Thoughts on Jeremiah 3 & Matthew 8

Today’s reading: Jeremiah 3; Matthew 8

As much as we may recognize it and understand what’s happening, I don’t think we really have a category for how powerful and impactful what Jesus does at the beginning of Matthew 8 would have been.

When the leper comes to Jesus, he doesn’t ask to be healed, but to be made clean. If you remember back to our time in Leviticus, this request could have gone two ways. On the one hand, if the leprosy was fully healed, he could go make the requisite offerings and be made clean, or if the leprosy covered his entire body, but there were no open sores, in this situation too he could be declared clean by the priest. Matthew doesn’t tell us how bad his case of leprosy was, but it’s possible, if his leprosy was already advanced, that he was just looking for Jesus to heal the open sores so that he could be clean again, even if just for a short time.

And why did cleanness matter more than healing? Because being sick did not cut you off from the temple and the people, but being unclean did. As long as he was unclean, he had no access to Yahweh, but he also had no access to his family, friends, work, etc. Who knows how long it has been since he was marked as unclean and had to leave the cities and villages, only watching life go by from afar? How long has it been since the last time he saw his parents, or maybe his children if he has them? How long has it been since he has been embraced by someone he loves? Being healed would be great, but being able to be made clean was probably a much more present and pressing need to him than healing.

What’s astonishing though is what Jesus does in response, touching the man and declaring him clean. Again looking back to our time in Leviticus, cleanness is not transmitted by touch, only uncleanness. The most clean and holy of things could be defiled by the slightest touch from something unclean, and it was only by making the needed sacrifices or offerings that it could be made clean again. There is no single instance of something unclean being made clean by contact with something clean, only the other way around, and yet Jesus touches the man and declares him clean!

If this were any other prophet or miracle worker, they may have healed the man, but they could never make him clean. They could set him up and send him to the priest to be declared clean, but if they touched the man in the process of healing him, they too would have needed to go to the priest for cleansing. But Jesus is different. Jesus is not just a prophet or miracle worker, Jesus is Yahweh incarnate, God in the flesh. Defilement could only be cleansed by Yahweh through the temple services, but Jesus is the living temple. Not only can Jesus not be made unclean, but He alone, of all people, is able to impart cleanness.

I would actually argue that what Jesus does here evidences that He understands Himself to be God and is communicating that to the people around Him. You occasionally hear people argue that Jesus never claimed to be God (which is just untrue in general), but that completely fails to account for passages like this. You could argue that when Jesus says, “I will; be clean,” He is just healing the man and telling him he can now go to the priest, make the offerings, and be cleansed, except for what Jesus says next. Jesus tells the man, “but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” Did you catch that? Jesus doesn’t tell him to make the offering to be cleansed, but to prove to the priests and to the community that he already had been. If they don’t know that Jesus is God (which they don’t yet), then there is no basis upon which He could have the authority to declare someone clean, so in order for the man to integrate back into society, he needs the sign-off of the priest. But by Jesus’ own words, the man has already been cleansed, and everything else is just formality for the sake of the community.

This is our Lord: compassionate, merciful, loving, and kind. He came down to us to heal us and make us clean, so that we might go to Him and live forever in His holy presence.

Thank you Lord for the gift of your Son!