Someone asked me what my favorite miracle of Jesus is. I really thought about it, because there are bigger ones, at least by human standards. Walking on water. Feeding thousands. Raising the dead.
But the one I keep coming back to is when Jesus healed the man with leprosy. The story sits in three of the Gospels; Mark’s telling is the one I keep rereading. And it is my favorite not only because He healed him.
Because He touched him first.
If you are searching for why Jesus touched the leper when He plainly did not need to, here is the answer this whole piece circles: the touch was not a step toward the miracle. The touch was part of the miracle. A man who had spent years being treated as untouchable was treated as human before he was made well. Jesus restored his dignity before He restored his skin, and everything I understand about grace lives inside that order of operations.
Everyone else kept their distance
In the Old Testament, there were laws surrounding people with leprosy and other serious skin diseases. They were considered ceremonially unclean. They were separated from the community, and according to tradition they had to keep their distance and warn people by calling out one word: unclean.
Think about what that does to a person. Every room changes when you enter it. Every stranger backs away. Nobody reaches for you. Nobody wants to get close. You do not just carry the disease. You carry the shame of it. You become known by the thing that is wrong with you. Not your name. Not your heart. Not who you were before.
Unclean.
Jesus walked closer, then touched him
Then Jesus sees this man. And He does not back away. He does not yell instructions from a safe distance. He does not protect His image by avoiding the person everyone else had rejected. He walks up to him.
Then He touches him.
That is the part that gets me. The rules were clear: when someone clean touched someone unclean, the clean person became unclean. But Jesus reversed it. The man did not make Jesus unclean. Jesus made the man clean. Everything about the exchange moved in the opposite direction. The shame did not transfer to Jesus. The healing transferred to the man. What made everyone else step back made Jesus step closer.
And understand: He could have healed him from a distance. He did not need physical contact. He could have spoken a word, and the man could have been restored without Jesus ever getting close enough to touch him. But Jesus touched him.
I cannot prove what that man felt in that moment. I will not invent the story around the story. But I can imagine what it would mean to be touched after spending years watching people move away from you. Before the healing was visible, the man had already been treated like a human being again. That matters. Jesus did not wait until the man was clean to come near him. He came near him while he was still unclean.
We still stand fifty paces away
We like to believe we are more compassionate now. Sometimes we are. Sometimes we have just changed the words.
We still decide which people are safe to approach. Which failures are forgivable. Which messes are too ugly. Which reputations are too damaged. Which people could make us look bad by association. We may not yell unclean, but we know how to create distance. We do it socially. Emotionally. Spiritually. We reduce people to the worst thing they have done or the hardest thing they are carrying.
I have done this. I have judged people before understanding them. I have created distance when love would have required me to move closer. I am not writing this as someone who has mastered the example. I am writing it because the example keeps correcting me, and it corrects me most on the days I am most certain I would have been standing near the front of the crowd instead of backing away with everyone else. Honest reading says otherwise.
Jesus was not afraid of the mess
There is a version of Christianity that can become obsessed with looking clean. Perfect language. Perfect habits. Perfect appearance. No visible struggle. That has never made much sense to me, because my faith has not been clean like that.
It has been messy. There are things I am still learning. Things I still wrestle with. Parts of scripture I do not understand. Days when I am not nearly as disciplined with my faith as I should be. I came to this whole thing late and unpolished, and I am far from the finished product.
But this story reminds me that Jesus is not frightened by the mess. He does not need you to clean yourself up before He gets close. That is the point. If we could make ourselves completely clean, we would not need Him.
Faith is reaching toward Him
Here is the picture I cannot shake. The man came to Jesus believing He could make him clean. A person everyone else avoided moved toward Jesus. And Jesus moved toward him. Both of them closing a distance the whole world had agreed should stay open.
That is what faith has felt like for me. Not having every answer. Not pretending I have fixed everything. Not becoming a polished church guy who suddenly knows what to say in every room. It has been reaching toward Jesus while still carrying things I cannot repair on my own.
Faith and repentance are not a performance. They are a heart posture. An admission that I cannot do this alone. An honest decision to turn around and trust Him. I am still working through that, some days better than others. But I know I am not the same man I was before I started reaching.
Grace moves in the opposite direction
The world says to clean yourself up, then come inside. Jesus says to come closer. The world says your worst condition becomes your identity. Jesus calls you more than what is wrong with you. The world backs away from what it does not understand. Jesus moves toward it.
That is grace. It moves in the opposite direction of shame. Shame tells you to hide until you are worthy of being seen. Grace tells you that you are fully seen and invited closer anyway.
That does not mean nothing has to change. The man was healed. Faith is not permission to stay exactly where you are forever. But change begins with contact. It begins by reaching toward the One who can do what you cannot. It’s never over applies here more than anywhere else I have ever used the phrase.
The disease leaving the man’s body was a miracle. But I think there was another miracle inside it. A man who had spent his life being treated as untouchable was touched. He had been defined by separation. Jesus restored him through closeness.
He is not standing fifty paces away, waiting for you to become presentable. He walks directly toward the thing you believe makes you impossible to love. Then He reaches out His hand.
The unclean does not make Him unclean. He makes the unclean clean. That is why this may be my favorite miracle. It shows me who He is, and on my worst days, it reminds me what direction He is walking.
Tyk Sullivan
Serial entrepreneur in Tampa, Florida. Founder of Plutus Capital and NUMEN. More about Tyk →