Thélō: What God is willing to do for YOU
When I was in college, a good friend of mine had a pick-up truck. Big mistake!
Mathematically speaking, a student moves 10X an hour more than the average adult during that same 4- year period. You change rooms, roommates, apartments, rentals, and move home for the summer dozens of times during your journey through college
Now consider, you’re the guy with a pick-up truck. You will be asked if you can help someone move approximately one million times during the time it will take you to matriculate through an average bachelor’s degree program.
Initially, my friend was saying yes to everyone. Eventually, however, unless you were a woman he was really attracted to, he shut down his moving business. Ultimately, there wasn’t enough free beer in the universe for him to be willing to move anyone ever again.
In Matthew 8, a leper comes up to Jesus and says, “..if You’re willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus puts His hand on the man and says, “I am willing.”
This is actually a colossally dramatic event!
Lepers were outcasts, forced to live separate from all other members of society.
By law, they had to announce their presence by crying, “Unclean, unclean.”
No one was legally allowed near them as this is a very transmittable, infectious disease.
They could not work.
They could not see their families.
They had to beg for anything they were to receive.
If you touched the unclean Leper, you became unclean. (Like the “cheese-touch” in Diary of a Wimpy Kid).
The drama that unfolds in this interaction with Jesus is incredible for that age and culture. Every single one of the leper laws gets shattered. This man leaves the leper colony, walks out into public, right up to Jesus, and does not perform his legal “unclean” shouting obligation. The wonder, shock, and awe of it all is that Jesus not only addresses this man, but actually touches him. This man’s status is physically, spiritually, and socially despised and touching him meant passing that station on to you!
In answer to the man’s request, Christ says, “I am willing.” The term “willing” comes from the Greek word “thélō.” Thélō does not merely imply, “OK – I’ll do it.” Rather, it means resolved, determined, and desired. It most literally means in this context that it’s Christ’s “Deepest desire, what He’s most fond of doing, what He loves to do most, and His purpose in coming here.”
These stories are to depict much more than ancient history and healing a disease more common to those times. This man was mentally, emotionally, relationally, economically, spiritually, socially, and physically sick. These are the common conditions of our age.
Jesus says that the reason He left His high place in Heaven was to come here to earth to redeem us from our circumstances, regardless of how desperate or dire they are or what kind of outcast we may be. While it’s human nature to be like my friend with the truck and grow tired of helping others; Jesus’ deepest desire is the opportunity to not only lend you His truck, but help you move, pick up the heavy end of the couch, and clean the dirtiest parts of your apartment so you don’t lose your deposit.
Regardless of how or in what area of your life you’re broke or broken, He’s thélō. He’s not merely willing, it’s His purpose. It’s why He came here. He came here for you.
With God, all things are possible,
Dr. Ben Lerner