Mark 1:42 And he was Cleansed

Last Friday, Lake Macquarie (and the whole Hunter Valley)was hit by a storm. We had over 300m of rain and 120k/h winds that blew a huge collier up on beach in town (Newcastle).

Andrew,my 17 yo son, picked me up from work that day. It was dark at 5.00 and the rain was blinding. We passed at least 6 "drowned" cars on the short drive home. Andrew has become an excellent driver, I'm not sure that I could have handled the treacherous conditions as well as he did.

Once home our problems had just begun. By 9:30 flood waters were rising downstairs and we had to bring the washing machine and whatever else we could salvage, up stairs. There is nothing worse than watching the water slowly going up the doors of the cars, knowing that there is no way of moving them.

By the time we went to bed the water was knee deep and almost waistdeep out in the back yard. (We went down to rescue the hens, they spent the night in the bathroom). The water was so cold that we were hypothermic after our efforts.

By Saturday morning the water had gone, but all our stored papers, clothes, Julie's sewing materials, the car floors and our camping and garden equipment were covered with a layer of grey mud. The firewood had washed down the backyard and the bananas were over at crazy angles.

We had no power but just a visiting the neighbors, made us realise that we had gotten off lightly. Both neighbors were evacuated and one had water through the living area of the house (and their car was flooded to the roof). On our block, at least 4 houses were flooded that we know of.

So after 5 days of cleaning I'm exhausted but downstairs is almost back to normal (minus the two large piles of things that we used to consider important) So I can sympathise with our leper in today's verse. He wanted to be clean. I know just how wonderful that first hot shower on Monday night felt. Clean at last!

Jesus touch, though wonderful, didn't bring the cleaning, it was His words. His words still had (and have) the same power they held when he spoke the solar system into existence.

The leprosy left. What a wonderful result - nothing like this had happened since Elisha's time. And everything left behind was beautiful and clean.

I know that cleaning is hard work. In this case it was Christ that did the work. And so it is with my sin, He bears the cost.

Speak to me, Lord.