March 14, 2024

God doesn’t just care about our relationship with Him. He cares about our relationships with one another. He cares about Community. That’s what our passage is all about today. Jesus has healed the leper physically. He has even perhaps healed the man emotionally. But there was another healing the man needed. He needed to be restored socially to the community he’d been a part of.
I had mentioned in a devotional earlier how lepers were feared and ostracized because of their disease. Many lived in isolation for the rest of their lives. However, for those who didn’t actually have leprosy, but had a different kind of skin disease that healed itself over time, the Jewish law made a provision on how they could be allowed back into the community. They had to be examined by a priest and then offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. That way they would be allowed back to live with their families and friends and also allowed back in the synagogue and temple. So by telling the man to go to the priest, he was helping to heal the man’s broken relationships.
It’s also a part of the reason Jesus told him not to tell anyone how he’d been healed. Jesus knew that if the man made a big deal about Jesus healing him, the priests and religious leaders would get jealous and perhaps make it hard for the man to be accepted. God created us for relationships. Since the man had been estranged from his family because of the disease, Jesus wanted to make sure he experienced that kind of healing as well.
How about you? Could you use some relational healing in your life today? Need Jesus to heal your marriage? Need healing between you and your kids? Have you found yourself estranged from people that you truly need in your life? Let’s not only seek God for the healing that we need in our bodies. Let’s seek Him for the healing we need between ourselves. God created us for Community. Let’s ask Him to heal our broken relationships. That’s God’s Word for you today.