Leviticus 14:1-12  The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:  ² This shall be the ritual for the leprous person at the time of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest;  ³ the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall make an examination. If the disease is healed in the leprous person,  ⁴ the priest shall command that two living clean birds and cedarwood and crimson yarn and hyssop be brought for the one who is to be cleansed.  ⁵ The priest shall command that one of the birds be slaughtered over fresh water in an earthen vessel.  ⁶ He shall take the living bird with the cedarwood and the crimson yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the fresh water.  ⁷ He shall sprinkle it seven times upon the one who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease; then he shall pronounce him clean, and he shall let the living bird go into the open field.  ⁸ The one who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, but shall live outside his tent seven days.  ⁹ On the seventh day he shall shave all his hair: of head, beard, eyebrows; he shall shave all his hair. Then he shall wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean.  ¹⁰ On the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb in its first year without blemish, and a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah of choice flour mixed with oil, and one log of oil.  ¹¹ The priest who cleanses shall set the person to be cleansed, along with these things, before the LORD, at the entrance of the tent of meeting.  ¹² The priest shall take one of the lambs, and offer it as a guilt offering, along with the log of oil, and raise them as an elevation offering before the LORD.

            Yesterday we had leprosy mentioned in several of our lessons.  For my sermon, I mainly used the Gospel reading to explain that faith comes about because of God’s healing (see Luke 17:11-19).  Leprosy is a fairly common skin condition that still persists in several parts of the world.  As a disease, it has been haunting humans for almost 4000 years.  However, it can be and is easily treated.

            As you can read from Leviticus above, there is within the Jewish laws a specific way for lepers to be cleansed.  When Jesus was on earth, he cleansed lepers simply by telling them to go see the priest (again, see the text from Luke).  Through the power of modern medicine, God is still at work healing people with this disease.  As we saw in our Gospel text from yesterday, the healing of someone who has such a disease is the perfect opportunity to build on faith.  The unimaginable healing that God is able to do strengthens us to fight our day to day battles and builds on our relationship with God. 

            I personally do not know anyone that struggles with this disease, but I do know that all of us struggle every day with something that we would not like to have.  Those personal battles are ones that we can use as steps on our journey of faith.  Think back to the things that you have conquered…has your faith become stronger because of it?  How did God go about healing you?  In what ways have you given back to God for healing you?  God is at work in all our lives, healing our infirmities and striving to be in a stronger relationship with us.  It is my hope that we can recognize God’s work in our lives and return our thanks and praise to Him.

In our prayers:  Robert, Ann, Charles (recovering from surgery), Norm, and Scott.

God’s Peace,