Then they will be clean

Quite a few years ago, a very good friend of mine started working with the Leprosy Mission.  Then one of my favourite creative agency started to as well.  My favourite lawyer friend was on the Board.  And then, in a number of years, they all left and I lost contact as well.

A few months ago, that lawyer friend asked me to come and speak at his church, there as well, was a young gentleman who took the place of my friend who retired from the Mission.  We connected and now make a plan to have lunch once a month in order to keep in touch.

At times I laugh because it seems that there are only a few hundred cases of leprosy in the world and this mission is trying to raise funds.  Thankful I do not share my ignorance with anyone else.

One thing I was unaware of until today was that leprosy is considered more an uncleanness, rather than a disease. Christ is said to cleanse lepers, not to cure them. Common as the leprosy was among the Hebrews, during and after their residence in Egypt, we have no reason to believe that it was known among them before. Their distressed state and employment in that land must have rendered them liable to disease.

Today we can consider it a figure of the moral pollutions of our minds by sin, which is the leprosy of the soul, defiling to the conscience, and from which Christ alone can cleanse. The priest could only convict the leper, (by the law is the knowledge of sin,) but Christ can cure the sinner, He can take away sin.

One of my Facebook friends commented on how can anyone judge anyone else on their spiritual relationship.  I believe it is a work of great importance, but of great difficulty, to judge of our spiritual state. I commented on the fruits of the spirit, but I think the analogy of leprosy gives us another cause to know our spiritual state…we all have cause to suspect ourselves, being conscious of sores and spots; but whether clean or unclean is the question. As there were certain marks by which to know it was leprosy, so there are marks of such as are in bitterness.

We must take time in making our judgment. This teaches all, both ministers and people, not to be hasty in censures, nor to judge anything before the time.  Regardless, we need to love before we judge and we need to be washed in the blood of Christ from our spots, though not leprosy spots; for who can say, I am pure from sin?