The Leper's Prayer
R. Glover. Mark 1:40-45 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying to him, If you will, you can make me clean.… This prayer is very remarkable. For observe — I. THE CASE WOULD SEEM ABSOLUTELY HOPELESS. Many could feel that for a Lordly spirit like Christ's to have control over evil spirits was natural, but would have held the cure of a leper an impossibility; for the disease, being one of the blood, infected the whole system! If onlookers might so think, how much more the leper himself! Every organ of his body infected deeply, how wonderful that he could have any hope. But he believes this great miracle a possibility. Yet note — II. HIS PRAYER IS WONDERFULLY CALM. In deepest earnest he kneels. But there is no wildness nor excitement. Mark also — III. HOW A GREAT LAW OF COMPENSATION RUNS THROUGH OUR LIVES, and somehow those most grievously afflicted are often those most helped to pray and trust. I once saw a leper at Genadenthal in South Africa — an old woman. "Tell him," said she to the doctor, who took me to see her, "I am very thankful for my disease; it is the way the Lord took to bring me to Himself." This man had had the same sort of compensation, and while the outward man was perishing the inward man was being renewed day by day. Copy his prayer, and ask for mercies though they seem to be sheer impossibilities. (R. Glover.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. WEB: A leper came to him, begging him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, "If you want to, you can make me clean."