Church of a Different Color

After Jesus healed the leper he told him to go and show himself to the priest. The Old Testament gave instructions that any leper who was no longer contagious to go to the priest so the priests could test to see if it was truly safe for the individual to return to society. But why would Jesus tell the leper to show himself to the priest when there was obviously no doubt the man had been healed?

He said he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17). So he sent the leper to the priest because the law required it and since Jesus had not yet died and had not yet risen again, everyone was still under the law.

While Jesus walked the earth, he lived the life of a dedicated Jew. He attended the synagogue (Mt 12:9) and celebrated the feasts (Mt 26:17; Lk 2:41; Jn 5:1). He did this even though the synagogue was run by Pharisees and Sadducees, hypocrites of the highest order.

Jesus was serving his Father. He came to do the work his Father sent him to do regardless of the behavior of others.


It is interesting to note the perfect Son of God attended synagogue (church) knowing full well that the leaders were not true followers of God. Yet many people today do not attend church explaining, I don’t believe in organized religion because of all the hypocrisy.

Jesus was so dedicated to worship of his father that he attended church though he knew the pastors actively were seeking to kill him.

Principles of Healing

It is far too easy to skim over words, especially if the text is familiar. Look at the Leper’s words. “And behold there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” He understood what many do not understand today. The choice to heal belongs to God, not to us (1 Corinthians 12:1-11).

It is true that our faith is involved in our healing (Mt 9:22; Mk 10:52). We need to believe that God can heal, just like the leper believed (Lord, if you will, you can…). It is not our responsibility to believe that he will heal, but that he can he if he chooses.

In this case it was God’s will to heal him. We know this because Jesus said, “I will; be though clean.”

How do we know when it is God’s will and when it isn’t? We know simply by asking to be healed, believing that God can heal.

There was a man with a crippling disease whom Jesus had passed by many times and did not heal him. This man was not even a believer when Jesus did finally heal him. You can find the story in John 5:1-9. We know that Jesus often went to Jerusalem. Scripture says Jesus knew the man had been lying there crippled for a long time. This tells us out healing can be a matter of God’s timing.

But in both these cases Jesus did heal them. Is there ever a time when Jesus did not heal someone? Yes. In Acts we read about a man who was crippled from birth and had been begging at the temple gate daily since he was old enough to know how to hold out his hand (Acts 3:1-8). How many times had Jesus passed that man and never reached out his hand to heal him?

We say, but he eventually was healed. Yes, but Paul never was (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). If God does not heal our physical infirmity, it is because he has an infinite plan in which our thorn in the flesh is playing a part.

The Touch

Jesus healed a leper by touching him. No one ever touched a leper. It was too dangerous. You could contract the disease and be forced to live outside the city in isolation and extreme loneliness and pain. But Jesus knew who he was and the power that flowed through him. He did not need to fear.

We can imagine how wonderful that touch was to that leper. It most likely had been years since anyone touched him. To live without touch feels like a living hell.

We are like lepers. Our sin drives a wedge between us and those we love. It alienates us from others and quickly spreads its destructive tentacles throughout society. Our most inner-self is closed off to the touch of authenticity. We slowly die from lack of open and honest contact.

But Jesus has come to touch us. To let us know we are loved. To set us free from the leprosy called sin, so that we can once again be authentic. We are free to know one another and regain our spiritual heal.

Change Orders

I work for a local government agency. We are in the midst of a three million dollar building project. In the construction industry there are things called change orders. You want to avoid them if at all possible because they bring up the cost of building extensively. When your job first goes out to bid, people who need the work get as low a price as possible so their bid will win. If they secure the job their bid means they will do the job for a set amount. After they have won the bid, some companies look for ways to make changes which mean dishing out money above the total of their bid.

We tend to face life as a customer seeking bids. We want to build our life with as little effort (cost) as possible. But change orders happen and the cost of living righteously escalates. Jesus’ words reassure us it is worth the extra cost to build our lives on the solid rock of his word.

Life’s change orders are an opportunity to see God at work in our lives. We recognize the greatest benefit during storms.