Contagious Purity

Sorry about not getting a post up yesterday, moving home and then going to see my grandparents got me kind of caught up so I didn’t have much time and didn’t remember during the time I did have. Also, after this week I may up my word count to 1000 (rather than the 500 I do now) because I have more time so I should be able to write it sooner and hopefully edit it well. And that’ll allow me to say more.

This post has a fairly simple message, but one that really struck me during my summer school class (Jesus Life and Ministry). I’ll probably share other things from that class, though perhaps not as obviously. But let me start with a little bit of background to get you in the mood to really get this idea.

Hopefully you are familiar with the Old Testament and to a certain extent the laws contained in the Pentateuch for the nation of Israel. Many of those laws had to do with ritual purity. There was a certain amount of purity that was required for everyone, and even more was required for the priests.

In general that level of purity was not accomplished early on. Failure after failure occurred until eventually God sent the nation off into Exile. The people were then looking for the return from exile, and though some did return, it was not in the way that was expected. As a result the people decided that they must be even more purified in order to bring about the full return from exile and the kingdom of God.

This is in some ways what brought about the Pharisees. They were the teachers of the people, lay people trying to hold the nation to a higher standard. All kinds of oral laws grew up around the law in order to build a ‘fence’ to keep people from trespassing the law. Some of these oral laws were in regards to ritual purity, raising the standards and keeping some people out of the community.

Enter Jesus of Nazareth, a seeming prophet proclaiming the coming of the kingdom. But instead of hanging out with all the pure people (especially the Pharisees) and spreading their message he broke their rules and hung out with the ‘dirty’ people like sinners and tax collectors.

But He brought an extremely strong purity, as well. He understood His purity to be so strong that it was contagious (and it showed through physical healings). Rather than making Him unclean, touching people like lepers made them clean. Do you see the extreme reversal?
Even today we think about germs being contagious and rubbing off on the clean person. It’s not ritual purity, but it’s still a form of purity. But Jesus reversed nature and brought a contagious purity that rubs off on all of us. Think on that for a while and perhaps it will refresh you like it did me.