Jesus touches the leper. He TOUCHES him. He touches us.

As I was meditating on today’s account of Jesus healing the leper, I was just so moved by their interaction. Very slowly reading through this and putting myself there, I was drawn to the desperation on the part of the leper. The scripture reports he was imploring Jesus and kneeling before him. These are displays of desperation. He comes to Jesus, believing that he can heal him and Jesus is moved with pity after he expresses not just that he wants to be healed, but his faith that Jesus can heal him. What truly moved me was when the scripture reported that Jesus touched him. Jesus says, “I will it. Be healed.” And he reaches out and touches him, He TOUCHES him!

Jesus reaches out with his heart, full of compassion and pity and touches this “untouchable” image-bearer. He touches the leper. 

Disease like leprosy is downstream from the fall and while it rarely causes death, it is a debilitating and pernicioius disease. It also is highly contagious - so contagious that lepers had their own colonies. They had to be removed from general society to protect the spread of this highly contagious disease. Lepers were basically outcasts, yet Jesus is willing to expose himself to the disease of this leper, in order to touch and bring his healing to this man.

This foreshadows his death on the cross. Does it not? Jesus comes down, takes on the form of man being born in the likeness of man. And he becomes sin for us. He becomes our disease so that he could take the disease away from us. This is the eternal healing. It is the healing of the cosmic leprosy of our sin - healed by Jesus who reaches down from heaven, and in the incarnation touches us in our Brokenness.

As I thought through this, it made me think about our interactions with others.

Who are the people in your life - your families, your workplace, or on the street -  that you consider untouchable?

What is Jesus's heart for those people?

How can we encourage each other to reach out with Jesus's healing to these people.

Turning inward and recognizing the ways that Jesus has healed us, let us recognize that it's not just healing in this life that we're after, but eternal healing. The second reading from Hebrews encourages us to stay faithful to Christ, which we do by giving ourselves to prayer, to the sacramental life to obediently listening to His word to us in scripture and living the life of being cleansed by the sacraments with hearts full of faith until the end. Again, it's not just about healing in this life.  It's about eternal and cosmic healing. So that we can be united to Christ for a life of blessedness and eternity with him. 

I hope we get there together, brothers. May we spread and expand the fellowship of Christ. May we expand the bounds of the Kingdom into the hearts of many men and families.