His Healing Touch

“Lord,” the [leper] said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.

Matthew 8:2-3

As Jesus reveals who he is by what he does, we can see the promise he makes to us. The same Jesus who touched the leper—the unclean outcast—reaches out to touch us with his tenderness and his compassion. Imagine the scene with me:

As the leper struggled through the crowd, his bell announced his shame. “Unclean! Unclean!” The clean ones moved away, avoiding his pain at all costs. The leper worked his way through the religious throng to find Jesus.

Jesus looked past the man’s rotting flesh and saw the hope that was sloughing away with every rejection, every head that turned away, every face that registered disgust and fear. Jesus looked past the decaying skin and saw the little spark of life, almost extinguished and crusted over with loneliness and hurt.

He heard the anguished cry, “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” He restored the leper’s disease-ravaged body, but more than that, he restored his shame-ravaged soul. The fearless, compassionate touch of the Savior clothed the man in dignity. Jesus gave him more than a reprieve from death. Jesus gave him life.

Do you feel hopeless and alone? Do you feel that if anyone could see you as you are, you would be labeled “unclean”? Hear the promise Jesus whispers to your heart today: “I am willing to reach into your life with my healing, cleansing touch.”

You don’t have to hide. You don’t have to disguise yourself so you can be lovable. You don’t have to pretend so you can be accepted. Jesus embodies the promise of restoration and wholeness. He acts in your life in accordance with who he is: the Life Giver, the Sin Washer, the Soul Restorer.

Jesus, I surrender my shame. I let go of my false sense of worthlessness. Hear my cry: “You can make me whole!” Touch my life.

The cross is the lightning rod of grace that short-circuits God’s wrath to Christ so that only the light of His love remains for believers.

A. W. Tozer(1897–1963), American preacher and author