DAY THIRTY-TWO | Mark 1:35-45

Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for You.”

But He said to them, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth.”

And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.

Now a leper came to Him, 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.

Moving with Common Passion

Early in my walk with the Lord, I heard a sermon that made a profound impact on my life. It was based on Lamentations 3:51, and focused on the way that our eyes impact our heart. The speaker talked about becoming vulnerable to seeing the needs of those around us, and allowing what we see to move us. As I sat and listened, my heart was stirred to see the gospel spread to the nations.

Several months later, I was reading the gospels when I ran across a familiar phrase that is included in this passage. Five times in the books of Matthew and Mark, we are told that Jesus moved with compassion. I had heard these words my whole life, but in light of the message from Lamentations 3, they had taken on a new significance.

In this passage, Jesus has a healing encounter with a leper. But the story actually starts well before the leper comes out from among the crowd. It actually started early in the morning, before the break of dawn.

After a wildly successful night of preaching and healing, Jesus awakens well before dawn to get some time alone with His Father. The scriptures show us that Jesus regularly made time to get away to commune with God. We don’t have a copy of the prayer list that Jesus was using that morning, but we do know that in the midst of people looking for Him, Jesus made it a priority to get alone with God.

I believe that it was in these times of prayer with the Father, that Jesus gained insights into the things that were on the Father’s heart and mind. These set apart times with God are a big part of developing a real secret place relationship with the Father. As Jesus would wake up early to seek the Lord, at some point in prayer, He accessed God’s heart and began seeing with the Father.

There is a beautiful place of fruitfulness when we learn to cultivate a real relationship with the Lord that is centered around simply communing with Him. His invitation for us to abide in Him is so special, because it is all about dwelling, or learning to be present with Him. This makes prayer so much more than trying to get Him to answer all of our requests.

When Peter came searching for Jesus to tell Him that there were more people ready to receive healing from Him, Jesus already had something clear happening in His heart.

“Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth.”

Somehow, in the place of prayer, Jesus clearly discerned that He shouldn’t stay and pray for those who were waiting. Instead, He knew that He needed to move on to other towns and cities. That clarity allowed Him to walk with a sense of purpose. His steps led Him into a synagogue in Galilee to preach, where He ended up encountering the leper.

So much happened in this story before that encounter took place. Out of a place of communion with the Father, Jesus’s steps were ordered to accomplish the purpose of God. Out of that place of communion, Jesus was able to see this leper, a social outcast, with the same eyes as the Father.

Now we are back to the phrase, moved with compassion, and I would submit that the compassion was fueled by the communion. As Jesus prioritized making time to see the Father, and to see with the Father in prayer, compassion grew in His heart. Out of His union, He developed a common passion, seeing people the way that the Father saw them, instead of with the broken perspectives of this earth.

In biblical times, lepers were not allowed to interact with crowds of people. They were exiled away from their families and homes and forced to live in leper colonies. They were never to walk towards a crowd of people, and if others approached them, they were to cover their mouths with their sleeves and cry out “unclean, unclean” as a warning to others. Above all, they were not permitted to touch anyone or be touched by them.

It would have been unlawful for the leper to be amongst the crowd on the day that Jesus was preaching in the synagogue. But we find him desperate, falling at the feet of Jesus, pleading to be made whole.

“If You are willing, You can make me clean.”

I love the way that Jesus responds. He could have just said “Be cleansed”, but He doesn’t. Instead, moved with compassion, He reaches out and touches the untouchable. We don’t know how long it had been since someone had reached their hands towards this man to touch him, but we do know that before Jesus spoke words of healing, He reached out and touched him.

Moved by a common passion that overflowed out of His union with the Father, Jesus broke the cultural norm for the sake of love. This is such a beautiful picture of the way that courage grows in our hearts when we join our hearts to the Father’s in intercession. The way that we see people will be transformed when we see people through the lens of His love.

I remember learning this one day, shortly after Adriane and I were married. I was driving back to my office one day after lunch when I pulled up to a red light at an intersection where the homeless of our city used to congregate. I was aware of their presence, but worked hard to stay focused on the road and not make eye contact with any of the people that were asking for help.

This was a pretty regular occurrence for me. There were always homeless people in that part of town, and there was really nothing that I could do to make an impact on the problem of the poor. The best thing for me to do was to stay focused on getting back to my office and getting back to work.

Right?

I remember sitting down at my desk and being aware of the Bible that was sitting there. As I picked it up and turned to Acts 3 and read the story where Peter and John heal the beggar at the gate, I was struck to my core when I read how Peter asked the beggar to look at him.

It wasn’t until then that I realized that I had trained myself to avoid making eye contact with those in need. It was almost like I thought that if I didn’t really see the person, then I wasn’t responsible. I had been avoiding people to guard my heart from sharing in the Father’s common passion for them.

I bowed my head at my desk that day and asked God to forgive me for looking away. As I was praying, I sensed that I should get back in my car and go back to the intersection. I stopped along the way to grab enough burgers for all of the strangers that I hoped would soon become friends.

I sensed the presence of God so clearly that afternoon as I pulled off the side of the road, got out of my car and shared lunch with people that I hadn’t let myself see just an hour before. Jesus marked my heart that day, teaching me what it looked like to see people and be moved with compassion.

I pray that as you turn your eyes upon Jesus, that the eyes of your heart will be calibrated to see others by the light of His face. I pray that by the light of His face, you would be free to follow Him into deeper union with the Father in prayer and intercession for others. Finally, I pray that your eyes would affect your heart, and that as you see people the way that God does, that you will move out of common passion with God for others.

JOURNALING QUESTIONS // LINK TO PLAYLIST

Examine – How would you describe what this passage reveals about the life of Jesus?

MindShift – Is there anything about what you read in this passage that challenges the way you think about what it means to follow Jesus?

Prayer Focus – Is there any prayer that you can pray to co-operate with Holy Spirit to see your mind renewed to become more like Jesus?