Today started after sleeping through my alarm and waking up at 9:47, when I was suppose to leave my apartment at 10ish for church. I hate that feeling of being groggy for church, so I tried to wake up at 9. My body said no sir. To get to church, I have to catch a bus down the hill, then it connects to another. I timed the first one up well, however the second bus was ready to leave me before I got to the stop. I saw it catch a red light, so I sprinted up the hill to beat it there. Up the hill I realized that it skipped that intersection and picked up at the next. Luckily, the bus caught another red light, I dashed again and made it on time to get on the 3-Line. I sat down and found myself half awake, sweaty and cotton-mouthed. Great way to start the morning.

Little did I know that the sermon would be themed by a man covered with leprosy dashing to Jesus for healing. A leper in this day was considered much more than a sick person. They were outcasts, not allowed in the cities, and for sure were not to be touched. They were a symbol of the world’s brokenness. As people of the city scattered as far away from this man as they could, he ran to Jesus, and said to him “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” Jesus could have easily cleansed him without doing anything, without saying anything, and for sure without touching the man! The man was immediately cleansed as Jesus reached to touch him.

This can be seen from two different points of view.

The symbolism of the most high, most perfect man to walk the earth, reaching out and actually touching a man who was known as the lowest of the lowest humans alive was an incredible message to me showing however successful I become, there will never be anyone too low to show love to. It bothers me so much to see people put themselves above the homeless and the needy in today’s society. It is our privilege as followers of Jesus to love and reach out to these people.

From the leper’s point of view, we can see that Jesus wants us to come to him dirty. He does not want us to put on a clean face, or try to clean up our act before we face him. He wants to see us vulnerable, surrendering and honest. Jesus shows he can clean the man who is viewed as the most filthy man in the city, proving that his cleanliness becomes our cleanliness the moment we dash to him.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 10:55 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.