You may know that Jesus was Jewish and that Jews, even to
this day, don’t eat pork … in fact they don’t eat a number other very good
foods as well. In Jesus’ day, the Jewish faith had many laws relating to what
was clean and what was unclean. These didn’t only relate to food, but also to
disease and illness. So, for example, people with leprosy were considered
unclean and were to be avoided at all costs. They often lived in exile in their
own homes. Dead bodies and graves were also unclean. People with bodily
discharges were also unclean.
So, in the society of Jesus’ day, there were clear divisions
between clean and unclean; and if you happened to come into contact with
someone unclean, … that made you unclean until the end of the day, and then you
carried out a procedure that cleansed you … but all this could seriously
disrupt your life. So you avoided the unclean.
Now, you may be thinking, thank goodness we don’t live in
times like that … but, we do. Many people today are avoided by the people
around them, just like the unclean were avoided. Many experience rejection
because of who they are, or what they’ve become; sometimes it’s because of a
disease they may have … and suddenly people treat them differently, as if they
are unclean. Sometimes people are treated differently just because they are old.
One need only read the papers, where if not daily, there are stories on a
weekly basis, of the mistreatment of the elderly, sometimes in places which are
meant to care for them, sometimes even by the very family that is meant to love
them. Abuse of foreigners because they don’t belong ... or of people with
mental handicaps … all of these treated just like the “unclean” people in Jesus
day were treated, like second class citizens.
I don’t know if you are made to feel as if you don’t belong;
as if you’ve been cast aside, as if you’re a nuisance or a second class citizen.
In His life, Jesus reached out over and over again to people
who were considered unclean … He touched lepers, He touched dead people and
amazing things happened; once, a woman who had had a bleeding problem for many
years (and this issue of blood made her unclean) … this woman reached out and
touched Jesus.
And in each of these instances, when Jesus touched them, it
was as if He took upon Himself their uncleanness, cleansing them. Sometimes He
even said to them that their inner dirt, their sin, was removed from them and
forgiven. That’s the deepest uncleanness in you and me, our sin … things we’ve
done, which, whether we are religious or not, we know are wrong… and sometimes
the guilt we carry can be a tremendous burden. Why did I do that? Why did I say
that? Why didn’t I do the right thing, back when I had the chance? Why did I
let that addiction get its teeth into me so that my family and friends
eventually treated me like an outcast? Wrong turns we’ve taken and the pain
they’ve caused … the regrets we live with.
Now, all these stories of Jesus (you may have recognised
some as I mentioned them, but it doesn’t matter if you didn’t) … all these
stories pointed to what He would do when He died … but on a much grander scale.
In dying He took all the uncleanness of the world, past, present and yet to
come, … all the uncleanness onto Himself. With His outstretched arms on that
Cross, He touched the world, and took the world’s uncleanness onto and into
Himself.
How do I know this? … Well, one, because the Bible tells me
so, but ….. because the Bible tells
me so, I, and many others, have put Jesus to the test in this area. Is He as
real today as He was 2000 years ago to the people who reached out to Him? …So we’ve
reached out to the Jesus we see by faith on the Cross, reached out to Him in
our uncleanness, and found that just as He did in His life … so too now,
through His death and resurrection, He takes our uncleanness into Himself. That’s
how we know the resurrection is real, that Jesus is alive, because when we
reach out to Him in our uncleanness, He does now what He did then … He
takes my uncleanness and makes me clean … and with it the guilt and the
condemnation … that is something to experience. If you haven’t experienced that
touch … maybe this Easter is the time.
And if you’re one of those people that society or perhaps
even your own family reject, or perhaps life has just left you alone, your
friends and family are perhaps no more … let me tell you that Jesus can and
does reach out and embraces you today as well and makes you part of a family
you may never have known before. This He does through His church … if you are
not part of a church, maybe this Easter is the time to find one … not so that
you get religion … but so that you find a home and a family where you are loved
and accepted like never before.
To those who do have a church, I ask you (us) to be the home
and family where people find they are loved and accepted like never before. I
call on the Body of Christ, the church, to be the body of Christ, to reach out
and touch and embrace the world, as Christ did on the Cross.
