My Favorite Bible Story

Well, ...one of my favorites.
It's the one I think of whenever someone asks the question, "What's your favorite Bible story?"
The first time that happened to me was at an evangelism conference in Southeast Missouri. I was the new guy on the circuit and I was at breakfast with two of the oldest and most experienced of the group. One of then asked, "Hey guys, what's your favorite story from the Bible?"

I jumped on it! I said, "I've got this. At the end of The Sermon on the Mount, chapter 8 begins with the story of a leper that encounters Jesus. He says, 'Lord, if you will it, you can make me clean.' Then the Bible says that Jesus reached out and touched him and said, 'I will it. Be clean,' and immediately he was healed." 

Okay, it isn't that spectacular of a story when you consider all of the other miracles that are laced throughout the gospels. Big deal, right? Jesus heals a leper. So what?
What strikes me about this story is that the Bible says that Jesus touched him and then he healed him.
Jesus touched him while he was still unclean!
I wonder how long it had been since he had been touched by another human being? From the moment he had been diagnosed with a disease determined to be leprosy, he was unclean and shunned by everyone. People wouldn't even sit where he had been sitting until that place had been cleansed.

Look, I know that preachers fit the lessons they want to teach into the stories of the Bible all of the time. Maybe that's what I'm doing here, but I don't think so. I often try to read the Bible like I'm reading it for the first time; like I don't know what's coming. I had read and heard this story so many times before, and then one day--it hit me! Jesus touched him before he healed him! Why would he do that, and is it important? Or was this just the way Matthew wrote the story and it all happened in the same moment?

It think Jesus did it on purpose and even though the moment may have been lost to the disciples, the leper knew. He had been stripped of his value, his humanity. He had been condemned to live out his life alone or with other outcasts. He was nothing -- until that moment. While he was still unclean, Jesus touched him. I imagine that touch conveyed so much love. Jesus, looking into his eyes and saying, "I feel you, man. Be clean."
Actually, until he completed the rites of purification and presented the required offering he was still technically unclean, so I guess Jesus was, too(?). I don't know how that part works, probably some divine exemption or something.
Anyway, I think the dude got way more than he asked for, way more than he was expecting.

And so did we.
Maybe we can takeaway a lesson that even when the rest of the world thinks that you are unworthy of love; even when your own people, your own family, your own church have cast you aside, Jesus is there to tell you that you are worthy of love, that you are valuable--just as you are!

One of those two men at breakfast that day has been blessed with the most incredible memory and has memorized the entire New Testament of the Bible. He said, "I know you know this already, John, but I'm going to give it to you anyway," and he reached into his memory and recited the story verbatim from the Bible.

John