Mark 1:40-44
And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

The life of a leper in Jesus’ day could not have been very pleasant. Beyond the excruciating nature of the physical ailment was the mental and emotional anguish of being ostracized from society, forced to dwell outside the camp, as it were, and not to be able to partake in the normal activities of life. Leprosy was, in a sense, a continual series of losing parts of oneself and parts of one’s life. It was something that marked people as those to be avoided and maybe even feared, perhaps cast aside and unwanted.

And into one man’s lonely and isolated world steps Jesus Christ. The leper came begging. He came humbly. He came with faith in Jesus’ power to do that exact thing that he asked for, to make him clean and whole, to rid him of this loathsome disease, to restore something that had been lost and lead him back to a semblance of normal life. And Jesus, with the power and authority that He possessed as God Himself, willed that this man would be clean, and so he was. But beyond this display of power was the compassionate hand that reached to touch the untouchable. Imagine the warmth of it, the comfortable weight of that hand upon him after having no physical contact for the duration of his sickness.

We are all afflicted by the loathsome disease of sin and thus separated from God, dwelling outside the camp, isolated and consumed by the corruption within us. We are the untouchable, starving for that contact with the One who loves us most but who can’t tolerate the sin festering all over us. We are all desperate to be cleansed, acutely aware of the uncleanness that saps life from us day by day. And so when we, like this leper, can cry out with faith in Jesus’ power to cleanse, He responds to us in much the same way. Not only does He, by His power, grant us the forgiveness we need, but, with compassion, He reaches out His hand to comfort and connect. He reaches out with His arms to embrace and His love to fill all those empty places in our hearts.