Feb 5, 2012
Focus reading: Mark 1:40-45
Nothing and no-one is untouchable for Jesus. All of us know what it is like in small or big ways to be excluded by others. Deliberately and actively left out or ignored by peers, or family, or former friends. Left out because in their view we have done or are something wrong. Sometimes we may even feel we have been left out by God. In touching the leper - Jesus was saying that we are worth touching. That there is no-one no matter how dirty they are, or feel they are, that God can not touch and clean.
This applies to you and it applies to every sort of person you will ever meet. No matter what you may think of yourself, no matter what others might think of you, Jesus wants to restore you as he restored the leper
No matter what you think of those people, whoever those people are for you, Jesus wants to restore them too.
If that is true then those people should be acceptable to us too.
Questions for thought and discussion.
In what ways has this sermon altered your view of this story of healing? What was the place of healing in Jesus' ministry? Who are the lepers of today? Who are the people you find it hard to touch? How might Jesus view them?