Hymn: Unending love, Amazing grace
Leprosy was incurable during the time of Jesus and it was a disease people were terrified of. People with leprosy were shunned and mistreated and they were untouchable, the outcasts of society. In Matthew 8:1–4, a leper comes to Jesus and worships Him as God, pleading, "Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean." Moved with compassion, Jesus does something unthinkable - He reaches out and touches the man, saying, "I will; be thou clean." Immediately, the leper is healed.
This moment is more than a physical healing - it is a picture of how God receives us. Like the leper, we come to God broken, unclean, and utterly unable to fix ourselves. Sin has marred us, isolating us from God just as leprosy isolated this man from society. And yet, Jesus does not shrink back. He moves toward us. He touches what is unclean and makes it whole.
We don’t have to be perfect before we come to Jesus. We can come to Him just as we are. He meets us in our mess, in our helplessness, and He says, "I will; be thou clean." This is the heart of the gospel: a holy God who does not reject the sinner but redeems him through love and grace. “…him that cometh to Me (Jesus) I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37)
See Jesus for who He truly is - God the Son, who came to earth to bear the punishment for our sins on the cross. He paid sin’s price in full to redeem us from its penalty: eternal death in hell. Jesus alone is the Mediator between God and man, because only His atoning sacrifice is acceptable to God. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” (1 Timothy 2:5–6)
We have all fallen short of God’s standard of perfect holiness (Romans 3:23), the criteria to enter heaven. Come to Jesus. Let His sinless blood wash you clean from all sin and His righteousness cover your sins. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe!