2406AFC020924 – The Sole Soul Cleaner ← 😊 PODCAST LINK
Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
Do you know someone who enjoys Bible study, or who might like to read this? Ask them to email us or to subscribe on our blog-site.
Leviticus 13:46 – 46 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.
Psalm 32:5 –
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
1 Corinthians 10:31 – 31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
Mark 1:40-41 – 40 A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!”
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Before I go another line I have to insert here something that has been tingling in my heart for the past several days. It is a don – one I learned as a kid – and it says a great deal about “Full- service.” (Please take a look here (↔ Click Link) to see what that means to me.) Parts of this song started tapping on the windowsill of my mind last Friday morning while I was thinking about what to do with this post. Enough jabber-jabber. Here is the song and its lyric.
Take My Life and Let It Be
Consecrated unto Thee (↔ Music Link)
| 1 | Take my life, and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in ceaseless praise, Let them flow in ceaseless praise. |
2 | Take my hands, and let them move At the impulse of Thy love; Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee, Swift and beautiful for Thee. |
| 3 | Take my voice, and let me sing Always, only, for my King; Take my lips, and let them be Filled with messages from Thee, Filled with messages from Thee. |
4 | Take my silver and my gold; Not a mite would I withhold; Take my intellect, and use Every power as Thou shalt choose, Every power as Thou shalt choose. |
| 5 | Take my will, and make it Thine; It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart; it is Thine own; It shall be Thy royal throne, It shall be Thy royal throne. |
6 | Take my love; my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure-store. Take myself, and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee, Ever, only, all for Thee. |
| 7 | Take my will and my desire, Purge them in Thy Holy Fire. Take my spirit unto Thee There to dwell eternally, There to dwell eternally. |
||
| Lyrics 1-6 Frances Ridley Havergal, 7: Me. Melody Henri Abraham Cesar Malan |
|||
Our Old Testament reading for this week’s Liturgy is from the book of Leviticus. This is a 
book of the Bible that many people never read, and those who do mostly skip through it. It’s full of rules, precepts, and laws about Ritual Sacrifices. It is the middle book of the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Torah and also of our Bible. It is called Leviticus because most of it deals with the tribe of the Levites who have the responsibility for the Priestly service for the Israelites. Honestly, the text really turns some people off. There’s a lot of blood, a lot of sacrificial slaughter, a lot more blood, and endless fire and smoke from the Altar. In addition, there are lots of “guidelines” (significant rules we would today call MYOB-rules) that are designed to guide a thoroughly idol-oriented, pantheistic aggregation of people who have been enslaved for 10 generations into a strong, monotheistic, and cohesive society that can stand on its own as a nation in the midst of really dreadful nations like the Assyrians, Philistines, and the Amalekites. On 21st century maps Assyria would be the region of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey, and eastern Syria. Some people consider the descendants of the Amalekites and Philistines to be Palestinians because in the Bible, those nations vigorously opposed the seizure of Canaan as the Promised Land of the Hebrews. As we well know, that conflict is still raging after 3,300 years, and there’s only one end in sight: The Return of Christ at the End of the Age of the Church. I agree with The Apostle Paul who agreed with Jesus that the End of the Age could be any day now. I think it’s safe to state that that process will be pretty messy for anyone who is unprepared; but, prepared for what, and how?
The “what” is easy: Judgment on the Day of Reward when we collect the wages of the life each of us has led. The how is the thread that runs through our Key Verses: “Be made 
clean!” In that passage in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is described as being “moved with compassion.” The Greek word used there is akin to what we would call a gut-level emotional response. The same response appears several times in the Gospels, and Jesus’ response to the Widow in Nain whose son was being carried to his grave is a prime example. (See Luke 7:11-16) Jesus was always moved with compassion when he saw how deep and great was the need for people to be healed, and his administration of healing was not limited to bodily healing, but also included healing of the soul. Acknowledgement of sin and the accompanying repentance are presented several times. We often see that touch is involved in those healings. People would even touch the tzitzits (← Check it out!) of his tallit. In this case, he reached out and touched the leper.
THAT was a big NO-NO! It was forbidden to touch a leper. As you can see from the passage in Leviticus, they were outcasts – literally not allowed to be around other people who were “clean” of the disease. They were excluded from worship because they could not enter the camp (later the city) much less the Tent of Meeting (later the Temple). Again we see that Jesus is doing something intentionally radical: He is going above and beyond the Law to usher in Mercy. That’s a very Godly thing to do, isn’t it, to be Merciful beyond what is required and then all the more beyond what could be expected? That leper, I envision him as a young man in his early 30’s, knew the law, knew what he was supposed to do, BUT he also knew what Jesus could do when confronted with F.A.I.T.H. He admitted his condition – unclean – and asked to have it changed knowing that Jesus would do so if it was God’s Will. It worked. “Immediately the leprosy left him.” Now, look at what we see in the Psalm:
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah When I hear that passage I think of the Pharisee and the Publican (See Luke 18:9–14). There was the self-righteous Pharisee telling God what a good boy he was, and back in the corner stood the Tax Collector – a hated collaborator with Rome. We sometimes see ourselves as “God’s Good Little Child,” and behave as if we have no reason to impute guilt in us. Silly rabbit! What can we hide from God and where would we hide it?!? Let’s face it. We have all tried that, and it never worked. We can tell it never worked because after trying that, we do not feel cleansed of guilt – we feel guiltier for lying! Like the old folk song says, “When Will They Ever Learn?” How has clinging tightly to our sin ever made our lives better? It’s not too hard to understand. IT’s not something to far away that we can never reach it. It’s not so high above us that we have to send someone to bring it down to us. God himself gives the lesson, the exam at the end of the lesson, and the means to pass the exam They’re all open Book! (Please follow this link and look for the green text.) The preparation is so easy: whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. now, all we have to do is figure out what gives Glory to God. Hmmm. How about Whatsoever you do? (↔ Music Link) How about Love God and Neighbor (↔ Music Link) with all my heart? In our annual Dedication Mass for our Son Timothy, his part was the last stanza from Christina Rosetti’s Poem A Christmas Carol.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what can I give Him,
I’ll give my heart.
What does the Lord God want? Only us. Isn’t that simple? We already have everything he wants – us – and all of that “us” is what he gave us to become us. And therein lies the mystery and the key to unlock it. We are his because he made us his by making us like himself. We are not gods, but we are God’s. Let us take up our cross and follow him (↔ Music Link) as ones who are consecrated unto him. You guessed it, Belovéd; it’s the APP.
God gave us himself In The Beginning – “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God gave us a Covenant – and exchange between persons – before he gave us Commandments. God formed and hallowed a Relationship before he gave us any rules about living that Relationship. God made us to be Eternal Beings like him (Yup. YOLO-F) and God made us to be wholly Holy like him as in Leviticus 19:2 – 2 Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. Why would he do that to us? Why would he expect us to be Holy when it is clear we are sinners? One more Psalm and one more song:
Psalm 41:4 –
4 I said, Lord, be merciful unto me:
heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee. (AKJV) [1]
Indeed, the Lord our God is the Healer of my soul. (↔ Music Link)
In Preface III for Sundays in Ordinary Time we will hear:
“For we know it belongs to your boundless glory, that you came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself, that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation, through Christ our Lord.” He, our Lord, the Christ of God – Jesus – is the sole soul cleaner, and is eternally available to each and all of us Every Moment Of Every Day (↔ Music Link). He is standing before us, and so we can say, “Jesus, if you choose, you can make me clean.” You and i know in our hearts, in our minds, and in our very souls what he will say next.
“I do choose. Be made clean!”
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV) KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.
