The Cleansing

A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. Mark 1:40-42.

Reading this, I begin to see and feel the compassion of my savior. By Jewish understanding, to worship Yahweh, one would enter into the Temple, and bring your sacrifice to the Lord. In Jewish law, it was a sin to enter into the temple if you were unclean. In that same law a person would be declared unclean by a number of things: Handling dead bodies; giving birth; having sex; or even touching a person who was unclean. Jesus reached out and touched an unclean leper. He Touched Him!! Unclean. Jesus cared so much about this man being restored into relationship with God he was willing to be made unclean to allow this man to worship. God's cleansing into his life. The leper for the first time in his life would be able to enter into the temple. He would finally be able to worship the way he'd longed to his whole life. His infirmities would no longer hold power over him. From now on this man would be a product of Jesus' restoring power. Christ would take on that uncleanliness so this man would be able to worship.

Ultimately that is what Christ offers. He lays down his position of authority and power, making a way for every man to be able to have what was lost that day in the Garden. Relationship. Christ embraced the uncleanliness of a leper and is more than willing to embrace the uncleanliness of every one of his followers in order to let them stand without blame before his father.

The Church

Tonight I had the distinct pleasure of being able to be a table host at a church-wide Christmas dinner. It was an outreach event geared towards the lonely and poor in the Paradise community, and I got to be the face of Jesus to whoever would sit at my table. With my passion for poverty, I had hoped to get a table filled with druggies and homeless, but as it usually happens in Paradise, my table was mostly elderly people. 2 of them had just had their 70th marriage anniversary, another was just a lonely old man, and the last was a elderly Mormon whose wife was in the hospital and didn't want to spend Christmas alone. But the thing that really caught my attention tonight was the table next to me. Sitting next to a bunch of elderly ladies was a lady obviously strung out on meth. Her hair was dreaded from neglect and she was wearing an Orlando Magic jacket from the 90's that couldn't have been washed since then. I began hurting inside to talk to her, I figured at this church people aren't used to poverty, so a woman like this would scare our little old grandmothers. I could not have been more wrong. I got to see over the course of the night these older ladies share their food and their lives with this woman. They didn't care that she smelled, or that she could barely speak in intelligent sentences, all that mattered to these ladies was that this lady was here and she needed some lovin'. It put such a smile on my face to see as she left each one of the ladies get up and give the homeless woman a hug, I knew they actually cared for her. I feel as if so often I don't give the body of Christ a chance, I tend to think of everyone as another consumer. Another person just trying to get their fix of religion, but tonight I got to see some little conservative old women be The Church.