Leprous Souls

Luke 5:12-13
While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.


I can’t imagine having leprosy, can you? The smell, the sensation, the agony, the sheer hopelessness of it. There is no cure – you basically just rot away, and die. I simply cannot imagine it! And yet, each of us is born leprous, really. Leprosy of the soul – sin – is worse by far than the physical malady. It eats away at us, and yet because we generally have no physical symptoms, we simply walk around as though we are OK, all the while, we’re wasting away inside. Piece by piece our souls rot and fall away – with no cure, we just have to wait around for death.

Ah, but there is a cure – only one, if we’ll take it. The atonement and forgiveness offered us through Jesus Christ. He’s the only Way, but it’s also the best Way! I would imagine that if modern medicine were to "fix" our leprous souls, it would find a way to simply stop the damage being done, to keep the leprosy from progressing any farther. Then, it would pat itself on the back for a job well-done. Yet Christ, much like I would imagine happened with the physical lepers in His day, not only stops the disease, but also restores everything back to the way it was before the disease even set in. He replaced the hands, the noses, and the feet. And within us, He restores every piece of us that was eaten away by sin.

Isn’t that great news! He doesn’t just stop the sin from doing any more damage – He removes it completely and restores us back to a whole and complete person. His healing is perfect and complete. We should rejoice that even if Christ should choose not to heal us physically of the many complications in life, He will always heal our spiritual maladies when we come to Him and ask His healing forgiveness. And we will walk away whole again!