REACH OUT AND TOUCH

 

Mark 1:40-42  A man with leprosy came to Him and begged Him on his knees, "If you are willing, you can make me clean."  Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man.  "I am willing," He aid.  "Be clean!"  Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.

Compassion, the kind of compassion Jesus had here is not a feeling, it is a verb, at least in my simple mind.  Sure the compassion may have started out as a feeling, but then Jesus put His compassion to work.  He didn't just sit there feeling sorry for the man with leprosy, He reached out to him, He touched him.  He did this before the man was healed.  This man still had the disease that frightened everyone away.  This man used to have to yell, "Unclean, unclean" as he walked around.  If he was in town, people avoided him and ran in the other direction for fear they would get what he got.  

I can imagine him walking through the crowd to get to Jesus yelling "Unclean, unclean".  As he pushed his way through the crowd of people yelling unclean, the crowd had to part.  Parents, I imagined, grabbed their children in fear.  No one wanted to even be within arms reach of this man with leprosy, yet Jesus reached out and touched him.  His arms and hands were full of sores and scabs.  His clothing was basically rags and filthy dirty.  Lord knows the last time this man had a bath.  I'm sure the odor from him was quite rank.  Yet, Jesus reached out and touched him before he was healed.  

Who are the unclean people in our lives we are afraid of touching?   Who is it in our little area of the world we are afraid to reach out to?  Are there people in our path we avoid?  Are there people we have compassion for, but don't do anything about?   Is our compassion just a feeling?  We feel sorry for people?  We pity people?  We're sympathetic for people's circumstances?  Yet we're not willing to reach out and touch them?  Seriously?  

Think about it for a moment, as believers in Jesus Christ, we are supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus.  Our words and actions should reflect our Savior's words and actions.  To be honest with you, we ain't doin' to well is we?  I know the thought of reaching out to some people and touching some people may be difficult, it is for me, but we need to!  

Some of our churches are so busy counting their numbers and making sure every one is dressed appropriately and acting according to the rules, that the lepers of our day do not feel welcome.  Some of our "religions" ostracize outsiders to the point of exhaustion.  Some of us believers stare at people who don't fit into our church doctrine.   Some of our churches don't risk going out into the community to reach out to the homeless, not to even begin to mention the addicted and the broken people of  our own community.  "That's up to the government to take of those people."  

You know there are some believers who put down the mega churches, but I have belonged to a mega church before and that church was always reaching out to the community as well as to the world.  In that church and my church now, a leper would be welcome.  In fact, my pastor would be one of the first to reach out and touch that leper.  Then he'd grab a some of us members and we would pray over the leper.  

Who are the lepers you are avoiding?  Why?  Listen I figure it this way, if Jesus can reach out and touch, so can I.  By doing a "Party in the Park" in one of the poorest and scariest areas in our area, we have reaching out and touching.  By bringing Christmas presents to a poor area in Toledo, we are reaching out and touching.  By supporting a ministry that ministers not only to the homeless but also those just out of prison, we are reaching out and touching,  By taking time away from our families at Christmas to volunteer at Share the Warmth so that the homeless in our area have a shelter to keep them warm at night , we are reaching out and touching.

Stop trying to avoid the lepers in your path.  Be the hands and feet and mouth of Jesus by reaching out and touching hearts.