Matthew 8

Stained, wounded, bitter and beaten, the man sat with head bowed and heart numb. There was no hope for him! No hope for healing, no hope of freedom, no chance to ever be clean. Life had no meaning. Why had he even been born? Hope came one day in the most unexpected form of a simple man. Simple, but recognized by the unclean one as the Lord. Did he dare approach the Messiah in his filth? There was no other way. Scarcely breathing he limped toward Jesus, suddenly unaware of the angry shouts and panicked gasps of those around him. Everyone fled, except Jesus, and He was the only one that mattered anyway. The leprous man thought about the long years through which he had lived in utter loneliness. Not since the priest had declared him "UNCLEAN" had anyone so much as looked him in the eye. He felt no longer a man but more like a ghost, walking through life as though nothing were actually real. But then, as faith in the man standing before with love in his piercing look led him to declare his trust, something happened. Jesus wasn't afraid to touch the ugly places which completely covered him. Jesus wasn't afraid to love someone fully unclean. Jesus touched the leper, and his stains were gone. His old identity... "LEPER", was gone. What other identity could he take but that of the One who had cared enough to reach out and touch the ugly and the forbidden? He wanted no other name but Christ's.