Mark 1:40-45, “Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.”

 I have been experiencing a whole new dimension of loneliness due to this pandemic. Social distancing, wearing masks, being away from love ones  for months. The Lord had showed me something profound in Mark 1:40-45,  A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”  Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

I was given by the Lord the meaning of, “Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.” By the end of the story Jesus has traded places with the former leper who is now wandering freely, proclaiming what the Lord has done and creating widespread positive response, while Jesus has become isolated and lonely. There is an exchange of roles, an exchange of realities between Jesus and the man whom he has healed: this points long-range to the role that Jesus is willing to take for humanity itself, giving up his life of freedom for the loneliness of the one isolated on Golgotha, whose "willingness" is a proclamation in its own right. He will use the language of "willing" in  Mark14:36, exchanging his own desires for what the Father "wills."

We all have found a new dimension of being a lone, with the spread of this Coronavirus, to the point of it affecting us mentally our   "willingness". Jesus is "willing" to trade places with us if we would just release our condition for healing.