" ... 'Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.'
And Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. "
'I am willing,' He said. 'Be clean!'.." - Matthew 8: 2, 3
The story of the leper is probably one of my favourite stories in the Gospels. Not so much because of the (then) impossibility of healing leprosy, but because of something else.
When I read Scripture, I like to put myself in the story. I become the woman at the well, the man in the tree, the blind beggar. In this case, I become the leper.
Ostracized by society.
Separated from family and friends.
Jobless. Homeless.
Having to advertise his disease to any and all who approached. "UNCLEAN!"
Hated. Feared.
Hopeless.
Not for years has he known the touch of a human hand. And then, Jesus.
From a distance, he has watched Jesus heal others. And somehow, he knows that just a word from the Master will heal him. And Jesus turns his attention to him. Him, the unclean one. Him, the diseased one. And Jesus asks him what he wants.
Humbly, he makes his request. "But only if You want to."
Jesus could have just said the words. But He didn't.
He REACHED OUT to this man IN HIS DISEASE and TOUCHED him.
Monumental. NOBODY touched a leper.
But Jesus did.
Let that sink in. Jesus touched one of the most feared and hated, one of the most disgusting-looking people on the planet. And He did so BEFORE He healed him.
I imagine that even years later, the clean (formerly leprous) man could still recall the feeling of a clean person touching his diseased face.
"I want to." Jesus' intentions were clear. He wasn't doing this because He was expected to. He was doing this because He WANTED to.
"Be clean." The outward appearance was only a symbol of what was already happening in his heart. Regeneration.
And now others can see his healing - the healing that had already happened inside because Jesus touched him.
 |
| Free image by Fabian Geiske at Unsplash.com |
What other than gratitude could be his response?
He'd been touched by the kindest hand ever, rescued from his horrible circumstances, able to go back to his family and friends, given hope, given peace, given a way to enter the workforce again and support his children. In that moment, he was whole again. Whole. Clean. Restored. Born anew.
His natural response would be to be grateful, to love as he had been loved, to serve the One who had reached out to him in his disease and distress.
Only those who have discovered the depths of His love and grace can truly understand how a desire to please the Master can be the only response to relief from that kind of suffering.
You and I cannot know that depth of gratitude. Or can we? Weren't we completely lost, without hope, without peace, judged, dismissed, unseen, unloved until He reached out His hand of grace to us? Weren't we just like that leper? If our sins and our brokenness could have shown on the outside of our bodies, would they not be as broken as his was? Once He touched us and cleansed our disease of that horrible sin nature from us, were we not as free to be our true selves?
I think so. I am grateful, thrilled, worshipful.
Aren't you?
