The Saturday after the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 27, 2025 by under
Scripture: St. Mark 1:40-45 (NKJV)
1:40 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.”
41 Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” 42 As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. 43 And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once, 44 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.”
45 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.
Devotion
The term “leprosy,” as it is used in Scripture, covers a wide range of skin diseases. Whatever form it takes, it was always hideous and painful, made worse by the classification of the victim as “ceremonially unclean.” In this account of Jesus’ healing such a man, we can learn much about our relationship with God. First, note how the man approaches Jesus; he comes humbly on his knees. Second, he asks, not demands, that Jesus heal him. These should be our qualities as well when we approach God with our needs. We should acknowledge Him as the one true God, and present our temporal requests conditionally, knowing that God, in His wisdom, will decide how best to respond.
Now see the attitude of Jesus. The text says He was “moved with compassion.” Jesus is the embodiment of love and compassion, so we can always assume He will answer in our best interest. Next, we learn that He “stretched out His hand and touched him.” Jesus ignored the “unclean” nature of the man, using touch to take away the man’s disease. Jesus “touches” us even today with His divine words of forgiveness, and most personally with His true Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper.
Collect: Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy Church with Thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by Thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
