Cleansing (Part 1)

Some stories in the gospels confuse me. Here's one that opens Matthew 8:

¹ When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. ² And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”
³ Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
⁴ And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Did you catch it? Jesus just "put out His hand and touched" a leper. You don't do that. I'm not saying you shouldn't touch a leper because they are the outcasts of society and it might ruin your social reputation. If that was all that Jesus was doing, He would be a compassionate Jew we should admire. But that's not it. You see, touching a leper is illegal. I'm talking Levitical law illegal. Check out Leviticus chapters 13 and 14. They are all about isolating the leper -- he is "unclean" and everything he comes into contact with (clothes, houses, it all) also becomes unclean.

This makes sense. I remember a couple years ago when I walked into a hospital ER and told the front desk lady, "I recently got back from Papua New Guinea and today I coughed up blood." Like the leper in the story, I was quick to be isolated. I got my own room and bathroom and all the doctors and nurses who visited wore masks and other protective gear. At some point, my mom who was with me asked one of them, "Should I be wearing a mask too?" Their response of "Oh, it's too late for you" wasn't promising. They suspected TB; turned out to just be a nasty case of pneumonia.

So these isolation and cleansing laws of Leviticus are practical. Moreover, they are God-given. The point: a first century Jew shouldn't be neglecting them. Interestingly, in our story Jesus ordered the former leper to uphold the law by showing himself to the priest (vs. 4). So then the question, why does it appear Jesus is disregarding the law Himself!

A second story. May be familiar, but it's just as confusing. We pick it up in Luke 8:

⁴³ Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, ⁴⁴ came from behind and touched the border of Jesus' garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped.
⁴⁵ And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?”
When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”
⁴⁶ But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” ⁴⁷ Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately.
⁴⁸ And He said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” 

We'll come back to this story a couple times. But what to note right now is that following the Levitical laws about lepers are ones pertaining to bodily discharges. In particular, Leviticus 15:25-30 deal with this woman's case. And here again they declare her as unclean. This explains why she only touched "the border of His garment." Uncleanness is contagious; the woman knew in order to be healed so had to touch Jesus but doing so would make Him (at least ritually) unclean. So she just touches the border -- maybe she thinks this will make it easier for Jesus when He goes through the ritual of bathing His clothes to clean them.

But again, something outrageous happens. It's not that touching Jesus heals the women, although this should make us look to Jesus as a powerful prophet. The outrages thing is Jesus never goes through the rituals to cleanse Himself. The story picks up with Him traveling to heal a man's daughter. No time out, no ritual, no washing. Again, Jesus seems to be disregarding the Levitical law.

My question is "why?". I believe there are two possible answers (although, feel free to suggest another).


The first is that Jesus actually did disregard the Law. But this route contradicts Jesus' own teaching that He lived in perfect obedience to all the Law (cf. John 8). Furthermore, it leads to a theological mess (if Jesus can override the Law, then why did He come to die to satisfy the demands of the Law?).

The second is that the Law handles Jesus uniquely. Just as Leviticus had differing requirements (for foreigners, Israelites, heads of house, priests, etc.) that were of the same Spirit but differed in some details, so when it comes to Jesus we may expect some details of how the Law applies to Him to differ (if only because He is different from the typical first century Jew). Same Law, same Spirit, just a few details that differ. This makes sense, for Jesus is our "High Priest" (cf. Hebrews) and certainly a High Priest's obligations to the Law are different than those of, say, a typical first century Jew.

But in this case pointing out that Jesus is our High Priest won't solve the problem. There are rituals for High Priests to cleanse themselves after coming into contact with the unclean as well. Jesus didn't follow these, I suspect because in these stories He wasn't serving as High Priest. So this sends us on a search. Our task is to inquire of the Levitical law and see what clause Jesus was tapping into that let Him touch the untouchable. And that's exactly what we'll do in the next post.

// Continue to part 2.