The Geography Of The Gospel

“But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places.” – Mark 1:45

One way to “beat the gospel into our heads continually” is to ask ourselves as we read, where do we see the it? In this passage, Jesus begins in one of the 240 towns in the rural area of Galilee, speaking in the synagogue in an early flush of popularity. The leper began outside the town, an utter outcast, physically and socially separated by Levitical law: “The leprous person who has the disease shall… cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46).

A series of remarkable verbs then occur. The leper “came” to Jesus: a man who by law had to warn people away nonetheless sought Jesus out. Jesus “stretched out his hand and touched.” The leper had come within arm’s reach, but no closer; Jesus is the one who reaches out, making himself ceremonially unclean. The healed leper does not obey all Jesus asks him to do, however. At the end of the story, we find the leper, restored into community, speaking freely, but we find Jesus out in desolate places. They have switched places.

That’s the heart of the gospel: Jesus takes our place. The cry of the leper is our own: “make me clean.” He didn’t say, “make me well.” He wasn’t asking primarily for physical healing as much as relational restoration, to be brought back into community. Isn’t that the cry of all of our hearts? We are defined by what we desire, not what we know, and as Brooks writes, “The ultimate heart’s desire—the love behind all the other loves—is the desire to lose yourself in something or someone… The ultimate desire is the desire for fusion with a beloved other, for an I-Thou bond, the wholehearted surrender of the whole being, the pure union, the intimacy beyond fear.” Jesus, knowing it would mean that he himself would suffer alienation, stretches out to touch us, to bear the cost of our uncleanliness so that we can experience the intimacy with God that He created us for, without fear.

This bears remembering. Remember, Paul writes. Remember that at one time, you were separated, alienated, “but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Too often, I see myself on my own merits. I forget that grace, while free, is costly. I lack deep humility and gratitude. I lose wonder. I forget that unity not only with God, but with others that I may feel different from, comes only from grace, and should be part of my experience of grace. I need to remember that the only way I came in was because of the One who died outside the city.