"Touching the Untouchable"; July 10 Readings: Mark 1:40-2:12, Luke 5:1-26
Reading the Bible Chronologically in 2026
This year, we will read the Bible chronologically, as it happened, instead of simply reading from Genesis to Revelation. The Old Testament is approximately 3/4 of the Bible, but we will give more emphasis to the New Testament, spending half the year in the Old Testament and half in the New.
Bible Readings: Mark 1:40-2:12, Luke 5:1-26
In Bible Gateway, we will link to the NIV this year, though you can choose any version you prefer.
Background:
This is a continuation of the early ministry of Jesus - more of the calling of the disciples, more of the early miracles and preaching of Jesus. There are two significant stories in these shorter readings; one speaks to the heart of Jesus' ministry and focus, and the other is the first hint of the conflict with the religious leaders that would grow in the years ahead into open war, resulting (at least in human terms) in the crucifixion of Christ.
First, we see Jesus do something absolutely remarkable. Healings? Exorcisms? Yes, those are amazing, but this is something no one else would do. In Mark 1:41 (Luke 5:13), Jesus touches a leper. In Israel, lepers were outcasts; forced to live in isolation even from their own families. People would not go near them, and they certainly wouldn't touch them. But Jesus did! He personally engaged those everyone else rejected.
Second, when Jesus heals the paralytic and then forgives their sin, the scribes and Pharisees get their backs up. How dare he forgive sin? They'd come from the Temple to check this guy out but now he was encroaching on their territory. Jealousy. Power. Control. It is sad how these fleshly emotions lead to such evil in religion, even in the church of Jesus Christ.
First, we see Jesus do something absolutely remarkable. Healings? Exorcisms? Yes, those are amazing, but this is something no one else would do. In Mark 1:41 (Luke 5:13), Jesus touches a leper. In Israel, lepers were outcasts; forced to live in isolation even from their own families. People would not go near them, and they certainly wouldn't touch them. But Jesus did! He personally engaged those everyone else rejected.
Second, when Jesus heals the paralytic and then forgives their sin, the scribes and Pharisees get their backs up. How dare he forgive sin? They'd come from the Temple to check this guy out but now he was encroaching on their territory. Jealousy. Power. Control. It is sad how these fleshly emotions lead to such evil in religion, even in the church of Jesus Christ.
Daily Devotional: Touching the Untouchable
There may have been a gasp in the crowd. Offended that a leper would even call out to them, would get near enough to risk their safety, they certainly did not expect that he would TOUCH him. Touch a leper. No one did that. You risked your health, your family, and your future when you did. If you got the disease, you would be sent out of society to live as a, well, a leper.
No reasonable person would take that chance!
But Jesus was not operating on reason, nor did his own safety rate as his highest priority. He was there to serve the Father's purposes and to redeem a people for God from this sinful world. You cannot do that and stay clean. To do what he came to do, he had to get his hands dirty. He had to touch the untouchables, love the unlovely, and serve the lowly.
We are called to walk in his ways. We want to serve Jesus without getting our hands dirty. The great shame of the American church in history is how we treated "untouchables" - the African slaves, even when they were freed. The native peoples. Immigrants from other lands. People of other countries, other races, and other economic levels.
A pastor friend of mine led a waitress to Christ and brought her to the church he served. She began to get involved and learn about her new faith. A man in the church pulled the pastor aside and said to him, "Pastor, she is not the kind of person we want in this church." I was furious when I heard that story, but I imagine the Savior's heart was rent hearing such things said in his church.
We are not called to gather the best and the brightest, to build a cool place where cool people can have a cool time doing cool things. That is a perversion of the church. We are the hands of Christ to touch the lepers, to reach the outcasts, to love the unlovable.
No reasonable person would take that chance!
But Jesus was not operating on reason, nor did his own safety rate as his highest priority. He was there to serve the Father's purposes and to redeem a people for God from this sinful world. You cannot do that and stay clean. To do what he came to do, he had to get his hands dirty. He had to touch the untouchables, love the unlovely, and serve the lowly.
We are called to walk in his ways. We want to serve Jesus without getting our hands dirty. The great shame of the American church in history is how we treated "untouchables" - the African slaves, even when they were freed. The native peoples. Immigrants from other lands. People of other countries, other races, and other economic levels.
A pastor friend of mine led a waitress to Christ and brought her to the church he served. She began to get involved and learn about her new faith. A man in the church pulled the pastor aside and said to him, "Pastor, she is not the kind of person we want in this church." I was furious when I heard that story, but I imagine the Savior's heart was rent hearing such things said in his church.
We are not called to gather the best and the brightest, to build a cool place where cool people can have a cool time doing cool things. That is a perversion of the church. We are the hands of Christ to touch the lepers, to reach the outcasts, to love the unlovable.
Father, may I be like your Son, willing to dirty my hands in serving you. May our church be the same.
Consider God's Word:
Our world is all about being cool, about joining the "in-crowd" and being viewed well by the world. Jesus never cared about any of that. He loved the unlovely and touched the untouchable.
Do you live your life more like the world, striving to be accepted, to be thought of as hip and cool, to be liked by others, or do you live like Christ, reaching out to the lost, the down and out, the untouchable, regardless of what others think?
Think about it!
Do you live your life more like the world, striving to be accepted, to be thought of as hip and cool, to be liked by others, or do you live like Christ, reaching out to the lost, the down and out, the untouchable, regardless of what others think?
Think about it!
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