And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes and shave off all his hair and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean. And after that he may come into the camp, but live outside his tent seven days. Just as he was sprinkled with blood 7 times, he has to wait 7 days after bathing.
9 And then on the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair from his head, his beard, and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair, and then he shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean. When we see 7 days we’re thinking of creation, and when the leper enters the 8th day completely shaven, no hair, beard, no eyebrows even, he’s clean. It’s almost as if he’s become a new creation, he’s been given a new life, and can now stand before the Living God and live with his people! Just to emphasise his new life, he even looks like a newborn baby. He is baptised into full wholeness, just like Naaman at the River Jordan. I’d like to end off by reading to you a short paragraph about Naaman’s healing from the Jesus Storybook Bible.
"God knew that Naaman was even sicker on the inside than he was on the outside. Naaman was proud. He thought he didn't need God. His heart didn't work properly - it couldn't feel anything. You see, Naaman had leprosy of his heart. God was not only going to heal Naaman's skin, he was going to heal his pride. Naaman finally agreed to wash in the river, and instantly, his skin became smooth like a baby. Naaman wanted to pay Elisha. 'God healed you. You can't pay,' Elisha said. 'It's free.' And so it was that a very sick man was healed... God knew sin was like leprosy. It stopped his children's hearts from working properly and in the end it would kill them. Years later, God was going to send another Servant (just like Naaman's servant girl) to forgive all of God's children and heal the terrible sickness in their hearts. Their hearts were broken. But God can mend broken hearts."
Again, I wonder if we think enough about this question - what is our view of our sin? Are our hearts broken by the power of sin today? Or our hearts hardened by pride, like Naaman against God? Perhaps we doubt he'll be able to help us? Or do we feel unworthy and ugly even before God? Look to Jesus at the cross. See the precious flow of his blood. We have been baptised in the blood of Jesus Christ and by this we have overcome our sin.
Click to view“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.(Isaiah 1:18)