GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 5:14
14 Jesus ordered him not to tell anyone. “But go, show yourself to the priest, and offer what Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony for them.”
It isn’t possible to chronologically pinpoint every event in Jesus’ ministry with complete accuracy. Luke in particular has a habit of grouping events topically rather than in the order in which they happened. In this case, we should remember that according to Matthew, this healing of the leper happened just after the Sermon on the Mount, sometime during the spring of 28 AD. Prior to this, at Passover of the same year, Jesus had been in Jerusalem, and had healed a crippled man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-47).
At that time, some of the Jews in Jerusalem confronted Jesus because (1) he allowed (even commanded) the healed man to carry his mat on the Sabbath, which they felt broke the law of Moses (John 5:10), and (2) Jesus was healing on the Sabbath, which they suspected also broke the law of Moses (John 5:16). More than this, (3) Jesus made himself equal with God by calling God his own Father (John 5:18). Because of this, they even tried to kill Jesus.
Now, just a month or two later, Jesus sent this cleansed leper back to Jerusalem to make the offering necessary to declare himself clean in the eyes of God. For eight days our leper would be there in the temple, “a powerful witness that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah sent by the grace of Heaven” (Franzmann, p. 275).
There would be no question as to the man’s healing. A priest would take two birds from the former leper, as well as a handful of other things: some cedar wood, a length of scarlet yarn, and a branch of the hyssop plant. One of the birds (doves or pigeons) would be killed over a clay pot filled with fresh water. Then the live bird, the wood, the red yarn and the hyssop branch would all be dipped into the mixed blood and water, and this massive handful of forgiveness would be spattered on the former leper, covering him with blood and water by means of the live bird, the uncrafted branch of hyssop, the man-made yarn, and the cedar wood. The blood would spray everywhere, all over the man’s flesh, face, and clothing. The priest would do this seven times, and finally he would pronounce the man to be clean (Lev. 14:6-7). After this, our former leper would bathe there in a special place on the perimeter of the temple (the court of the lepers, the north-west chamber in the court of women). He would shave off all of his hair—beard, hair, eyebrows, chest, armpits, groin, everything—and wash his clothes, and then bathe again (Lev. 14:8). He was ceremonially clean, but he was required to stay there in that court of the temple for eight days.
On the seventh day, he had to shave again, wash his clothes again, and bathe again (Lev. 14:9). The following day, the eighth day, he brought a lamb as a guilt offering along with some oil (a log of oil was 1/3 quart, or a little more than a cup). Our former leper was now allowed to enter into the temple—he could and was required to approach the altar itself. His offering was waved before the altar, and the lamb was slaughtered (Lev. 14:12-13). The priest did not burn it up, however. It was roasted on the altar, and then the meat was consumed. The sacrifice—brought by the former leper—was to be eaten by the priest and his family. This was, as much as anything else, a testimony that the leper had indeed been cleansed (no priest would ever have touched anything that had come into contact with a leper, let alone eaten it!). Our cleansed man was also dabbed by the blood of the lamb on the ear, thumb, and toe, exactly in the same way a priest was ordained (Lev. 8:23). This showed that the cleansed man was able to enter into every part of Israelite society. He was no longer unclean; he was clean even to approach the altar of God (Lev 14:30-31).
This is what Jesus accomplished simply by the power of his holy word. Later that year, in the fall, Jesus sent out his disciples with the command that they, too, peach and heal. “Heal the sick,” he told them, “raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, drive out demons” (Matthew 10:8). There would be a whole parade of men and women who came into the temple in Jerusalem during those autumn months to undergo the week-long examination by the priests. And those priests would, one by one, eat the meat of the offerings presented by lepers cured not only by Jesus, but by his disciples, too.
The power of the gospel was and is undeniable. You yourself can share it with everyone you know; everyone you love. The power doesn’t come from us, it is in the word of God itself. Tell people about Jesus their Savior, who came to cleanse us from the stain of sin, to make us acceptable to God, and to baptize us into faith. He made us able to come to the very altar of God, and to make our offerings acceptable to God. He has healed us, and he has made us all forever clean.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota