Storytime

When the Past Is Too Dark to Color

Have you ever felt too dirty to ask for help?

Perhaps because of your sins. The one you committed a very long time ago and swore to never talk of it again but still haunts your thoughts and tells you you don't deserve love and forgiveness? Or perhaps the little sins you said you’d never do again, but always break your promise?

Or the way you speak to your mother, making her sad and telling you you'll regret the way you treat her in her olden days? Or how you refused to go home and visit your old grandpa claiming to always be busy with work and then he passed away calling your name?

Or maybe because of your own dark mental voice, you know, the one that thinks very dark thoughts about others and yourself, or maybe it's the way you get angry at God when life gets too hard and you curse His name.

Maybe it's because of a disease that's making you feel unworthy to go before God. What do we do when we feel too dirty to go to God?

Let me share a story with you:

In Matthew Chapter 8, there’s a story about Jesus and the leper. In the olden days, people with leprosy were considered “unclean.” They were seen as unfit to be around “clean” people and unfit to be in the temple to worship.

They weren’t allowed anywhere near the religious people because being around a leper made a person “unclean” as well. They were cast away, forsaken, and abandoned by men.

This caused many lepers to be isolated, either living alone or living with other “unclean” people. They were outcasts. No one wanted to be near them, much less reach out their hands to touch them.

If you feel you don’t deserve God's love and affection and you don't have any skin disorders that make you an outcast, then think of what the poor leper felt. Think of what he thought about going in front of Jesus or God to ask for help:

“The church has forsaken me. The religious leaders want nothing to do with me. They kick me out of the temple! I’m too dirty. Too unclean. Surely Jesus won’t even look at me. My sins for which I’m being punished are too great. God wants no parts of it. He won't hear my prayers.”

And for the leper, those are all valid feelings, just like the way we sometimes feel when we've sinned and feel too ashamed and unworthy to go to God.

But this leper didn't let his condition stop him from going to talk to Jesus.

Jesus had just returned from the mountain and a crowd of people had gathered around Him. They’d heard about his miracles and so they wanted to witness it for themselves. These were mostly religious people. The “clean” ones. The ones who are allowed to go into the temple every week to worship.

I can imagine the leper and other “unclean people” standing from afar watching and wishing they could get close to Jesus and ask for help.

Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need — Hebrews 4:16.

But suddenly, one bold leper moves through the crowd towards Jesus. He pushes past the people who move away from him as he walks, and he knelt at the feet of Jesus.

Can you believe that? The unclean leper. The outcast. The black sheep. The broken. He kneels at Jesus' feet, head bowed in shame, not even looking at Jesus saying, “Lord, if you will, can you make me clean?”

The people gathered nearby whispers among themselves. Tension rises as everyone watches. What is Jesus, the cleanest person there is, the beloved son of the almighty God going to do with this dirty man?

“He should cast him away!” says one man.

“How dare such an unclean leper approach Jesus?” says another.

“He must not know who Jesus is to gather the nerve to walk to him.” another chime in.

But to their surprise, Jesus stretches out his hand and TOUCHES the leper, saying, “I will; be clean.”

And immediately the leper was cleansed.

Wow!

If Jesus didn’t scoff at the unclean man or kick him to the side a long time ago, he won’t start doing that today.

Do you see the beauty in that? The perfectly clean son of God comes down to an unclean man and not only heals him, he touches him. Jesus heals the unclean. He cleanses the dirty. He touches the lonely. He brings the outcast close. He doesn't discriminate, and he didn't care how dark his past was.

He opens his hands, and he welcomes him.

If Jesus could stretch out his holy hands and touch an unclean, diseased man, then why won’t he do the same for you?

This story shows there is hope for those of us with a past too dark to color. To those of us who feel too dirty to approach Jesus. If Jesus didn’t scoff at the unclean man or kick him to the side a long time ago, he won’t start doing that today.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever — Hebrews 13:8.

He won’t retract from us when we go to him. He will embrace us because he cares for us no matter who we are, what we've done, and what we’re feeling. He doesn’t care that we feel dirty or ugly or stupid.

He doesn’t care about any of that.

Jesus heals the unclean. He cleanses the dirty. He touches the lonely. He brings the outcast close. He doesn’t discriminate, and he doesn’t care how dark our past is.

When the night is lonely, when you feel abandoned, when you feel judged and the church doesn’t feel like home, Jesus is home and he’ll never abandon you. He loves you no matter what. As long as you push through the crowd boldly, kneel before him, confess your sins, ask for help, and change your ways, he’ll reach out his hands and touch you.

The past and its sins may be too dark and too great, but to Jesus, our future is spotless. No matter what happened in the past, we have the future to look forward to, and it's squeaky clean! That's something to rejoice in.