Pray:

I come into Your presence, ready to hear Your voice and follow.

Read:

Matthew 9:18-26

Reflect:

Are there people who are "untouchables" in your life?

In Jewish law, there were illnesses or conditions that made people ritually unclean: leprosy and bodily discharges (Leviticus 13-15), and contact with a corpse (Numbers 5:2). Being ritually unclean meant exclusion from worship and alienation from the community.

Today's passage features two "unclean" people: a woman suffering from a chronic gynecological condition and a dead girl. According to the law, Jesus would be contaminated by contact with them. Most rabbis would have avoided such people. Not Jesus! He does something new. Not only is he willing to associate with the ritually unclean but he also has power to restore a marginalized woman and a dead girl to life in all its fullness: physical, social and spiritual. Jesus' touch brought them both back to the heart of community life and worship.

Jesus still brings spiritually alienated people home to God. From our human perspective we may give up hope, thinking that some people are beyond help (20,23,24), but with Jesus, no one is hopeless or helpless (Col. 1:21,22).

Apply:

Think of someone you know who is alienated within society. Ask God how you can show his love to this person.

Pray:

Father, help me to be Your hands to touch those who are rejected within society. Let me love them with Your heart.