Pictures of Mercy

I was privileged to preach this sermon at the Spring meeting of Grace Presbytery. You can listen to the audio of the sermon here…

If you would please, turn with me in your copy of the Word of God to Luke's gospel, chapter 5, and we will read the first 11 verses. In our message this morning, we will look at more of the chapter than just that. But for now, listen carefully as I read the first eleven verses. This is the Word of God.

Luke 5:1–11 (ESV) — 1 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret,

Now, we will see that this whole passage down to verse 26 is all about the great work of Christian ministry, the work that Jesus describes using the metaphor of men fishing. Now notice please, the context of this metaphor: He is teaching us how to fish for the souls of men, and Jesus is preaching the Word of God. We use hooks to catch fish, but Jesus uses words to catch men.

2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

This is the point that I want you to see: Jesus moves deliberately from catching fish to catching men. This is the great work that He wants His disciples to do. It is the great work that He wants us to do. This is the work of Christian ministry, it’s the title of Thomas Boston’s famous little book, The Art of Man-Fishing, and Jesus wants us to recover it.

This begs the question, does it not, as to what kind of fish Christ came to catch? Luke tells us with three stories about three men - a leper, a cripple, and a tax collector. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but Luke is telling us the beginning of his gospel, for each of these men in his own way illustrates what sin is and what sin does to a person. That's the issue that Luke zeros in on. The problem is not physical. It's much worse than that.

The leper wants to be “clean.” That's a technical term for something or someone who is worthy of coming inside the camp, worthy of coming into the presence of God. The leper is a picture of the defiling effects of sin. He's unclean and therefore disqualified from temple worship.

Then you have the cripple. Well everybody knew what his problem was; his body was broken and he couldn't walk. He was entirely bedbound. But Jesus saw a different, deeper brokenness. This man needed to be set free in His soul. He needed forgiveness. Through Him, Jesus shows us how sin leaves all of us as spiritual cripples who are totally unable to worship God, totally unable to obey God, and totally unable even to come to Christ for mercy. If we are to come, Jesus says, God Himself must drag us.

And then you have the IRS man. He's a despicable individual. What's wrong with the world, people would ask? And the Pharisees would answer, “Hookers, sinners, and people like Levi – that’s what’s wrong with the world.”

Let's look at them one at a time.

The Leper

What does sin do to you? It leaves you dirty in the sight of God, and only Jesus can make you clean . . .

To be a leper in Old Testament times was to be a living, walking, breathing sacrament of uncleanness. A visible picture of total depravity. The ancient equivalent of a sex offender. The kind of person no one wanted to live next to, the kind of person people drive out of their neighborhoods. This man was an outcast, cut off from clean society, cut off from normal people, and worst of all, cut off from the presence of God in the temple.

Everything about the leper illustrated this uncleanness. He was contagiously dirty and untouchable. Everywhere he sat became dirty. Everything he touched became dirty. Everywhere he went, he had to carry a bell and cry out, “Unclean, Unclean!” When he entered a town, people would scatter, and mothers would gather their children up into their arms saying, “Don’t touch, dirty. Don’t touch!” And the Pharisees, well they kept a ready supply of stones in their pockets to make sure that lepers knew to keep their distance.

Take a moment and imagine yourself a leper back in those days. The Jews feared leprosy the way you and I fear malignancy. Imagine in your mind’s eye the day you first noticed a spot on your arm. You didn't tell anyone at first. But it began to grow, and you couldn't hide it anymore, so you decided to show your wife. The moment she saw it, something died in her eyes. Her face told you all you needed to know.

A few days later, you went to the priest at the temple. You stood there in a long line like a cow waiting for the butcher. Then eventually, out came the priest. One by one, he examined each person in line with cold, dead, and merciless eyes. “No, you’re fine,” he said to one man, “and so are you, he said to another.” And then at last he came to you. He stopped, and he looked. Then he shouted, “Unclean!" Just a word, which cost him nothing to say, but it took everything from you that day. And he wasn't talking just about my skin. It was as if his words described me all the way down to the bottom of my soul. Nothing would ever be the same again.

I went back home to your wife and children, but they already knew. All my basic belongings lay in the street, packed into two small bags. My wife stood on the doorstep with all of my children hiding behind her legs, peeking in between. You might call it social distancing, but it might as well have been 1000 miles. I couldn't touch them. They couldn't touch me.

Rachel, my little four-year-old, didn't understand, She wanted to run and hug daddy. But her mother held her back, “No, Rachel, don’t touch. Daddy’s dirty! Daddy’s a leper. Remember, if you touch a leper, you become a leper!”

We all wept. Then I turned and walked away from the house. It would never be your home again. I went to join my new family, outside the city walls.

Of course, you can imagine yourself as this man. However, you are this man and so am I. It does not appear that we are, but if God were to make our skin look like our souls, a leper is what I imagine what we would all instantly become.

Several years went by before the day which Luke describes in our text this morning. Much has changed. The leprosy is no longer just a spot. The leper is now full of leprosy. Somehow, this leper heard about a wandering rabbi, a carpenter from Nazareth who had smiling eyes that could make a blind man see. They said that he was a captivating teacher, with such wonderful teaching and such marvelous ways of teaching, that even the little children would listen spellbound. Even his enemies said that never a man had spoken as this Man. When He spoke, some said, even the wind and the waves obeyed Him. One poor man, his soul infested with demons, scampering around his mind like cockroaches round the back of an old fridge had met the Lord, and Jesus had spoken one word -Just. One. Word. And the darkness went away. And the thing about Jesus is that He heard and that He never turns anyone away!

At that, the leper felt something that he hadn’t felt in years: hope began to dawn in his heart. He got up and ran to Jesus. Yes, there were crowds, but this is one time when his leprosy was an advantage. The multitude parted like water before the staff of Moses! And then suddenly, there He was standing in front of him. In an instant, he was on his knees, face in the dirt saying, “Lord if you are willing - I know you can - but if You want to, You can make me clean!”

What followed seemed like an eternity. Then suddenly, the leper heard the crowd gasp, and he felt something that he hadn’t felt in years, the touch of a clean man’s hand upon his dirty head. I think that he jumped in shock. And then somewhere in the crowd, I heard a little boy saying, “But mommy, you always said, Touch a leper and you become a leper!” Which of course is Jesus’ point. Did you notice? Jesus touches the man before he is clean, while he is still contagiously filthy. Isn’t this the Christ whom we preach? The Christ who is here this morning in this very meeting. He is one who is willing to do more than eat and drink with sinners. He is willing to touch them and to become them in the presence of the holy God. In that moment, at the end of that long list of becomings described in the New Testament, Jesus felt the appalling cost of our redemption.

That touch carries the whole weight of the gospel. It’s a touch of communion, a touch of identification, a touch of substitution: He became flesh. Then He became sin. And before it was all said and done, He became cursed for us.

So Jesus looks at you and at me this morning and says, “Come here and let Me touch you!” When was the last time that you came to Me as a sinner and let me rest My hand upon your head?

The Cripple

Sin leaves us as dead souls in dying bodies, completely unable to help ourselves.

On one of those days, as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” (Luke 5:17–20, ESV)

There Jesus is teaching. The room is bursting with people. The crowd is spilling out into the street. It's standing room only everywhere for as far as the eye can see. And then there are these four friends, pushing and pulling their way through the melee. There's absolutely no hope of getting near the door, much less through it. They can hear Jesus's voice, but they cannot see Him, and He cannot see them. Then one of them notices the stairs winding their way around the house up onto the roof. After a dozen or more excuses, they make their way past the little boy sitting on the bottom rows of steps. At last they reach the roof. Using some rocks, a broken piece of tile, and their hands, they claw their way through the roof. Before long, their fingernails are torn and dripping with blood. Below, people are so transfixed upon Jesus that they hardly notice a thing until Jesus stops. Dust is falling on his head. He looks up. Fingers appear in the roof, then a hole, a tiny hole. The home owner jumps to his feet, “Cut that out, at once! What are you doing? Somebody call the police! This is vandalism.” But Jesus doesn't take his eyes off the hole. After the fingers and the hands, some daylight appears and finally a face, then two faces, then three, then four. And at last the last stretcher is lowered down through the rent ceiling.

There lies the cripple, half past dead, almost a corpse, perhaps a spastic quadriplegic, a young man with what we would call cerebral palsy. I say that because Jesus doesn’t see his faith, but rather He seems to see the faith of his four friends. I wonder if the man’s handicap was mental as well as physical?

Well, everybody knew what the man's problem was. His body was broken. But Jesus saw through the appearance of things - He always does. He saw a broken soul. He saw a guilty man, an offended conscience, and the need of forgiveness. Then Jesus says those amazing words that are beyond the reach of the human will: “Son, your sins are forgiven you!”

In an instant, the Pharisees are outraged. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Which, of course, is once again Christ's very point. So Jesus says to them, “Which is easier to say: your sins are forgiven, or pick up your bed and walk?” And of course the answer is that it's easier to say your sins are forgiven. Because when sins are forgiven, we are dealing with an invisible reality. Anyone can say those words, but only God can affect them. But on earth, who can know if the sins really have been forgiven and erased from God's infallible ledger in heaven? However when a man says to a cripple, “Pick up your bed and walk,” well, there is no denying it; either your words have power, amazing power, limitless power, supernatural power, or they don’t. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By their fruits you shall know them.

Also, you can perhaps imagine the shock when Jesus turned to the man and said, ``So that you might know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, I say to you, son, pick up your bed and walk.” And immediately life, the creative power of God Almighty Himself flowed into the arms and legs and spine and nerves and muscles of that crippled man. And his broken body was made as good as new.

Luke, of course, wants us to ask who is this that even the winds and the waves obey Him? Will He also forgive us for our sins?

Maybe you are here today and you feel weighed down with a load of sin. You have tried, but you can’t work off your debts. You know that there is no layaway plan in heaven. Jesus looks at you and proclaims, “Son you have come to a place where your debts have been paid, and your sins, though they are many, have been forgiven.” And we see here the power of the gospel. It grants more than forgiveness; it grants the power to obey as well - the glorious liberty of the children of God. Jesus says to you, “You are forgiven. Now go, and sin no more!”

The Tax Man

Lastly and briefly, we see the IRS agent Levi. Sin doth make traitors of us all!

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:27–32, ESV)

Well, we have come full circle. The story began with Peter on his face saying, “Away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.” Luke brings us back home to the same word at the end of verse 32. When Jesus says that He has not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, keep in mind that the Greek word “sinner” literally means someone who is hopelessly and scurrilously irreligious. A godless wretch. The kind of hell bound derelicts whom pious mothers in Jerusalem would warn their children not to become. In the mind of his community, Levi was just that kind of man, a scandalous traitor who for his own financial gain, had betrayed everything that the Jews held dear. In fact, it was worse than even that. The tax collectors had to pay Rome for the privilege of fleecing God people. They paid Rome for the privilege of collecting taxes for Rome, and then any commission was charged on the top end. Well that was between their conscience and them. Ask any Pharisee and he will tell you, a tax collector’s conscience is black and as hard as hell.

And there is Levi in his tax booth counting his money. Nine for Rome and one for him. Nine for Rome and one for him, over and over again. Walking along the road, Jesus sees Levi and walks across to him. I’m not sure what the Pharisees were expecting Jesus to say as it had been a long day. Perhaps they were hoping for a curse! Yes, a curse from the one who had cursed the fig tree! That would be just the ticket. But instead, you could have heard a pin drop when Jesus stopped and said, “Levi, follow me!” And just like with the paralytic, there was power in those words, power to set Levi free from the enslaving power of passing pleasures. Not only was Levi enslaved, but he also was a willing bondslave! Counting his money, he was as happy as a pig in muck! And yet those two words made the universe change color and his soul with it. He got up and followed Jesus, and immediately he arranged for an apologetic party for all the hookers and tax collectors in the region. And they all came. And once again, the Pharisees were scandalized. But we need not be surprised, should we? This is vintage Jesus. Look at the communion table. It has the same lesson; this Man eats and drinks with sinners!

He won’t hold traitors like you and me at arm’s length. His heart is warm, His arms are open, and His voice is clear, “Follow me! Come leave all and take me as Lord! I died for you. Will you not live for me?”