As a Proof

As far back as the book of Leviticus, God had given His people instructions about what to do when they were healed of leprosy.

Have you ever needed that particular set of instructions? Neither did they. I’ll bet that they yawned politely when it was read and waited to get to the good parts of God’s law. They certainly didn’t keep all the supplies on hand because they never really expected a leper to be cured.

When Jesus healed the leper, he asked him to go, proclaim a once-in-a-lifetime event to a group of people who should have been prepared for it but weren’t.

If the man had followed through with Jesus’s instructions, a whole group of priests would have seen a picture of all that Jesus could accomplish.

Don’t yawn! You need to know this too:

Leviticus commanded them to offer two birds- it didn’t even matter what kind. One of the birds was to be killed, and its blood was mixed with water in a bowl. The second bird, kept alive, was tied with scarlet thread to a cross made of cedar sticks and a branch of a hyssop plant. It made a brush of sorts that was dipped into the bowl of blood and water. Then, it was sprinkled over the cleansed individual seven times. The priest would pronounce that the person was clean, and the living bird would be freed to fly away. 

On the eighth day of his cleansing, the person had to take a trifecta of offerings back to the priest. This time, it should be three lambs- one for a guilt offering, one for a sin offering, and one for a burnt offering.

After all of this ceremony, the priest would anoint his earlobe, his thumb, and his big toe with oil.

If you were a child learning about this in Sunday School, you would giggle at that. Why would God have commanded anything concerning someone’s earlobe? And why would Jesus have told someone to do all of this instead of just sharing by the story?

I don’t know all the reasons why, but all of the cleansing rituals would have been like a parable to the priests. Maybe seeing the ritual performed (remember how rare it would have been??) would have awakened them to the truth of what Jesus had come for and how He would accomplish the cleansing of an entire sinful nation (not to mention the whole world). 

And in being anointed on his earlobe, his thumb, and his toe, he would have then been commissioned to live every aspect of his life for Jesus. 

When someone you know has been cleansed of sin, are they a parable and proof to you? The real Jesus died on the real cross to open the door to the real life for all of us.

Live in such a way that your obedience to Christ is a proof to everyone who sees you.