The Willingness of Jesus

Kathy and I are in transition regarding our participation in an established Christian fellowship and so, as is our current custom, we seek out churches to visit and worship with on occassion. This past Sunday we attended the First Baptist Church of Lebanon, NH where the pastor chose to speak on Jesus' encounter with a leper in Mark 1:40-45. I found one verse transition especially vivid, moving from verse 40 to 41. The leper falls on his knees before Jesus and says"If you are willing, you can make me clean." The next verse is instructive, most bibles translate it as "moved with compassion", Jesus reached out, touched him, and said "I am willing, be cleansed." The pew bible was Today's New International Version which interestly enough chose a variant translation used in only a few translations. It basically said that Jesus was indignant, which to me implies miffed, mildly angry, upset, irritated. Now this is not intended to be a bible exegesis post, it is simply to point out how nuances of meaning can be aduced from variant readings. The leper says, "If you are willing....", and the fact that Jesus may have been upset by this statement that implies that maybe Jesus would rather have the leper remain blemished and diseased, speaks to me that willingness is one of his prevalent attiributes, with availability being closely aligned. Perhaps the combination of those two attributes forms a working definition for true compassion, the preferred translation.

One more point. Let's not confuse will with willingness. While we might pray "if it be Your will" where we are uncertain of the outcome or direction, let us never doubt that Jesus is willing to make us clean whenever we seek him out and ask. His answer is to the point, "I am willing, be cleansed."