Biblical References: “A Man With Leprosy” (Mark 1:40-41)

Theme: COMPASSION AND HOPE

By Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, D.min,Ph.D.
Faithful Central Bible Church,
Inglewood, CA

Christ: Aid For The AIDS Crisis

SCRIPTURES
• Mark 1:40-41 “And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, ‘If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him and said unto him, ‘I will; Be thou clean.’”

1. AIDS is the leprosy of our time. In the year that King Uziah died of leprosy, God got Isaiah’s attention. In Phillipians 2:5, Paul exhorts us to let [the same] mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

• The word for “mind” is a word that means “attitude.” Paul is saying let the attitude that Christ had be the attitude that you have.

• I suggest that if we understand Jesus’ attitude about leprosy, the AIDS of His day, we will know how we ought to respond to it. Let the position and posture of Jesus be your position and posture as you deal with the issue of AIDS.

2. The account of the incident in the book of Matthew says the man was “full of leprosy,” which means he was in the final stages of the disease. He was dying, and praise the Lord, Jesus did not waste time satisfying his curiosity or passing judgment. The man needed help and Jesus did not waste time going over his history trying to find out how he got the disease, who he got it from where he was when he got it. He saw to the man’s need.

3. The issue is not how a person got AIDS. The issue is how shall I minister to him now that I know that he has it. What the church often does is what folks did back in those days. They shut the door, shut people out, ostracize people and push them away.

4. Mark 1:40 says the man came to Jesus and Jesus accepted him the way he was.

• When Jesus spoke to that man, he broke the law because the law said you were to have no contact with lepers.

• The challenge for so many people with AIDS is not getting to Jesus. It’s getting past church folk who are in the way of them getting to Jesus, for instance:

• Those who set themselves up as high and mighty and holy and act like they’ve never made a mistake, or fallen, or been in trouble, or hurt or been discouraged or alone.

• Those who don’t remember how far God has brought them.

• Those who make assumptions about the character and conduct of a person with AIDS and pass judgment and sentence on them.

5. The church should be a place where people whose lives have been touched by AIDS can come, find compassion, hear the Word of God and receive prayer.

• A church cannot get up in its ivory tower and play holy games.

• We should be laying hands on someone and make them feel loved and accepted enough to allow us to lay hands on them.

• Some people don’t have more people praying for them than they do because they don’t want to be rejected when they tell somebody why they need prayer. God forbid that this would be the experience of anyone in this church.

HIV/AIDS References:
• One of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of HIV is to know how it is transmitted. HIV is a virus that is passed via bodily fluids – either through unprotected sex between two people or needle sharing by injection drug users. Therefore discussion of sexual health, sexuality, abstinence, drug prevention and intervention and related topics should be encouraged.

• HIV can touch everyone. It affects many people regardless of age, gender or sexual orientation or lifestyle. African Americans account for 13 percent of the US population infected. However, in 1997, they accounted for 57 percent of new infections of HIV and nearly 50 percent of AIDS cases. Chances are, someone you know may already be living with HIV. Those with HIV need to be welcomed, and having open discussions about the virus is critical to raising awareness and lowering infection rates.

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