Make Us Clean

By these instructions you will know what is unclean and clean, and which animals may be eaten and which may not be eaten. Leviticus 11:47

WHEN WE LOOK at everything designated as unclean in Leviticus 11–15, we see that each reflects the effects of the curse of sin on this world. Animals fed on other animals only after the curse. Childbirth became painful only after the curse, and sexual relations between men and women became infected with sinful passions only after the curse. Bodies bled and developed disease only after the curse. Children were born with birth defects only after the curse. Mold and mildew, the visible evidence of decay, came into being only after the curse. Everything designated unclean in Leviticus demonstrated that things are not the way they once were in the Garden —the way God originally intended them to be.

As we read in Leviticus about the provision God made for what was unclean to become clean, and for what was clean to become holy, we realize that God was vividly demonstrating his promise that he would not abandon our world to being unclean forever. He would make it clean through the blood of an all-sufficient sacrifice, his own Son.

Jesus, who is completely clean and pure, continually touched unclean things. In Mark 5 we read about Jesus touching unclean person after unclean person —a man with an unclean spirit who cut himself and lived among the dead near a herd of pigs, a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years, the dead daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. Each shows us a picture of the way Jesus makes sinners clean.

Even today he reaches out to touch us, taking upon himself our sin sickness and uncleanness, and then imparting to us his health, wholeness, and acceptance. We are cleansed because the Holy One of God became unclean for us.

Holy One of God, we are unclean. And we are desperate for your touch. We are as desperate for deliverance as the demon-possessed man, as desperate for life to stop draining out of us as the hemorrhaging woman, and as desperate as the synagogue ruler for you to bring us and our loved ones from death to life. Won’t you touch each of us and make us clean? We look forward to the day when you touch us again and make our dead bodies not just clean, but holy, so that we can dwell in your righteous presence forever.