International
8 Feb 07
Getting In - Luke 5:12-15
It’s a strange thing about sport in most cultures that it gets you in. The ability to kick a ball, or run fast, or time a backhand well often makes you socially acceptable, popular, part of the in crowd.
I remember on my first day at the university rugby club, I arrived early because I was excited and keen to make an impression. I got changed at one of the pegs, left my bag and clothes there and went out to warm-up. When I came in after training, I went back to the same spot in the changing room to find that my clothes weren’t there. They had been replaced by the kit of a senior player and mine were outside on the floor! However, six months later when I’d shown I could play then I was accepted and had my own peg. I was in.
What makes you truly ‘in’?
In Luke chapter 5 we’re told about Jesus’ encounter with a man suffering from leprosy.
12While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Lepers were excluded from Jewish society living outside the city walls and forbidden from even coming into towns, because according to law and tradition even touching the cup that a leper had used meant that you would be excluded from society for a time. They were never allowed in. So imagine the guts that it would have taken for this leper to come to Jesus; just for coming into the town he could have been stoned.
Lepers would have been told that not only were they socially excluded but also that God wouldn’t have anything to do with them that’s why they were called ‘unclean’ – it means unacceptable before God. But in one encounter with Jesus all this is overturned:
13Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.
Jesus tells him he’s in – in with God, and heals him of his leprosy by touching him and saying “be clean”. Not only is it staggering that Jesus can just with a word make someone acceptable to God, but also when Jesus touches him it’s the first time ever in Jewish society that a person who comes into contact with a leper doesn’t have to be excluded himself. Our narrator Luke is telling us that Jesus is unique - he is the perfect source of cleanness and so no amount of contact with people that are unacceptable to God can ever make him unclean. No person and no thing is too bad – Jesus can make anyone in with God.
Often as sportspeople we rely on our ability
or reputation to get us in, but skills wane with time, and reputation
soon gets forgotten. What an amazing reality that in Jesus Christ we
have an inheritance that can never spoil or fade. Through Jesus we’ve
got total access and acceptability with God, no matter what we’ve done
in the past or what we do today. Similarly this makes all the difference
in the world for your mates and those you play with; if you’re tempted
to think that they’re too far from God just remember that Jesus is in
the business of getting the far-off and excluded in.
Alex and Graham
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