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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Kitto Evening Bible Devotions: August 29
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Mat_8:2-4; Mar_1:35-45; Luk_4:42-44; Luk_5:12-15
The disciples, therefore, set forth to follow, having probably, from previous observation of his habits, some notion of the quarter where He was likely to be found. As they went along the town, they failed not to observe that the popular movement respecting Jesus, was reviving with the awakening day; and they met clusters of people who were eagerly inquiring after Him, or watching to see or hear Him. This was told Him by Peter, when they had found the place to which He had withdrawn. Upon this He announced his intention of commencing a tour through Galilee, that the benefits He had the power to impart, might be the more widely diffused. So, attended by them, He proceeded from place to place teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. The consequence was, that crowds gathered to Him, under various influences, wherever He came; and his fame flew far and wide throughout all Syria. The sick were brought to Him from every quarter; and although the diseases under which they suffered were, as enumerated, mostly such as were in that day accounted incurable—it needed but a word from Him to heal them. It is therefore not strange, that, between the desire to hear his new doctrine, given forth in a style so fresh and peculiar, and the wish to witness his miracles or to profit by them, numbers of people resorted to Him from considerable distances; and these, instead of dispersing like the local crowds, followed Him wherever He went; their body being replenished by new comers as fast as those who were satisfied withdrew. Some of there were from beyond the Jordan—and this explains how He came to be so well known when, not long after, He made his appearance in that region.
Only ore of the miracles of this journey is particularly recorded, and that, perhaps, because it was the first of its kind It was the cure of a leper. There was no disease accounted more absolutely incurable than this. No one who suffered under it even entertained the hope or expectation of cure, except by the wearing out of the disease, nor did any physician or charlatan (of whom there have been some in every age), ever attempt to cure it, or pretend to be able to do so. Hence lepers are among the last who are mentioned as seeking the aid of Jesus. Not that they had not heard of Him—not that many of them had not seen Him afar off. They talked of his great doings to each other in their isolated communities, and as they recounted the wonders of mercy He had wrought, they shook their sad heads, and remarked one to another that He had not yet cured a leper, and asked who, since the days of Elisha, had ever heard of a leper being cured. Put there was one poor fellow who suffered a ray of hope to enter his heart, and being entered, he nourished it till it grew into faith. The more he thought upon the miraculous cures of which he heard, the more he felt that in the prophet of Galilee rested a power such as the world had not before known, and which it were idle to limit at leprosy. Yes, He could cure him; but would He do so? Would He deign even to look upon an object so loathsome and so vile? Would He not rather, as scores of famous teachers and learned doctors had done, warn him from his path as a pollution? The poor leper may be forgiven this doubt; for his affliction had not allowed him to enter the cities in which Jesus taught, or to mix in the crowds that saw his miracles. He had not therefore been able to witness the Divine compassion that so often beamed from the Savior’s eyes, or to hear the tender gentleness of those tones in which He spoke to the cast down and the miserable.
Well, then, Jesus could doubtless heal him; and it remained to see if He were willing. He could but try. He lost nothing—nothing, alas! but hope—if he were repelled; he gained much if he were accepted.
This concluded, there remained yet the difficulty of gaining access to his presence. He could not go into any town to seek Him, nor could he, to approach Him, enter the crowds by which He was usually in public surrounded. There was but one course, and this was to wait upon the road leading to Capernaum, when the return of Jesus was expected, and to accost Him as He went by with his disciples. He went, he waited; and doubt not that his unleperous heart beat in audible throbs, when he at length beheld the near approach of One who might deliver hire from the horrible bondage in which he had lain so long. He advanced towards our Lord as He came nigh, and laying his head low in the dust before Him, he cried, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” O, the agonizing suspense of the moment that followed. But it was not protracted. A replying voice that went at once to his heart and filled it with rapture, said, “I will;” and our Savior, moved with deep compassion, put forth his hand and touched him—him whom no unleperous hand had touched for years—and the same voice, which never left his memory more, said to him, “Be clean!” At that word a change, passed over him—he felt new blood tingle through his veins—he felt the flush of healthy life in all his tainted members—he knew that his leprosy had passed from him, and he stood up cleansed, enfranchised, restored to his family and friends, and to all the blessings of social life. Probably in the fulness of his thankfulness and joy, this man would have followed Jesus from that hour; but he saw the necessity of following the directions of his Healer, that he should repair to Jerusalem, and there present himself to the priest to obtain from him that formal recognition of his freedom from leprosy, without which the law would not hold him clean. Besides this purpose of restoring the man to his civil and religious rights, the examination by the priest, and his attestation of his being no longer a leper, served to make the priest himself a testifying witness to the reality of the miracle. No one could after that question that the cure had been most real and effectual. The priest, well instructed in the signs of leprosy, examined such persons carefully, and kept them apart for seven days, when, if no signs of leprosy appeared, he performed the rites of purification prescribed by the law, and declared them clean.
In another matter the restored leper found obedience more difficult. Jesus enjoined him to say nothing to any one of the way in which he had been healed. But feeling that he had not merely been cured of a disease which all men believed hopeless, but by that cure had been restored to all that made life a blessing, and his heart bursting with thankfulness to his Benefactor, the poor man could not contain himself, but “went out and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter.” We can hardly find it in our hearts to blame him severely. His gratitude, and his reluctance that his Deliverer should fail of any of the honor due to Him, considerably excuse his disobedience. The result, however, was very inconvenient to Jesus; for the crowds that pressed upon all his steps became greater than ever, so that He was for the time unable to enter Capernaum openly, but remained mostly in the secluded places which the neighborhood offered, and where He addressed the manageable congregations that came, and healed the sick that were brought to him in those retreats.