Submitted by admin on Mon, 10/25/2010 - 7:19am
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One Touch...a willing touch.
For five years no one touched me. No one. Not one person. Not my wife. Not my child. Not my friends. No one touched me.
They saw me. They spoke to me. I heard love in their voices. I saw concern in their eyes. But I didn't feel their touch. There was no touch. Not once. No one touched me.
What you take for granted, I longed for. Handshakes. Warm embraces. A tap on the shoulder to get my attention. Such moments were taken from my world. No one touched me.
No one bumped into me. What I would have given to be bumped into, to be caught in a crowd, for my shoulder to brush against another's. But for five years it has not happened. How could it? I was not allowed on the streets. I was not permitted in my synagogue. Not even welcome in my own house.
I was untouchable. I was a leper. And no one touched me. Until today.
One year during harvest my grip on the scythe seemed weak. The tips of my fingers lost feeling, first one then another. Soon I could grip the tool but scarcely felt it. By the end of the season I felt nothing at all. I said nothing to my wife, but I know she suspected something.
One afternoon I plunged my hands into a basin of water to wash. The water turned red. My finger was bleeding, badly. But I didn't even know I was wounded. I felt nothing. And it wasn't just my hand.
"It's on your clothes, too," my wife said softly from behind me. I looked down at the bloody spots on my robe. I must have had other unfelt wounds. For the longest time I stood over the basin, staring at my hand. Somehow I knew my life was being forever changed.
"Shall I go with you to tell the priest?" she asked, knowing what the law required.
"No," I sighed, "I'll go alone."
I turned and looked into her tear-filled eyes. Then I bent down and stroked our little daughter's cheek, saying nothing. What could I say? I looked again at my wife. She touched my shoulder, and with my good hand, I touched hers. It would be our last touch.
The priest didn't touch me. He looked at my hand, now wrapped in a rag. He looked at my face, now shadowed in sorrow. I've never blamed him for what he said. He was only doing as he was taught. He covered his mouth and extended his hand, palm forward. "You are unclean," he told me.
With one pronouncement I lost my family, my farm, my future, my friends.
Five years have passed, and no one has touched me since—until today. Oh, how I horrified those who saw me. Five years of leprosy had done terrible things to my body. At the sight of me, fathers grabbed their children. Mothers covered their faces. Children pointed and stared. And—always—the shouts of "Unclean! Unclean! Unclean!" I was no longer a person; I was a disease.
The rags on my body couldn't hide my sores. Nor could the wrap on my face hide the rage in my eyes...and heart. I didn't even try to hide it. How many nights did I shake my crippled fist at the silent sky? "What did I do to deserve this?" But never a reply.
Oh, yes, I was angry. Angry, and desperate. And I think that's what made me take the step I took today. Of course, it was risky. But what did I have to lose? He calls himself God's Son. Either he will hear my complaint and kill me or accept my demands and heal me. Those were my thoughts. I came to him as a defiant man, moved not by faith but by a desperate anger.
But then I saw him, and when I saw him, I was changed. I'm a farmer, not a poet, so I cannot find the words to describe what I saw. All I can say is that Judean mornings are sometimes so fresh and the sunrises so glorious that to look at them is to forget the heat of the day before and the hurt of times past. When I looked at his face, I saw a Judean morning.
Before he spoke, I knew he cared. Somehow I knew he hated this disease as much as—no, more than—I hate it. My rage became trust, and my anger became hope.
I waited until he was only paces away, then I stepped out.
"Master!"
He stopped and looked in my direction as did dozens of others. Fear swept across the crowd. Arms flew in front of faces. "Unclean!" someone shouted. But I scarcely noticed them. Their panic I'd seen a thousand times. His compassion, however, I'd never beheld before. Everyone stepped back except him. He stepped toward me. Toward me.
I did not move. I just spoke. "Lord, you can heal me if you will." Had he healed me with a word, I would have been thrilled. Had he cured me with a prayer, I would have rejoiced. But he wasn't satisfied with just speaking to me. He drew near me. He touched me. No one had touched me in five years. Until today.
"I will." His words were as tender as his touch. "Be healed!"
And I was. I was!
And I will never forget the one who dared to touch me. He could have healed me with a word. But he wanted to do more than heal me. He wanted to honor me, to make me "real" again, to christen me. Imagine that...unworthy of the touch of a man, yet worthy of the touch of God.
Excerpted from a book by Max Lucado
Who or what really touches you? In all your busyness, who or what is able to push through your activities— all your responsibilities, your work, your personal space—to come close to your heart and touch you?
So many things these days grab us and hold us! So many obligations. So many demands. So many frustrations. We're touched by so many mundane things, it can be hard to sort through them all to find something truly significant.
With all of life's distractions, it's not always easy to find what's most important. So I ask you: Who—or what—really touches you? What grabs your heart? What takes up your time? Where do you go to be renewed?
Some people push Jesus away—just like they push others away. They feel unworthy. Unclean. Untouchable. They wonder why should they expect that Jesus will come down where they are, to wallow in their muck?
Perhaps they feel that way because life has been unfair. They never got a fair shake. They never asked for the troubles, the challenges, the pain that life dished out to them.
Have you ever said, "That's not fair!" Have you ever wondered why others got a better deal out of life than you did? We know we've made a mess of things, but we can't help but think that we wouldn't have messed up so badly if we had been given a better chance. Or better resources.
If we'd been born in a different family... If we had better looks... If we were smarter... If we could have had just a little bit more money... If things would have been just a little different, we think to ourselves, we wouldn't have been so bad.
Sometimes we feel so beaten down—so unfairly beaten down—that we doubt. We seriously doubt that there is any possible way to be lifted back up.
We doubt God's love. We doubt God's fairness. We doubt that God really cares. We wonder why, after allowing us to be knocked down so many times, why would God want to pick us up? Why indeed? Why now?
So we slug it out on our own. We run from the One we dare not to trust. We hide from his touch.
We get distracted by our anger—our outrage—over the injustices of life. Or just as likely, we get distracted by our own sense of unworthiness.
So we muddle on alone, doing the best we can in our circumstances, with our troubles and our feelings. We're touched by so many meaningless activities, so many crippling emotions, that we miss the ONE TOUCH that we need most. We hide from the One who can change everything.
Let me tell you something very important! You may not feel worthy of his touch. You may, in fact, feel quite undeserving. Perhaps you feel ostracized from those around you. You may sense their contempt—you've endured enough put-downs and insults.
Perhaps you feel so alone, so isolated, on the outside looking in, that you cannot imagine that Jesus stands before you with open arms. He wants to touch you. He is willing to touch you where you are. He is eager to touch those whom no one else wants to touch.
If you feel shut out, alone, trapped by circumstances, unworthy—Jesus wants to touch you! He wants to change your world!
Jesus came to this earth to touch all whom society devalues. All whom the world mocks and puts down. Everyone who is ignored, passed over, pushed to the corners. Jesus came to touch those whom others avoid!
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him. (Luke 5:12-13)
It is impossible for us now in our time and in our society to comprehend the loss, the rejection, the pain felt by each person who contracted the deadly disease of leprosy.
It was bad enough that it was a death sentence. Leprosy would kill you—but it wouldn't take you quickly, mercifully. Instead it took your life, slowly draining it away, drop by drop.
The disease would ravage your body, inch by horrible inch. It would numb your fingers, your limbs, your face. While leprosy robbed you of your physical senses so you could feel nothing—cuts, flames, pain went unnoticed. But while your physical senses were numb, your psychological pain was multiplied.
On the outside you were numb, but on the inside your spirit and your soul screamed in agony as the disease destroyed and disfigured your body.
Numb, infected fingers would rot away and fall off. Skin lesions would turn your face into a grotesque, hideous sight. I found pictures of the disease on the Internet that I could not show here. It was too much. If you're really interested in seeing what leprosy could do to a person, google "leprosy" and select "images."
But there was even more. According to ancient Jewish customs and biblical law, leprosy represented sin. It symbolized the horrible consequences and contamination that occur because sin separates us from God. It was the antithesis of what was holy and pure and clean. Leprosy was unclean.
And what was unclean can contaminate others. They knew about the regulations—all the things that could make a person unclean and separate him from the holy, righteous God. It didn't take much. Touch the wrong thing. Eat the wrong thing. A slight misstep would make you unclean for a day or a week or more. Even normal functions of life, like a woman's monthly period, caused uncleanness.
But leprosy was the worst! Other forms of uncleanness could be remedied. Wash, wait, go through the ritual, and you could be clean again. Not with leprosy. It was a life-sentence...or rather, a death sentence. You were permanently unclean until finally you died.
And for that reason, if leprosy touched your life, you were permanently shunned. Society locked you out. You were pushed to the edges and kept away from everyone—even your own family.
If leprosy touched your life, no one else could touch you. You were untouchable. No one wanted to get close to you, let alone touch you. Everyone feared the same fate you were experiencing. They were afraid that they too would be shut out and permanently shunned.
But while no one else was willing to be near this leper, Jesus was! No one else was willing to speak to him, but Jesus was! No one else was willing to touch him, but Jesus said, "I am willing."
Sin contaminates us all. When it touches our lives, it destroys our spirits; it separates us from our loving, holy God; sin ravages our souls; it infects our hopes and dreams; it snuffs out the future which God had planned for us.
Leprosy more than met its match when Jesus came that day. The man must have thought. I know he has the power. I know he is able—more than able to cure me and make me clean again. What I don't know is whether he would be willing to make me clean. I'm an unworthy, undeserving, contaminated leper. I shouldn't even dare to be in his presence. I should distance myself and call out for everyone to hear—unclean! Unclean! I know he can, but is he willing?
I want you to know that Jesus was willing—not only to cure him, but to cure him with his touch.
This was an amazing thing! Others were repulsed by the disgusting sight of the diseased man covered with oozing sores and raw infection. Not Jesus. Mark's gospel says that Jesus felt compassion for him.
Rather than being repulsed, Jesus was drawn to the man. He identified with him. He came near, right up next to the man; he reached out his hand; he touched him. "I am willing," he said to the man. And he touched him.
Jesus still is willing! Some say—maybe you've said—I know he can, but is he willing? I know he has the power. I know he is able, but is he willing to come to me, to touch me?
The answer is yes. Jesus still is drawn to people who need his touch. When the leprosy of sin has contaminated you, destroyed your spirit, ravaged your soul, infected your mind, and snuffed out your future, Jesus is willing to touch you.
Are you willing to receive his touch?