“When Nothing Can Be Done”

Mark 1:40-45

February 12, 2006

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

There may be no terrible words worse than these, “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done!” You might say that the words mark the end of the drive, the halt of possibilities, and the finish of hope. Since hope is something that we hold on to these days, these words can be pretty tough.

I am in my twelfth year as a pastor. In those twelve years, I have only had a doctor come out twice and tell a family that there was nothing that they can do. The first time that it happened was about four years ago. I was sitting with the Bowie family. Clare and her two children suspected that their husband and father had cancer. Little did they know that the cancer was all over his body. The surgeon came out, sat down with the family, told what he had found and then gently said, “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.” The second time it happened was a little over two months ago. This time I was the family member. Something had happened to my sister. My mother called and told me that I should come to Conway as soon as I could. I did that. For the better part of a day and a half, tests were run to find out exactly what had happened. My sister’s friends were there. My parents were there. My parents’ friends were there. I was there. My brother was there. Our friends were there. And on a Thursday morning, sometime around the eleven o’clock hour, a Neurologist came looking for us. He directed us to what they called a quiet room. He told us what they had discovered. They had found a stroke on my sister’s brainstem. With compassion in his eyes, this young doctor said, “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.” Until he said that, we all had held out for hope.

This phrase is not reduced to the medical world, of course. Imagine this scene. There is a woman who is sitting in front of a desk in a cubicle in the corner of a large room filled with other cubicles. She has spent the better part of the day there. She has been persistent and she has gone from one department to another department hoping for an answer. Now she is speaking to the head honcho, a department head. “My husband just died,” she says, “I’ve just lost my job with a company that I’ve been with forever. The bills are piling high; all of them are overdue. People are calling. The bank is threatening to foreclose.” She does not know what to do or where to turn. The department head thumbs through the thick file. She wants to help. She picks up her phone and speaks softly to three or four different people. She cradles the receiver near her ear. Her eyes dart over at the woman. You can see the answer in her eyes. She puts the phone down, sighs deeply, and says, “I’ve done all I know to do. I’ve tried everything. I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.

Yes, those are terrible words and until they are said and until you hear them, there may be pain, but there is hope. There is always hope, even when the struggle is against overwhelming odds, there is at least the dignity of doing something, anything.

Now turn to our gospel lesson for this morning, taken from the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. I wonder how many times the leper in our story had been told, “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done?”

This story that Mark tells is a wonderful story of the power of Jesus over destructive things in our world. The story comes at the conclusion of the first chapter. The first chapter of Mark is there as an introduction. It is there to tell us who Jesus is. The chapter has four healing stories, back to back, to back to back. In fact, there are five healing stories total. The fifth one spills into the second chapter and is next week’s lesson, so I won’t say too much about it. It is obvious, to me, that Mark, especially Mark, wants us to know that Jesus has come in order to heal. That is brought home in this first chapter.

In the fourth story of healing, the leper says, “If you will, you can make me clean.” That is there to testify to his faith and to the power of Jesus. If you will, you can. You have the power to heal, to make me clean.

Perhaps the leper had heard about the other three healing stories. By the way, there is a progression of seriousness in these healing stories. The stories begin with one of an unclean spirit. Evidently this one was a piece of cake and a no brainer for Jesus. The second one is Peter’s mother–in-law. Jesus with his new disciples in tow, show up at Peter’s house and his mother-in-law is ill. Perhaps she has the flu or something like that. Then there is the third incident, where there is a multitude of people who come with their ailments and their ills. Jesus heals them and casts out a few more demons.

Then there is this fourth story, the really serious problem. You might say that leprosy was the hardest test for any healer. For people in those days, leprosy was the most terrible, fearsome, of all the diseases. And in Jesus’ day there was no known cure. There is supposed to be a little suspense here. That’s the impression I get. Can he do it? Does Jesus have power over the most terrible, the most frightening of all diseases of his day, leprosy?

I want you to put yourself in this scene, but I warn you, do not get too close. Leprosy, after all, is a very contagious disease. Those with the disease had to separate themselves from their families and from the community. They had to wear a special garment to mark them out. There were regulations about the garment. It had to be torn in front and it had to cover your mouth so that no one would be contaminated by the breath of a leper. If for some reason your clothes were to touch the clothes of a leper, your clothes had to be burned. If a leper came inside your house, your house had to be gone over with Clorox, or the first century equivalent of that. And when you came near a leper, the law required them to call out to you, “Unclean! Unclean!” Or, to put this in modern day terms, “Stay away from me; it’s not safe!” Ah, yes, lepers were to be avoided at all cost.

Which is why this story is so remarkable and astonishing. Now are you there, perhaps near one of the disciples, keeping your distance. Notice what this leper does. He calls out to Jesus. I think that the leper is tired of hearing the words, “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.” No doctor would touch him. The leper, I think, is out there at the boundary of human hope. I think that he has two choices. First, he could resign himself to his fate. Or, he could reach out toward the mystery of grace that is beyond all hoping. He opts for choice number two. He says to Jesus, “If you chose, you can make me clean.”

I like what Mark tells us next about Jesus. He says that Jesus was moved with pity. That is how my bible of choice, the New Revised Standard version puts it. But I don’t like the translation. I like the way that Eugene Peterson’s The Message puts it. Peterson says that Jesus was, “...deeply moved.” I like the way that the New International Version translates this verse. That version says that Jesus was, “...filled with compassion.” I like that about Jesus. Thinking about that line immediately sends me to another gospel, John’s gospel, and what happened when Jesus heard the news that his good friend Lazarus had died. One of the most powerful words in all of scripture to me are John’s, “Jesus wept.” These words aren’t just the ones to memorize when that is required in a Sunday School class. These two words say something to us about who Jesus is.

Well, you know what happened next. Jesus did choose to heal him. He sent him off with the instructions of what every healed leper was supposed to do. He was supposed to go and show himself to the priest. He didn’t do that. Instead he went out and told the world about what had happened to him. How could he not? Because he did, it was hard for Jesus to circulate in the towns. His fame was just beginning to spread.

This morning, I would like to take this chance to talk with you about healing and being made whole. Unless I missed it, none of us need healing from leprosy. Believe it or not, there are still leper colonies and communities in parts of our world. But again, I do not think that any of you have leprosy. So the question this morning are these two: what is it that we need healing of today and how exactly does healing happen?

Let me try to answer the second question first. Sometimes healing comes unpredictably. We did not expect it. We were told that it probably would not happen, so when it does, we call it a miracle. Why it happened, we do not know. All we do know is that we didn’t make it happen. It was a mystery, a gift, and it is called a healing. It just happens. Some people are going to get well and others won’t. And most of us will never be able to know what that is the case.

I remember reading a story that Max Lucado tells in his book The Applause of Heaven. Max tells that he was called to the home of one of his church members. They said, “We have prayed for healing. God has not given it, but he has blessed us.” The two spoke of a husband’s illness. The wife said, “God has given us strength we did not know and he has given it to us when we needed it the most. God has given us peace in our pain. He covers us all of the time. Even when we are out of control, he is still there!” Max says that he quickly realized that he was doing more than funeral planning. It was a time of faith sharing. The husband said, “I want to be an example. God wants us to trust in the good times and in the bad. If we don’t trust when times are tough, we don’t trust at all.” Max asked himself, “Who are these two, who on the edge of life’s river look across it with faith?” Max says that the moment was solemn and sweet. He said little. As he put it, “One is not bold in the presence of the sacred.” So sometimes there is healing of the body. At other times there is a healing of the soul.

The way life is structured, there are those things that happen not just to the body that we need healing of. What are those things? They are those things in our lives that keep us anxious. They are decisions that we have made. It is stances that we have taken. It is in those times when we have heard the words, “I’m sorry. Nothing can be done.” In those times, something can be done. Perhaps we ought to take a clue from this Jesus of ours. Perhaps we, too, ought to look at one another with compassion.

What I know is this. Healing is a mystery. We do not understand it. All that we can do is to prepare our bodies and souls for it, to embrace it, to receive it. One time a man had leprosy, and leprosy was a bad disease. He was left out and people knew it. The leper came to Jesus because he knew the heart of God was in Jesus and the leper said, “Jesus, I beg you, if you will, please make me clean. Give me my life back.” And Jesus reached over and touched him. The crowd gasped. Jesus touched the man and healed his body. There is a good chance that he healed his soul, too. Let us pray.