Outcast No More



A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

One of the most powerful images we can find in Scripture is of the Prodigal Son returning home to his father. He has squandered his father’s inheritance on wild living and is totally broke. He is also bedraggled and dirty, smelling like the pigs he was feeding recently. Yet, when his father meets him, he doesn’t ask the boy to get cleaned up; he just embraces him in all his squalid splendor. Since the father is representational of God, and we the children who strayed away from home, it is indicative of God’s great love for all of us. 

We find this love on display in today’s passage. A leper goes to Jesus for healing. Although the entire population is repulsed by lepers, and they are shunned as outcasts, Jesus doesn’t shy away from this leper. On the contrary, he reaches out a hand and touches him while he still has leprosy. THEN he heals him. Both these stories should serve as encouragement to all of us who feel like outcasts in the world today. Many of us feel like we don’t belong anywhere, rejected by people for a variety of reasons. God is saying to us: It doesn’t matter if nobody accepts you; come to me. And come as you are. I accept you.

Many of us also feel unclean because of sin. Nothing makes us feel as dirty as sinning does. Even an atheist who leads an amoral life feels soiled after sinning. Now, when we are physically dirty, we can step into a shower. The water will make us clean again. What do we do when we are spiritually dirty? There is no way we can become clean except through Christ. His blood will make us clean again. Isaiah, speaking for God, says, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). God is saying to us: It doesn’t matter what terrible deeds you have done, come to me. And come as you are. I will make you clean.

So, let all of us who feel leprous, either because of rejection or because of sin, approach Jesus with confidence, knowing that we will find both acceptance and healing in him. Jesus came for people like us. He said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Some of us have tried to make the church a chest-thumping ground for the self-righteous, but Jesus’ church is really for sinners. And that describes pretty much all of us, doesn’t it? 

If we haven’t been baptized, let us be cleansed in the sanctifying waters of grace. 

And, if we have been baptized but still gotten dirty, let us be cleansed.

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