touching exiles

Just wrote this little ditty for next week's devotions...

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.” And the people of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp; as the LORD said to Moses, so the people of Israel did. Numbers 5:1-4 ESV

Leprosy.

Whatever this condition was (and there is debate about that), it was judged to be a cursed blight removing the sufferer from community and fellowship and favor. HIV/AIDS would come closest in our culture — particularly considering how many Christians have responded to it as some sort of “divine retribution” and curse.

Only a handful of instances are recorded of diagnosed, malignant leprosy being cured. There was Moses’ sister Miriam in Numbers 12 and the Assyrian Captain, Naaman, in 2 Kings 5 (and then there was also Moses in Exodus 4 when he put his hand into his tunic and it came out leprous, and then putting it back in under divine direction brought it out whole and healthy. Yikes!).

The fact is the Law could only diagnose after a somewhat tedious process and then pronounce you clean or unclean.

The Law cannot change the leper’s spots.

Some suggest that lepers in biblical culture were not necessarily forced to live in their own “colonies” - that they could live in unwalled villages and even attend the synagogue (behind a screen).

But regardless they were still exiles.

They still had to stay away.

They still had to cover their mouths even as they shouted their own shame, “Unclean, unclean.”

This encounter with a leper wasn’t on Jesus’ itinerary. It wasn’t part of what he’d planned, more than likely, for that day. But there he was, flouting procedure and taboo and running to Jesus, and Jesus, by extending his hand, demonstrated what the kingdom he preached was all about: touching the exile, embracing the unembraceable, and cleansing what the Law can only point to as a malignant spot.