and reach for your copy of God's word. Let's open it together. If anybody needs a Bible, there's a cart down the center aisle. You can feel free to stand up and walk back there to grab one. We're going to turn first to our Old Testament reading, Isaiah chapter 61. This will be reading to you the first three verses of Isaiah chapter 61. If you're familiar with the gospel of Luke, you know this section of verses here is in the fourth chapter of Luke's gospel. These are the words that Jesus read when he entered the synagogue and beginning his ministry and said, today in your hearing, these words are fulfilled. So these are precious words. Of course, all of God's word is precious to us, but A wonderful prophecy here about the work of our Savior Jesus. I'll read this to you now. This is God's holy word. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. Amen. Let's turn to the Gospel of Mark this morning. like us to meditate together on paragraph and Mark chapter 1. I'll be reading to you Mark 1 40 through 45. I'm not going to cover this whole section in its entirety in the sermon today, but I'll pull out some of the choice pieces of the spiritual feast that the Lord has provided to us here. We get a glimpse of our Savior, Jesus, and now let's read these together. Mark tells us in verse 40, now a leper came to him, that's to Jesus, imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, I am willing, be cleansed. As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. And he strictly warned him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way. Show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded as a testimony to them. However, he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the matter, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places. And they came to him from every direction. This is God's word. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we rejoice to read. These things about our Savior Jesus Christ and the great things that he did in his earthly ministry and to think about now. that from heaven, he continues to do these very things. He continues to touch. He continues to speak. He continues to heal and to cleanse. And we are grateful that you have shown this portrait to us of our savior, Jesus. And now we pray, Lord, that you would, by your spirit, Show us even more profoundly how precious this is. How needful it is for us and Lord that we might embrace Jesus freshly by faith today and enjoy union with him and we ask it in his name. Amen. I have a bit of a confession about Christmas and this time of the year. When I first became a Christian, I have to confess, I was a bit of a Scrooge. You can talk to my wife about that. You know, like most Christians, we hate the way that corporations use this time of the year and the celebration of our Lord's birth to push on us an envy-driven, consumerist mentality. so they can hawk their products and make profits and all of that. But also, you know, as a young Christian, I didn't see in scripture where God had commanded us to celebrate a season of Advent or to celebrate the month of December or the December 25th as the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so it felt kind of strange to me then as an earnest new believer to participate in what I saw as a man-made holiday that God had not founded or commanded. And I kind of had this attitude that, no, you can't make me do it. I'm going to resist. So I must confess that Christmas made me cranky. Now, I do believe strongly in the doctrine that is found in scripture, the doctrine of Christian liberty. And I don't believe that pastors and elders have the authority to impose man-made festivals and calendar on the church. and then give Christians the impression that they're not good Christians, that they don't participate or they don't celebrate as they have told them to. But I will say this too, as I matured in my faith, I have actually come to love Christmas. Now, Jesus almost certainly was not born on December 25th, and there's reasons to believe that from the text of scripture. But I love the fact that our ancient church fathers tried to figure it out. They wanted to figure out when was Jesus born so that they could mark the occasion. I love that. And it had nothing to do, I believe, with Christianizing pagan festivals. It was about creating a distinctly Christian culture, something I believe that we should seek to do as Christians and as the church. And the December 25th date, it's found in as early as the writings of second century, mid to late second century in the writings of Hippolytus, Tertullian. Clement of Alexandria, if you're familiar with any of those guys. And it appears, particularly in Tertullian, that he calculated that Jesus must have been born on December 25th because he, as he calculated, was crucified on March 25th. He was crucified on March 25th. And there was this ancient belief in the Jewish community that a prophet was conceived on the same day that he was martyred. and also the belief that Jesus must have been conceived on March 25th because there was also a common belief that March 25th, the spring equinox, was the day on which God created the world and Jesus is the light of the world. Augustine, fourth century, great fourth century church father, he argued that it makes sense that Christ was born on December 25th because doesn't it make sense that the true light of the world would come at the darkest time of the year? But if you start with March 25th as the date of his conception, you move forward nine months, December 25th would then be the date. So they actually started with the conception of Christ. and moved forward in their reasoning to land on December 25th. Now, again, God didn't give us the date of Jesus' birth. But again, I love that our Christian forefathers decided to create a distinctly Christian culture for the church, complete with a calendar that remembered the redeeming works of God and Jesus Christ. And so I've come to believe that Christians should desire to shape the culture in which we live. so that we can bring the light of Christ into the dark world in a myriad of different ways. And the ancient Christian traditions of the church surrounding Christmas, I believe, is a beautiful contrast to the ugliness of individualism and materialism and consumerism that have become the backbone of our decaying American culture. So again, I love Christmas. I love that the coming of the Son of God into the world has shaped Western culture in such a way that people can't escape hearing about it this time of the year. They can't escape it, it's everywhere. But more importantly, I love how this season, which was built into the culture by our Christian forefathers, calls us to meditate on the reasons for and the benefits of the incarnation of the Son of God as we read of it in Holy Scripture. So I've chosen passages from the Gospels for us to meditate on over the next few weeks. And the passages I have chosen, I chose passages that would enable us to see Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, in action. In action. because the eternal Son of God was sent by the Father and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary for a very specific reason, and that was to reveal, to actively reveal the Father to us. Jesus took on human flesh and became a man for us and for our salvation, and we celebrate now some of the reasons the Father sent his Son to take on flesh. Again, he did it to make himself known, and what is eternal life? but to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. The Father sent the Son so that the unseen God, our unseen God, could not only be seen, but he could be heard and touched and handled. Isn't that a beautiful thing? And maybe even more wonderful than that, as we see in our passage, the Father sent the Son so that our God could see, hear, touch, and handle us as a holy yet sympathetic man. Mark 1, verses 40-45 show us that the incarnation of Jesus Christ reveals our God is a God who comes near to touch unclean outcasts. And it is His touch that turns outcasts like us into children of God who belong in the house of God. This is a theme that I think once we hear it and meditate on it together should enliven our celebrations this Christmas season, but also give focus to the work that we have to do as we serve the Lord Jesus Christ in our callings today. So let's take a closer look at this, okay? First in verse 40, where we, let's listen to the leper's desperate confidence. Mark writes, now, a leper came to him. Now children, you need to know something about what it would have been like in Jesus' day to be a leper, okay? Leprosy, first of all, is a skin disease. It's a disease that eats away at the skin and then the underlying tissue, and it can leave a person disfigured and ugly. Now, until approximately 75 years ago, leprosy was one of the most dreaded diseases in the world because at the time it was incurable and it was deadly. But in scripture, we see that God taught his people in his law that once a person was diagnosed by the priests, the priests would diagnose leprosy, and once a person was diagnosed with leprosy, his life changed drastically, dramatically. He could no longer live inside of the town, inside of his community. If he didn't leave town, he could spread this terrible disease, so he had to live outside the camp. Lepers were socially then, they were socially exiled away from their family and their friends and their spiritual community. We also see in scripture that lepers were ceremonially unclean, right? Now that means that they could not, and this is the worst of it, they could not go to God's house. God's house of worship. They couldn't draw near to God and his house of worship with the people of God. And it was also commonly believed among the Jews that a leper was being punished by God for his sins and his lack of repentance. So try and imagine what it was like to be a leper in this day. A leper must have lived in embarrassment and shame. I'd imagine they were extremely lonely, and as you might imagine, probably depressed and hopeless. I don't know if you can imagine not being able to enjoy the company of your spouse, or your children, or your siblings, or your friends, Can you imagine being cut off from everything that made life enjoyable? And lepers were cut off from God Himself. Lepers lived dark and desperate lives, but this leper, he sees a glimmer of hope, doesn't he? Somebody must have told him about Jesus. He must have heard that Jesus was not far away from the ghetto of outcasts where he lived. So this is his do or die moment. He's desperate. And he comes to Jesus, reverently kneeling before Him like a slave before a master, and he makes a request. But see, he's desperate, right? And you can hear, though, even in his desperation, we hear faith and confidence in his plea, don't we? If you are willing, You can make me clean. You hear that? There's no doubt in the leper's mind that Jesus has the power to heal his disease. But you notice that he doesn't ask to be healed, does he? He asks to be made clean. And you can hear the leper's faith from that fact that he's casting his life's problem, not in medical terms. It's not a medical emergency. It's a spiritual emergency. He casts it in spiritual terms. He is unclean. Unclean in respect to who? Unclean with respect to God and to the things of God. He isn't just physically sick. He is unclean in the sight of God, which means he is an outcast, not just from his family and friends, but he is an outcast from God. He's not fit to be in the presence of God. And he acknowledges it. Just like us, his problems are not just physical, but they are spiritual and moral. And here is the lesson of leprosy. What God's law was teaching is that leprosy is a sign of the spiritual uncleanness that mars the soul of every sinner, making us hideous in the sight of God and unworthy of being near to Him. And so this leper sees his condition rightly. He is unclean in the sight of God, and that is why he came to Jesus. Now he's not sure whether or not Jesus will grant his request, but again, he doesn't doubt that Jesus has the power to do it. He knows that God is in this man. The only questions that are on his mind are such things as, what does God think about a desperate sinner like me? Would God work through this man to help a diseased soul like mine? Is God's power to heal for someone like me or is it only for the righteous and the holy and the deserving? And Jesus makes the answers to those questions known to Him by what He says in verse 41. But before we see that, I want to make sure that you see the humility of the leper. You see his humility when he says, if you are willing, Jesus, he is confessing that he knows that he doesn't deserve to have Jesus answer his request. And next, the Spirit-inspired author Mark tells us not just what Jesus did for this humble leper, but what was in Jesus' heart. What was it that was in Jesus' heart that moved him to do it? And Mark tells us very beautifully that Jesus, I love how it's translated in the New King James, Jesus was moved with compassion. Now, the Greek verb that is in the original describes what is going on inside of Jesus, and it tells us that he was moved deep down into his guts with love and pity. He was moved deep down inside of him with love and pity. And with this description of Jesus' heart, we see that Jesus was incarnating in time and space the heart of God for those who are broken and who are humbled by their sin. David sang about this. In Psalm 138, verse six, when he said, He looks kindly on the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar. He looks kindly on the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar. In Jesus, we see what this looks like. that God is moved with love and pity for the broken-hearted sinner who knows that he doesn't deserve to be with God, but would love for God to make a way if he will. And Mark 1.41 shows us that God sent His Son to take on flesh to show the world that He is willing. Jesus is incarnate to show us the willingness of God to pity and love and to even touch the untouchable. Now, keep in mind that the law of God says that whoever touches a leper himself becomes unclean, right? You remember that? But this isn't what happens, children, is it, to Jesus? Jesus isn't made unclean. Instead, when Jesus stretched out His hand and He touched the leper, Jesus didn't become unclean. The leper became clean. Jesus touched the leper and He spoke to him. I am willing. Be cleansed. And notice there in verse 42 that Mark uses two different time markers, two different markers of time that actually kind of mean the same thing. He says, as soon as he spoke, immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. So you catch the two time markers there? As soon as, and immediately, Mark is by this, he's highlighting the power of Jesus's word and his touch Jesus is infinitely clean and holy so that whatever He touches, though it might be maximally unholy and unclean, it is instantly cleansed and restored. Our third century church father Origen explains what is happening here like this. He wrote, the Lord is not defiled by touching the leper, rather the leper is cleansed by the touch of the Lord. Such is the power of the incarnate word. He makes clean whatever he touches. Writing many years later, Thomas Boston observed that Christ heals the leper by a word and a touch. so that sinners might know that His grace is both sovereign and near, freely bestowed and personally applied. This is one of the wonders that we celebrate as we behold the incarnation of the Son of God. We sang a song earlier to begin the service that was written by a fourth century church father named Ambrose. And Ambrose, meditating on the Son of God touching this leper, he said, You see, Jesus took on our uncleanness without being polluted by it. so that he can overcome the pollution in us, the pollution of sin, and then gift to us, gift to us his cleanness. Now Jesus could have, now I have a question for the kids. Do you think that Jesus needed to touch this leper in order to heal him? What do you think, what do you think? Yeah, I see, no. Jesus could have healed this leper from the other side of the world. He could have healed this leper from the other side of the universe merely by expressing that it was the desire, it was his will to do it. So we see here his love and pity. Again, it's His love and pity that made Jesus desire to touch this poor, humble outcast. He did it to show that God is near to the brokenhearted. God wants to stretch forth His hands to receive us, even taking us home to Himself, where we will lean upon the bosom of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and feast with Him in His house forever and ever. And that glorious truth, I believe, is foreshadowed here in verse 44, where Jesus commands the cleansed leper, he commands him to go to the priest. And where's the priest, young people? The priest is in the house of God. Go to the priest with your gift and offer the sacrifice prescribed in God's law that would restore a leper to the community. More importantly, restore the leper to God and to his house. It was the sacrifice that was offered there by the priest that would clear the way for this leper to draw near to God, for this leper to have a right Again, to go to the house of God, to be in the house of God, and to draw near to God there in worship with the people of God. So you see this? As soon as Jesus makes the leper clean, he sends him to the house of God. Don't you just love that? It is as if Jesus was saying to him, now my friend, by my touch, by my word, You are no longer an outcast, you are a son. You will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, where one day we will feast and we will weep no more with Christ and with all of the children of God. Friends, this is what Jesus came to do for you. This is what Jesus came to do for you. But you must see your sin for what it really is. It's like a disease that is eating away at both your flesh and your soul. You have to face the truth that because of your natural, hell-bent desire to live for yourself rather than God, that you deservedly are an outcast from the house of God because you're unfit to live with God in and of yourself. And there is no condition worse than that. There's no condition on earth that could be worse than that condition. Because only God can satisfy the desires of our heart to make us eternally blessed. So you must see that your condition is dire and it is desperate. And you must go to Jesus. You must go to him and you must stay with him. And when you do, you will learn that he moves towards you with love and with pity. You will discover again and again, the power of his touch, the power of his word that has the power to so thoroughly cleanse your soul that you can be fully assured that God is your loving father and heaven is your home. And this is one of the wonderful works of God that we celebrate as we remember the Son of God came in the flesh. But church, it's not just what we celebrate. It is also what we are called to incarnate as we follow and serve Jesus. We are, as the church, we are the mystical body of Christ, right? We have, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we have union with Jesus Christ and we are His body here in this world, are we not? I don't know if you're familiar with the words spoken by Jesus in John chapter 20. after his resurrection when he meets with his disciples in the upper room and he breathes on them and he tells them, receive the Holy Spirit. And as he did that, at the same time, he told them, peace to you. As the Father sent me, think about this, as the Father sent me, I send you. The Father sent His Son, didn't He, to incarnate His love and pity for filthy sinners and to make them clean with His touch and His Word? And so I submit to you, once we have received that work of Jesus for ourselves, Jesus then sends us too to do likewise for the world as His body, as the church. And we are then given the great privilege of incarnating, manifesting, making known the love and pity that God has, that Jesus has for the outcasts. And Hermann Bavink said it like this. In his earthly ministry, Christ goes to the margins, revealing God's compassion in visible, tangible form. And in so doing, he establishes the pattern for the church's ministry. God didn't save the world from a distance, did he? And neither can we. Neither can we. Jesus will use us to give other unclean, messy, filthy sinners like ourselves his touch. But are we willing? Are we willing? It's so easy for the church, isn't it, to become like a country club of sorts where we huddle in circles with ones who are most like us and to do so for our own sake. Why? Because we want to be comfortable. We want to be comfortable. But Jesus is calling us to also be compassionate and to embody his compassion. He calls us to be moved with the same pity and love that he has for the outcast, whose sin is wrecking everything in their life. Now, you might remember, I was in Tampa this past week for the Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension, one of our annual meetings, and one of our church planters in Florida was also there, and he was there to teach us. He was there to teach us, help us as committee members to, what are things that we should be teaching our church planters? as they are working to establish a new congregation, a new Church of Jesus Christ. And one of the things that Eric Hausler, this experienced church planner, told us, he says, don't ignore the widow. Don't ignore the widow, the sick, the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the addict, those behind bars, or the dirty. And then he told us a story of a man who became a member of his church a couple of years ago. Someone from his church had saw this man on the streets. He was homeless. And you might imagine what he looked like or maybe what he smelled like. But this Christian was moved with compassion towards this man. And he invited the man out after a brief conversation to come to worship with the church. And the man came to worship. And then the man came to Christ. And sometime after that, he was given the opportunity to share his testimony during a fellowship meal about the work that God had done in his life. And he told the story about that first visit that he had to the church. And a woman in the congregation saw him and she went up to him and introduced herself to him. And then she just stepped right up to him and gave him a hug and said, I am so glad that you are here. And in the testimony of this man, at that fellowship meal, he told the story about the woman who welcomed him and embraced him on that first Sunday. And he said that was a turning point for him. That was a turning point for him. And he said to the church, he said, you loved me while I was still dirty. And you see, when that humble woman hugged that desperately needy man, he experienced the love and the pity of Jesus Christ through the touch of Christ's body here on earth. And first came the touch, and then came the word. And that he also said that not long after that, that man heard the word of God proclaimed and Jesus made his soul clean. Through the ministry of his church, Jesus made sure that that man knew that he belonged in the house of God. He belonged with the people of God. And wouldn't you like to be used by Jesus to do something like that? Well, we simply need Jesus to make us as humble as he is. And to make us willing to touch the unclean and the dirty. And so as we celebrate the incarnation, let's do so first by coming to Jesus ourselves afresh. Come to Jesus. And then let us also celebrate by praying and asking the Lord to give us opportunities to reach out and to touch the outcasts. And to tell them that if they're willing, there's a place for them in the house of God. Let us pray that the Lord would help the outcasts to see their uncleanness. Ask God to humble them so that they will come with us to Jesus, longing for the power of his touch and of his cleansing word. Do you believe that Jesus would use you to do something like this? He will. And let's ask him to make us willing. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we do delight to read about Jesus here and the way he has stretched out his hands, the hand that stretched out the heavens, stretched out towards a leper to touch him and to cleanse him. so that he might have a place as a child of God in the house of God. And what a wonder it is to us that you have done the same thing to us that by your body, by the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the mystical body here on earth, the church, Jesus has reached out to us, Father, and he has touched us and he has spoken to us and he has drawn us to himself. How sweet it is to think that that we buy his touch and his word. We have a place in your house forever and ever. And Lord, now move us out towards others. With love and pity. With a desire to see others. Experience the touch of Christ and to hear the word of Christ and for them to to be made clean. And to become members of the household of God. and we ask it in Jesus name, amen. Amen, let's stand together and sing.