Sunday Worship Service January 21, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Micah 6:8
Hymn JBC # 81 God, our Father, we adore Thee!
The Lord’s Prayer
Offering
Scripture Luke 5:12~16
Prayer
Sermon “Lord, if you are willing”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 494 Jesus, lover of my soul
Doxology JBC # 672
Benediction
Postlude

Today's Bible passage is from the Gospel of Luke that tells a story of a man who suffered from leprosy all over his body and he cried out to Jesus. "Severe skin disease" (in Japanese translation) was traditionally translated as "leprosy." (as still in the NIV)
In the English translation, it is translated as “leprosy,” but as explained in the commentary, the fact is “The Greek word traditionally translated as “leprosy” refers to a variety of diseases that affect the skin.”
When this man saw Jesus, he bowed down to Jesus and asked,

“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
“Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” – this person was confessing who Jesus is. We could also say that it’s a confession of faith.

Jesus healed many sick people and casted out demons from people, so this man must have heard rumors about Jesus from others.
When this man who suffered from severe skin disease saw Jesus, he fell on his face and called out to him, “Lord” and begged Him to “make me clean”. This expresses this man’s faith.
What is faith? What does it mean to believe in God?
Faith in God means believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, as testified in the Bible, as your Lord and Savior, and entrusting everything to Him.

　Faith also means believing in God's omnipotence, believing that “God can do anything”.
The man who had this leprosy came before the Lord, saying, “If you are willing, you can make me clean. That’s who You are.” This man confessed his faith that he believes in Jesus as Lord.

“If You are willing” – this man acknowledged that Lord Jesus has the sovereignty. And after that he also clearly stated his own desire: “I want to become clean.”
Prayer is like this. Saying to God “If You are willing” and while believing He knows what’s best for us, we can express our desires to God clearly by saying, “I desire this”. That is prayer.

Then, the word "becoming clean" that this man was talking about has the meaning of first, getting his illness cured.
　Chapter 13 of the Old Testament's book of Leviticus describes how skin diseases were diagnosed at that time, and how priests observed the affected areas of people with skin diseases.
It describes in detail how to determine whether a person is “clean” or “unclean” based on their symptoms after observing the affected area.
This may reflect the medical knowledge of that time. Considering the possibility of infection/contagion, the rule was that the person must be isolated depending on the symptoms.

It was also determined that if the symptoms are cured, a person may be declared “clean” by the priest and vice versa (a person is declared “unclean” if the symptoms are not cured).
However, the terms “clean” and “unclean” are only judgments based on the symptoms of the skin disease. Supposedly, these terms were not used to imply the meaning of whether someone is sinning against God or not.
　However, people gradually came to believe that serious illness or disability was a punishment for sins against God by the person or someone in his or her family.

Right now, we are reading the Book of Job during our Wednesday prayer meeting. Job was a righteous man who feared God and avoided evil.
However, one day Satan had a conversation with God. Satan said, “Job is living faithfully because God has given him abundant wealth and a family.''
Then God allowed Satan to test Job. As a result, all of Job's children died in a disaster, and Job himself was infected with a severe skin disease all over his body.
Job, who was living a righteous life before God, because of Satan’s test lost his children and became seriously ill.
The book of Job is a book of faith that makes us think about human suffering in many ways. In any case, it is clear that Job's severe skin disease was not due to his sinful action against God.

However, Job's friends blamed him, saying, “The reason you are suffering such a disaster is because you or your children have sinned.”
Whether an illness or a disability is a result of someone’s sin is not something that humans cannot say for certain or understand.
None of us can say for certain that a disaster, disease, or other unfortunate event is the result of a mistake or sin that we committed, and we should not judge others in that way too.

　This man who was suffering from leprosy asked Jesus, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
This person must have been suffering a lot from his illness. But more than his illness, I think what was most difficult for him was that he was constantly being called “unclean” because of his illness, and he was alienated from the community where he lived.
“Please tell me that even though I am suffering from a serious illness (or rather because I am in such pain), I am still clean and precious in Your eyes, O Lord” - this is what he desires from the bottom of his heart.

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. Touching someone with a serious skin disease was something no one would do at that time. Jesus reached out his hand and gently touched the man who no one else wanted to touch.
Today, if there’s anyone who feel no one understands you or you feel left out, please believe that the gentle hand of Jesus that touched this person is also reaching out to each of us, including you.
And Jesus said to the man, “I am willing. Be clean!” Then, the man's severe skin disease was immediately healed.

　No matter what other people say, and even though others call him “unclean”, because this man desired and believed that "if it is the Lord's will, I can become clean" he was healed.
If we do not pray, will God not grant our desires and needs? If I had to say, I would say the answer is yes.
God knows everything. He knows what’s best for us and what we really desire, even if we don't pray.
However, if we seriously think about what we want, desire it, ask it to God, pray, and experience that our prayers are heard by God, we can grow deeper in faith and gratitude to God.
Through the experience of having our prayers answered, our joy of faith and gratitude will increase, and we will be able to have even more joy in our relationship with God.
And the more we experience how God hears our prayers, the more passion and desire we have to let others know about our God who hears our prayers.
Asking other believers to pray for our issues/struggles is also connected to strengthening the bond of our faith. This is because the joy and gratitude of praying for one another increases through experiencing how God heard our prayers through other believer’s prayers.

In this way, through earnest prayers, I hope we can strengthen the bond of faith among us and also deepen our faith and gratitude to God.
After Jesus healed the man of his leprosy, he said, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
I mentioned at the beginning that Leviticus chapter 13 describes the criteria on how to determine whether someone is “clean” or “unclean” based on the symptoms of the skin disease.
In Leviticus 14, it is said that a person who has been cured of his symptoms and is considered “clean” should make an offering in a purification ritual.

Jesus commanded the man to present himself to the priest, prove that he was clean, and make an offering for purification, according to the law that time.
In other words, Jesus commanded that person: “Go back to the community of faith, the community where you live with others.''
This person’s desire was “to become clean”. This meant not only healing from illness, but also from the condition of being isolated to go back to living in community.
This person achieved what he had hoped for and was able to return to a life of “living with others,” which is necessary for all of us.
Jesus commanded the man not to tell anyone probably because he was worried what’s conveyed to people and emphasized was only the miraculous aspect of being healed (what’s visible and apparent).

Yet, the news about Jesus spread all the more and a large crowd gathered.
However, the last verse of today's passage says that Jesus withdrew to a secluded place and prayed.
Jesus always put importance in the alone moment with God when He prayed in quietness to his Heavenly father. I think it was difficult for Jesus to find a place where he could be alone with so many people often gathered around him.
However, Jesus put importance in prayer time to God the Father, and he also put importance in knowing God's will for himself.

And through prayer time, his intimate time with Father God, Jesus himself must have received God's love in abundance. That is why Jesus was able to give his infinite love to so many people, to us.
Let us also put importance in our prayer time to God, our time alone with God who is the source of love and power (the same source of love and power for Jesus too).
Also, let us cherish the times when we worship God together, believing together that there’s a Father God who will always listen to our desires according to His Will.
If we truly experience our faith and gratitude to God growing in this way, the joy of praying for each other and worshipping together, then through our church the God of Jesus Christ will be more exalted and the gospel of Christ will spread even more to those around us.