Read Leviticus
13 & Matthew
26:20-54
To discover:
As you read note the conditions for a person or fabric to be
deemed unclean.
To ponder:
Every part of the law reflects God’s wisdom. Just as there
may have been health benefits in the food laws, so there are in the laws about
skin diseases and fabrics. Potential infection is contained. Nevertheless, we
should not miss the fact that the primary purpose of these laws is to keep what
is unclean, and so unacceptable to God, apart from what is holy.
Exclusion
from the camp was necessary even during diagnosis. The general rule was that
skin problems that lasted more than a week or two and were more than skin deep
were labelled infectious and unclean. Likewise, where raw flesh was exposed or
hair discoloured. Fabric was burned if a mark could not be removed and was over
a week old.
The person
with a skin disease was to display the signs of mourning (13v45-46), cover
their mouth, warn people off with the cry “unclean, unclean” and live alone
outside the camp (or later, outside villages, towns etc). The mourning no doubt
signified the marks of death. It would have been a terrible existence. However
we should remember it was a necessary act of protection for the wider
community.
We should
remember too that uncleanness does not denote sinfulness. Despite how they
might have been treated, such people were not greater sinners than others in Israel.
Indeed, Jesus stressed it was the heart that makes a man unclean (Mk 7v18-20).
And here, these regulations are a marked analogy with those who will one day be
excluded from God’s kingdom. Hell exists because those who are truly unclean
because of their sin just cannot be permitted in heaven. They cannot come close
to the holy.
When Jesus welcomed,
touched and healed those with leprosy he was making a profound point. Their
exclusion from the worshipping community of Israel
was necessary, but it didn’t mean they were excluded from the ultimate
worshipping community. Rather, through Jesus, God is making all who come to him
clean in every way and so fit for his eternal kingdom. To those who assumed
leprosy implied sin, it also taught that sinners are welcome too. Indeed, in
Christ the very consequences of the fall are overcome.
Praying it home:
Praise God that he accepts all who come to him through
Christ. Pray for that the gospel would come to those excluded from society
today – whether due to skin disease in some countries, disability, AIDS or
whatever.
Thinking further:
None today.
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