When You Feel Too Dirty To Go To God
When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
- Matthew 8:1-2
Have you ever felt too dirty to go to God? Perhaps because of your sins. The ones you swore you’d never do again… and yet here you are. Perhaps because of the Church. You know, the ones who are supposed to be a safe place for hurting people?
Do you feel too dirty to go to God?
Consider Jesus and the leper. In the day of Jesus, leprosy caused someone to be ‘unclean’. Not allowed in the temple to worship. Not allowed to be near those who were religious, because contact with a leper made the person unclean as well. This caused many lepers to either live alone or within a community of ceremoniously unclean people. They were the outcast. No one wanted to be near them, much less touch them.
Think of what a leper would have thought about Jesus. “The religious leaders don’t want anything to do with me. They won’t even let me into the temple! Surely Jesus doesn’t want anything to do with me either… I’m just too unclean.” I think that’s a legitimate feeling for the outcast.
In Matthew chapter 8 we read about this exchange between Jesus and a leper. Jesus had just come down from the mountain and a crowd appears around Him. They had heard about his gifts and miracles and wanted that help. These are mostly religious people. The “clean” ones. The ones who go to the temple each week. Offer their sacrifices. Who feel good about themselves. I imagine the lepers and other ‘unclean’ people standing off at a distance. Then, all of a sudden, a leper starts moving towards Jesus. Pushing past the crowd and kneels at the feet of Jesus.
Jesus does not withdraw from the dirty
Imagine that. The unclean. The broken. The dirty. The outcast. The stuck. Walking towards Jesus. Kneeling at his feet. Drenched in shame, not even looking at Jesus and saying: “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
As everyone watches, the tension rises. What is Jesus going to do? He should cast this dirty fool away, shouldn’t He? How dare this man, who is unclean, approach Jesus. Doesn’t he know who this is?
And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
I hope you see the beauty in this. That there is hope for those of us who feel too dirty to approach Jesus. Most profoundly, that Jesus came down to this man. Not only does Jesus heal this man, but he touches him! You don’t touch people with leprosy, less you become unclean yourself. But what a picture of our God. The perfectly clean coming down to save the dirty.
He cleanses you
If, when the dirty leper reached for Jesus, Jesus did not retract his hand in displeasure or disgust at who he was about to interact with. He will not retract from you when you feel too dirty. He will embrace you, for he cares for you. When it’s a lonely Friday night. When you feel out of place. When you are battling your sins. When church no longer feels like home. When becoming more like Jesus is a longer and more frustrating process than you initially thought.
When the isolation of being hurt by a church presses down on you, remember that the religious elite did not communicate the character and nature of who Jesus was to these outcast. When pain sits on you because of your own decisions. He will not leave. Go to Him like the leper did. He will not turn you away. Leprosy wasn’t the only thing this man was healed from.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9
-Philippians 2:5-11
A dirty fool, becoming clean because of Him,
Josh.
Josh Powell
I have an M.Div from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and currently works as a hospital chaplain. My dream is to be a church pastor of a local congregation. Are you hiring?