Today, my dad's sermon, The Leper and the Lord, was on Mark 1:40-45.
And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him [Jesus], “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
In this story, we find that Jesus, in essence, trades place with the leper. At the beginning of our story, we're introduced to the leper, a man separated from others, someone who's socially an outcast. But in the end, when the leper told everyone what Jesus had done for him, Jesus became the outcast. He had to be separated from the people. Isn't that the message of Christmas? That Jesus traded places with us when He was born into our lowly state? As the Christmas season comes up, let's focus on the real Reason for the season, Jesus' trading of places with us, taking our place on the cross.