laid it there, when He lamented, 'How often would I--and ye would
not!' Nothing can be more in accordance with the will of God, of which
Jesus Christ is the embodiment, than to deliver men from sin, which is
the opposite of His will.

II. Notice, secondly, the Lord's answer.

Mark's record of this incident puts the miracle in very small compass,
and dilates rather upon the attitude and mind of Jesus Christ
preparatory to it. As if, apart altogether from the supernatural
element and the lessons that are to be drawn from it, it was worth our
while to ponder, for the gladdening of our hearts and the
strengthening of our hopes, that lovely picture of sheer simple
compassion and tender-heartedness. 'Jesus, _moved with compassion_'--a
clause which occurs only in Mark's account--'put forth His hand and
touched him, and said, I will; be thou clean.' Note, then, three
things--the compassion, the touch, the word.

As to the first, is it not a precious boon for us, in the midst of our
many wearinesses and sorrows and sicknesses, to have that picture of
Jesus Christ bending over the leper, and sending, as it were, a gush
of pitying love from His heart to flood away all his miseries? It is a
true revelation of the heart of Jesus Christ. Simple pity is its very
core. That pity is eternal, and subsists as He sits in the calm of the
heavens, even as it was manifest whilst He sat teaching in the humble
house in Galilee. For 'we have not a High Priest which cannot be
touched with a feeling of our infirmities.' The pitying Christ is near
us all. Nor let us forget that it is this swift shoot of pity which
underlies all that follows--the touch, the word, and the cure. Christ
does not wait to be moved by the prayers that come from these leprous