Re:Verse passage – Matthew 8:1-4 (day six)
There was far more at stake than his health. The leper went to great lengths to encounter Jesus. Hearing him teaching from afar, he was enamored with the authority in which he spoke, unlike any he had heard before. But the stories of healings, of men and women not unlike himself, were what set him on this path.
There is no telling how many years this man had been separated from his family and community because he was unclean. Perhaps no one had touched him in an equal amount of time. His wife, his children, his rabbi, no one could come near; banished to the outskirts of town. His skin, yes, needed healing, but much more he needed to be restored back to fellowship; he needed to belong again.
He was desperate to be clean, to be known.
And Jesus touched him.
“Be clean,” he said.
And what once was distant and separate was restored.
That’s what the kingdom of God is like.
