6B21.   Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46.  Among the Hebrews sickness, especially leprosy was considered to be the result of one’s sinfulness.  The word ‘unclean’ then meant to be unclean in every way.

Mark 1: 40-45.   Our gospel begins, “A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, ‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’” Jesus then said, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”  “And he was made clean.”  Although the leper was physically cured of leprosy, some day he would die from something else.  More than being clean of leprosy, being clean of sinfulness would give him the life that is everlasting health.  In John 6:68c after many of Jesus’ disciples chose to no longer follow Jesus because he told them they must eat his body and drink his blood, Peter, refusing to abandon Jesus said to Jesus, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”  Jesus’ fame and popularity because of his miraculous works were meant to challenge people to believe in him as their eternal Savior, to take them beyond the physical that dies, to the spiritual that never dies.  All too many of the people embraced the miracles that benefited their bodies here and now, but not the life in Jesus that would give them eternal salvation.

1 Corinthians 10:31—11:1.     Paul wrote: “Do everything for the glory of God.”  Paul did that by trying “to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved.”  He wrote in last Sunday’s epistle: “I have become all things to all, to save at least some.”  Paul was always attempting in his person to reflect the Savior.  So he wrote: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  We are also called to show something of Jesus in ourselves through our daily life of faith in Jesus so to bring some to Jesus.  Our lives should be the life of the good news that is Jesus within us.